Legends of the Hall

LEGENDS of the

During Alumnae Weekend, the GPS community celebrates remarkable educators. Since its inception in 2015, the Faculty Emeriti program has honored retired faculty for their exemplary teaching, professional accomplishments, and long-term service to the school and its students. This April, GPS celebrated Ted Tumelaire, Cathie Ault Kash ’72, and Debbie Glasscock. HALL

There has never been an individual of more consistent or insistent integrity. Devotion to the truth is probably first among Ted’s core values.”

—Dr. Nick Scharff, friend and colleague of Ted Tumelaire

Ted Tumelaire

History Teacher

TED TUMELAIRE began his GPS career in 1990 and shared his passion for history over the course of 20 years. His honest, sincere expectations of students compelled them to think, question and wonder. Tumelaire guided students through history, psychology, and perhaps more importantly the lessons of life.

Tumelaire’s legacy as a teacher and mentor is legendary. He spent years as a Peace Corps volunteer across South Asia and the Middle East, and he lived his passion and exhibited his love of history and people in the classroom. As longtime friend and colleague Dr. Nick Scharff shares, Tumelaire has a devotion to the truth. His experiences living aboard, including in Nepal, Afghanistan, and Iran, engendered a deep respect for other cultures and enabled Tumelaire to have respect for differences found at home.

His experiences in the Peace Corps prepared him to live and thrive in a foreign culture, including, as he jokes, when he moved from Massachusetts to Tennessee to join the faculty at GPS in 1990.

Students of Tumelaire saw the same message daily: Studying is hard work. His career was dedicated to helping students discover and master the tools necessary to translate complex concepts and historical events into understandable, meaningful facts. In his classroom, Tumelaire created a space where students were challenged to develop voices based on facts and criticalthinking skills.

As Linda Moss Mines, faculty emerita and retired Chair of the History and Social Sciences Department at GPS, says, Tumelaire reveled in the success of his students.

“He graciously shared lessons and techniques with colleagues,” Mines says. “His quietly intense exterior begged students and teachers alike to step into his space where integrity, commitment, empathy, and a quest for excellence dwelled.”

She shared so many possibilities with me about my future in dance and then she did the one thing I needed the most. She believed in me. Cathie single-handedly changed the course of my life. Terpsichord, in many ways, made me who I am today. It gave me a strong foundation for my sense of self as well as a love and appreciation for the arts, providing a catalyst for my own enduring creativity.”

—Amanda Byars ’99, Dance Teacher & Assistant Terpsichord Director

Cathie Ault Kasch ’72

Director of Terpsichord, Dance Instructor Chair and Coordinator of the Fine and Performing Arts Department

CATHIE AULT KASCH ’72 spent more than half of her life at GPS, first as a student and then as a teacher. Beginning her GPS career in 1988, Kasch directed the dance curriculum and Terpsichord, the school’s contemporary dance company.

Beyond Terpsichord and GPS, Kasch has been active in the greater dance community as a veteran teacher for choreographers for more than 35 years, serving as President of the Tennessee Association of Dance and Executive Co-Chair of UNITY. Her awards include the 2001 TAD Outstanding Dance Educator, the 2005 GPS Teacher of the Year, the 2007 Margaret Rawlings Lupton Award of Excellence, and the 2008 NDEO Outstanding Dance Educator Award.

As daughter Katie Kasch Bien ’02 says, Kasch’s legacy and impact is vast. Throughout her career Kasch remained deeply dedicated to her students and invested in them beyond high school. She inspired girls to constantly be learning and demonstrated the arts as a vehicle of exploration of life.

Kasch brought students a sense of the trajectory of the international world of dance, inviting guests artists and alumnae to share their experiences with students. She was foundational in building a network for communities to connect. Ever the advocate, she gave voice to her students and their interests.

As colleague Keith Sanders recalls from his first years at GPS, Kasch emanated skill, grace, confidence, and artistry. She guides students to finding their own spark and using that spark to ignite their unique blaze of self-expression through movement in time. She pours herself into relationships unreservedly. She inspired and taught the GPS community to inspire one another, and her graceful stride down the GPS hallways seemed always to be floating, joyful, and purposeful—a metaphor for navigating life.

Every paint swatch she chose for new homes my Dad built, every student artwork she spent her weekends framing and mounting, every email sent from the office of the Middle School Dean, every class project and student trip—Mom applies her unique artistic touch every single day, in everything she does. Her students, coworkers, friends, and family are all her canvas; all works-inprogress made more colorful with each addition.”

—Andrew Glasscock, son of Debbie Glasscock

DEBBIE GLASSCOCK came to GPS in 1985. Throughout her 36 years as an art instructor, she was awarded two Lyndhurst grants, one to study papermaking and the other to travel to Japan. In 2004 she served as the sixthgrade team leader and was named the school’s first master teacher.

She taught myriad Middle and Upper School art classes, including Art II, Art III, AP 2D, and AP Drawing. She developed the sixth- and seventh-grade art curriculum with an eye on what was best for young girls. Throughout her tenure, she’s always taught eighth-grade art. As Glasscock shared with Lynne Macziewski, “Teaching eighth-grade girls is like teaching adults without the cynicism.”

Glasscock participated in a national consortium for teaching about Asia and later received a grant to visit China in 2010. Outside of the classroom, Glasscock helped form the GPS/McCallie coordinate choir. She was the self-proclaimed Grand Poobah of all things black, blue, and white, a Middle School-wide competition she created. She brings incredible school spirit to the campus and school community.

As Macziewski shares, Glasscock is at her happiest when she is in her art classroom teaching girls and doing what she loves. But her other secret talent shared with the community is as a “girl whisperer.” “Debbie is someone who knows girls at their core, both as members of the GPS community and as individuals. She knows each girl for who she is and who she has the potential to be,” Macziewski says.

Glasscock has been a stalwart supporter of girls, a seer of artistic talent, and a beloved member of the GPS community. She has touched the lives of countless girls and colleagues during her time at GPS, and all who know Glasscock will miss her tremendous heart, witty sense of humor, and her uncanny ability to show love and grace to everyone.

Debbie Glasscock

Art Teacher, Middle School Dean of Students, Grand Poobah of Black, Blue, and White

Sean Caulfield & Mary Baxter Exit the Building

Dr. Sean Caulfield

By Dr. Erin Montero Rangno, Caulfield’s department chair and colleague

HAVE YOU EVER lost something and couldn’t find it? You look where you thought you last saw this precious item, you retrace your steps, and come up with nothing. I can only imagine that this is how the GPS community is going to feel as Dr. Sean Caulfield retires after 14 years of teaching Latin and French and seven years of serving as department chair. No matter how long we search for another Dr. Caulfield, there is no replacement.

Spending time with Sean has always felt like taking a journey through time and space as he leads his students from Roman mythology in his sixth-grade Latin classes to the present day of the Francophone world. What most stands out to me is his intense love of France, for he brings his years of cultural immersion from his time spent as a student at the lycée in Angoulême, his graduate school experience in Strasbourg, teaching English in Poitiers, and vacationing in Paris while eating the best café au lait and croissants for breakfast. Even his leadership as our outdoor club director and climbing coach can be tied to his time spent climbing in the Alps.

As department chair, I have spent numerous hours in Sean’s classroom, observing our girls traverse the beauty and surrealism of Rimbaud’s poetry, debating French fashion and the danger of la mode rapide, and engaged with the plot of Gide’s “La symphonie pastorale,” and even as a mere observer I always left feeling that I had not only experienced a different culture, but that my French had also improved. And it appears that I am not alone in my experience of Sean’s classes; when asked, his students all confirmed that Sean brought classic, “old French novels alive” and that their language proficiency had grown by leaps and bounds while exploring literature. It also goes without saying that his cultural knowledge brought so much joy to our girls, as his students unanimously agreed that they loved learning about St. Nicholas Day when Sean left a bag of treats in their shoes that they had placed outside the classroom!

Although I know we will never find another Dr. Caulfield for our department, I am grateful for the foundation of excellence that he created for the World Languages Department in the years that he was an educator and a department chair. As his co-worker and colleague, I know that if he were to leave his shoes behind for St. Nicholas to fill, they would be overflowing with gratitude from all those whose lives he has touched!

World Language Teacher

Mary Baxter

Instrumental Music Instructor

By Meg Persinger Brock ’79, Baxter’s department chair and longtime colleague

IN MY OPINION, there are primarily two types of people in this world: those who give and those who take. We all have a little of both characteristics in us, but one usually outweighs the other. Without a doubt, Mary Baxter is a giver. When she felt our students could reach a broader audience in the Chattanooga community, Mary created Tango String Ensemble, a semi-professional group of students that performs for school and community events. When Mary felt our school community could benefit from guest artists, she brought in groups from across the globe.

Mary felt the students at GPS and our brother school, McCallie, could thrive being a part of an orchestra. So Mary created GPS Senior Orchestra and the Coordinate GPS McCallie Honors Orchestra. The groups excel in competitions both collaboratively and individually and consistently receive awards at Tennessee instrumental music competitions.

Mary’s love of music is indisputable. Her desire to grow her students’ engagement with music is obvious to the observer, but moreover, Mary’s love of music is deep in her soul. Some people simply “do a job.” In Mary’s case, she lives and breathes her role. She knows when to take the lead and when it’s time for others to lead the way. She is a humble person with brilliant skills who is always willing to give of herself—a “star student” who will be greatly missed.