| World Language Dept Bios
Alicia González
[Department Co-Chair, French]
Ms. González was born in Chicago, but attended high school in Mexico, her parents' native country. This experience fueled her love for languages and study abroad, and led her to major in French at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she also attained her Master's Degree in French Literature. As part of both her undergraduate and graduate coursework, she attended the University of Paris IV at the Sorbonne and Paris III at the Sorbonne Nouvelle. Her previous teaching experience includes teaching French and Spanish at The University of Illinois at Chicago, The Latin School of Chicago and Whitney Young High School. She is currently the sponsor for ALAS (Payton's Alliance of Latin American Students), co-directs with Ms. Imrem Payton’s exchange program with our sister school in Erstein (Strasbourg), France, as well as maintaining relations with our sister school, Lycée Ben M’Sik in Casablanca, Morocco.
Email: gonzaleza@wpcp.org
Abby Imrem
[Department Co-Chair, French]
Ms. Imrem completed her secondary teaching certificate and Master’s in Education in French with an endorsement in Spanish at DePaul University. Prior to joining Payton as a French and Spanish teacher in 2001, Ms. Imrem gained valuable experience as a fundraiser, event planner and copywriter in the non-profit and public relations fields. She received her bachelor's degree in French Language and Literature from Colgate University, and she has worked, taught, and studied in such rich settings as France, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico. In 2006, she was awarded the Fund for Teachers Fellowship, which enabled her to conduct an on-site, in-depth cultural and linguistic study of the Tour de France, an experience which she continues to share with all of her students. Ms. Imrem is also the Girls Varsity Tennis Coach, French Club sponsor, coordinator of the Payton Travel Committee, and directs the Strasbourg exchange program along with Ms. González.
Email: imrema@wpcp.org
Valerie Gemskie
[Latin]
Ms. Gemskie attended the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana where she majored in the teaching of Latin and minored in History. It was the summers she spent in the Mediterranean that fostered her appreciation for the ancient civilizations, particularly that of the Romans. Upon graduating, she moved to New Orleans to teach at Ursuline Academy, where she taught for three years, before becoming a founding member of Walter Payton College Prep in 1999. She has coached the Boys Softball team for the last 8 years, winning a City Championship in 2004. She also sponsors the Latin Club, which participates in city and state-wide competitions, such as Certamen and the CPS Latin Olympics. In addition, she has spearheaded student travel programs to Rome and coordinates the student exchange program with Piacenza, Italy.
Email: gemskiev@wpcp.org
Melanie Gold
[Spanish]
Melanie Gold attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as an undergraduate. She majored in Spanish; and, after having lived abroad for a year in Malaga, Spain, her thesis was published in the Dickinson College Spanish Literary Journal . Following graduation, Miss Gold spent another year abroad in Australia working for the Red Cross.
She then returned to the United States to receive her Master’s Degree at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT while teaching at Wilton High School and Middlebrook School in Wilton, CT. She is endorsed in both Secondary Spanish and Secondary English. Miss Gold subsequently moved to Chicago and taught Spanish for three years in Highland Park before joining the esteemed staff at Walter Payton College Prep. Miss Gold co-sponsors the International Club. She is thrilled to join the Walter Payton community and bring her enthusiasm for World Languages to her students. Miss Gold is a poet and a singer as well as a teacher. On weekends she enthusiastically pursues these avocations.
Email: goldm@wpcp.org
Carol Ruth Kimmel
[Japanese]
In 1987 the Japan Foundation awarded Mrs. Kimmel a fellowship to study at Stanford University's Amerika-Kanada Daigaku Rengo Nihon Kenkyuu Sentaa. For two subsequent years she was a research fellow at Yokohama City University, where she studied Japanese traditional popular theater forms. Mrs. Kimmel received the Master of Arts Degree from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in 1992. In addition to Japanese language, she studied Japanese and Chinese literature and the political structures of modern Japan. After returning from Japan she used her Japanese in a business setting, working for two years as a recruiter at Kimata Personnel International (Kokusai Jinzai Assen) in Rolling Meadows.
Mrs. Kimmel earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Harvard University, where she graduated cum laude in English literature, with additional courses in French language and history. Subsequently she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to pursue graduate studies at Northwestern University. She received a Master of Arts degree from Northwestern's theater department.
She has taught at St. Xavier University and Wright City College in Chicago and at Dominican University in River Forest, as well as at Evanston Township High School and at Streamwood High School in Kane County. A member of Delta Kappa Gamma International, honorary association for women in education, she was also listed in Who's Who Among America's Teachers for 2002.and 2004. Chicago Sister Cities Osaka Committee has made her the chair of its Education Sub-Committee. This year she will sponsor two clubs: The Anime-and-Japanese-Culture, and The Jewish Club.
She is coordinator of Payton’s exchange relationship with sister school Osaka City Senior High School. Payton students went to Osaka in 2006 and will host our friends in the fall of 2007. Payton has also hosted students from Osaka’s Itoman High School and from Niigata Prefecture’s Kokusai Joho High School. Payton students will travel to Osaka again in June of 2008.
Email: kimmelcr@payton.cps.k12.il.us
Colleen Long
[Spanish]
Ms. Long received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she majored in Spanish with a focus in literature and language and International Studies with an emphasis in the political economy. As an undergraduate she spent time abroad studying in Oaxaca and Guanajuato, Mexico. She continued her studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she received a Master’s Degree in Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies with a concentration in Latin American literature and culture. She completed her thesis dealing with the social and economic changes in Post-Soviet Cuba, and how they are reflected in contemporary literature. While working on her Master’s Miss Long also spent an extensive amount of time traveling in Panama, her mother’s native country. Ms. Long is joining Payton as part of the Chicago Teaching Fellowship program, and currently working on a Master’s of Arts in Teaching from National-Louis University. She is very excited to teach the students of Walter Payton and to share her love for World Languages with them.
Email: longc@wpcp.org
Wenya Lu
[Chinese]
Ms. Lu joined Payton in 2000. Prior to teaching at Payton, Ms. Lu taught Japanese to undergraduate students at Beijing University where she earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Japanese Language and Literature. Ms. Lu has also lived and studied in Tokyo University, Japan with scholarship. In 2004 Ms. Lu earned her second Master’s degree in education from DePaul University. Ms. Lu is endorsed to teach both Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. From 2004 to 2006 Ms. Lu was selected a member of a writing team to create a national K-16 Chinese curriculum model and she has presented on Chinese teaching practice at language conferences both locally and nationally.
Email: luw@wpcp.org
Thomas Pozen
[Spanish]
Dr. Pozen is a Chicago native who attended the University of Illinois, Chicago as an undergraduate and completed his Master's and PhD work at the University of Iowa. He taught for 5 years at the college level in Iowa and at M.I.T. in Cambridge before returning home to Chicago. He also lived in Paris, France for 2 years and has studied Spanish in Guadalajara, Mexico and Madrid, Spain. More recently, he traveled with Payton students to the Dominican Republic to help build a house for a village near Santiago, as well as participating in the student exchange with Payton’s sister school in Erstein (Strasbourg), France. He has taught Spanish and French at the secondary level for the last seven years and is currently teaching Spanish III, IV, and A.P. Spanish language here at Payton. He is also the sponsor for the International Club.
Email: pozent@wpcp.org
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TEACHER BIOS
Valerie Gemskie
Melanie Gold
Alicia González
Abby Imrem
Carol Ruth Kimmel
Colleen Long
Wenya Lu
Thomas Pozen
Chinese - Level I
French - Level I
Latin - Level I
Japanese - Level I
Spanish - Level I
Chinese - Level II
French - Level II
Japanese - Level II
Spanish - Level II
Chinese - Level III
French - Level III
Japanese - Level III
Spanish - Level III
Chinese - Level IV
French - Level IV
Latin - Level IV
Japanese - Level IV
Spanish - Level IV
Chinese - AP
French - AP
Japanese - AP
Spanish - AP
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