Ms. Gregory – New Faculty Spotlight

By Catherine Galvez

Ms. Gregory, coming to us from Austin, Texas is one of our new history teachers, teaching 11th Grade U.S. Honors History. While she is a newer member of our community, she has had connections to Thacher since 2011 when her sister, Anne Gregory (Associate Director of Admissions), first started as a student at Thacher. With a B.A. in Art & Archaeology from Princeton and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Texas, Austin she is an expert in her field. We are very lucky to have her in the Thacher community. 

Q: Where are you from?

A: I am from New York City. I was born in New York City and then grew up in the suburbs, in Westchester County. I lived in New York City until I moved to Austin, Texas in 2016. 

Q: What are some of your hobbies and interests?

A:  I read a lot. I love to watch movies, and try to watch as many movies as I can. I like to go running and hanging out with my dog Cooper, a Retriever mix. I also got into baking bread over the pandemic, so I bake bread. My favorite bread to bake is easy overnight white bread. There is a recipe by Mark Bittman, who worked for the New York Times, called no knead overnight bread, and it’s very easy.

Q: What did you do over the summer before coming to Thacher?

A: I knew I was going to be leaving Austin, so I did some of my favorite Austin things. I did a lot of swimming because Austin has a lot of natural spring fed pools. I also went to some concerts, and went to South Carolina with my family at the end of July, right before coming to California. 

Q: How did you find out about Thacher?

A: I found out through my sister Anne Gregory. She graduated in 2015. When we initially came to tour the school in 2010-2011, my sisters and I were shocked and upset that we didn’t find Thacher before because we really liked the environment at Thacher, which was very different from the east coast boarding schools like Deerfield, Andover, etc. My parents moved to California right before Anne started high school and Anne wanted to go to a boarding school in California, which led her and us to Thacher. 

Q: What is your job here at Thacher?

A: I am a history teacher, teaching Honors U.S. History to Juniors. I am also an assistant coach of the Girls Varsity Tennis team, I will be coaching the Girls JV Lacrosse team in the spring, and I am a Sophomore advisor. I really enjoy my roles, because I feel like through my roles here, I am able to be connected to students in all grades.

Q: How are you liking your time here at Thacher?

A: I really like Thacher. I love teaching the students because they are really thoughtful and smart, and they want to do a good job. I am coming from teaching at a big public university, and I love the difference of being at a school where I have smaller classes and I am getting to know my students because it is such a close knit community. My one complaint is there is too much wildlife in Ojai. I am not used to seeing so many bears, snakes, and tarantulas. I could do without the snakes and insects. 

Q: How are you liking your classes?

A: Classes are really good. I am enjoying the pace that we are moving at. I am also enjoying how we get to focus on different moments of America, instead of going through the A to Z narrative of American history because anyone can access that information on their phone or online. I am really enjoying the deep dives into specific events like King Philip’s War and the Virginia Colonies. 

Q: Did you always want to be a teacher?

A: I think I really always wanted to be a writer and researcher. Then I went to grad school and started teaching, and then realized how much I liked teaching. I went into grad school not knowing whether or not I was going to pursue art history in a museum or teaching, and through grad school I learned that teaching was what truly made me happy. 

Q: Do you have a Life Motto or Phrase that you live by?

A: I’ll answer this by saying, I really love the quote from Legally Blonde where the mean law professor is talking to Luke Wilson and he is watching Elle Woods walk away after she applied for a prestigious internship, and he says to Luke Wilson, “Do you think she just woke up one day and said ‘I think I’ll go to Law School!’” I love that quote because it represents to me this idea that you can wake up everyday and choose to do whatever you want and also that as women, we can choose any path that we didn’t necessarily think was available to us because of the way we grew up or the societal expectations that are placed on us. I wrote my college essay on that quote because I think it encapsulates so much about possibility, courage, being brave and doing something unexpected. 

Q: What is your greatest accomplishment?

A: I think that my greatest accomplishment is not really something that I’ve achieved, but I think I’m most proud of being the oldest sister of four girls and just being a sister. As an older child, there is pressure that we put on ourselves to be perfect and succeed in life, but being a mentor for my sisters is something I really love to do. 

Q: What is a challenge that you have had to overcome, and how did you overcome it?

A: So when I first got to college, I went to Princeton, which was my dream school and for my whole life, my ultimate dream was to go to Princeton. However, when I got there and actually moved in and took classes and moved in, I was so overwhelmed and so depressed that I wanted to transfer to a college that one of my friends was going through. I decided to stick through freshman year and it was really hard because I wanted to leave and choose another path.  I am proud that I stuck with it and realized that I could deal with the challenge and not be afraid to try something new and difficult. Eventually, I grew to love Princeton and a big part of that was because during my freshman year, I joined the marching band, something that was completely out of my comfort zone, but it was the shift that I needed to feel better about being there.

Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

A: In five years I would love to be teaching at a university, ideally on the east coast, but really any university where I can get a job. Getting jobs in academia is really competitive so wherever I can land would be great. Generally, you have to wait for a faculty member to retire before a new position opens up because most often at universities, someone will get hired and once they receive their tenure, they will stay for 40 years. The jobs open up pretty infrequently and when they do open up, you have 100 applicants for one job. 

Q: Can you tell me a little more about your dissertation?

A: My dissertation is about an African American landscape painter named Robert Duncanson. He was active in the 1840s through 1870s. He was born in Upstate New York, and also traveled a lot during his lifetime overseas, to places like: Italy, Scotland, England, etc. In my dissertation, I am writing about him as an artist with an American background and American career, but also as someone whose travel influenced them greatly. I started writing this dissertation because there are not a lot of things written about him and I thought that his artworks were very beautiful. The few things that were written about him were about his career solely in the US, so I am taking this from a more International lenses. I will be defending my dissertation in the Spring of 2024 and then I will get to put it to the side and work on the next thing. This dissertation is going to be about 400 pages. Unfortunately there isn’t much to go off of when researching about him because he died during the reconstruction era and the physical records of his life don’t exist today. To learn about him, I am looking to the paintings as the most concrete evidence of his life and work, and so I am looking at the paintings that he made while traveling to Italy for example, and comparing his painting to other Italian paintings from that era. 

Q: If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

A: I would say teleporting. I don’t like flying and I get bored on long car trips, so being able to teleport would be amazing. 

Q: What is your favorite period of history that you like to read about/teach?

A: I’ve been working on the 19th century for most of graduate school, and I think it is such an exciting time in American history because there are so many big events and changes that happened. That era also has some of my favorite art pieces. In addition, I like teaching about American history from the 1970s to the present. I am hoping at the end of the year my Honors U.S. History classes can talk about the contemporary period.  

Q: Do you have a favorite book?

A: I have a few favorite books. I love the Age of Innocence by Edith Warton. It’s about New York, at the turn of the century, late 1800s early 1900s. Edith Warton is basically America’s Jane Austen. I love how this book talks about New York, class, and love. I also love Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which is a book about a dystopian future and the technological advancements that humans are dealing with and how these advancements relate to machines, which was a super cool concept to read about in college. 

Q: Who is your favorite activist or leader from history?

A: I would probably say Sojourner Truth. She was a formerly enslaved woman, who chose Sojourner Truth as her chosen name post emancipation. She was an anti-slavery activist in Upstate New York and had a long career speaking about her experiences. She is also a really important figure in art history because she sat for many portraits and then sold them to get money for the abolitionist movement.  

Q: If you could meet anyone from history, who would it be?

A: I would probably meet Marie Antionnete to figure out what she was really like. I think she was a mysterious figure and she would also have some pretty cool clothes. I would also love to try on some of her dresses and wigs and see what it’s like to wear them.

Q: Do you have a favorite TV Show/Movie?

A: I love Legally Blonde, and I love the Sopranos. I started watching the Sopranos a couple years ago, when I was in Texas because I was homesick and realized how great the TV Show is. It definitely lived up to the hype.