When Head of School Chris Gunnin speaks of teaching at St. Stephen’s as a “noble and heroic call,” he’s not making a bold assertion or lofty claim. He’s talking about the “profound, powerful and life-changing impacts,” as he puts it, of highly skilled teachers as they relate to and interact with students.

As St. Stephen’s looks toward its milestone 75th anniversary, Gunnin says the school celebrates the importance of all its highly qualified teachers and staff members throughout its 75-year history. Within this broader pool of employees is a group that has especially deep bonds to Spartan life and history: teachers and staff members who are also alumni. They have answered Gunnin’s “noble call” to work at the school on The Hill because of the keen sense of kinship and purpose they find at St. Stephen’s. Sixteen Spartan alumni are permanent full-time or part-time employees, and even more serve in seasonal roles.

Their devotion to their alma mater and the students who have come after them involves complicated and challenging work. Gunnin explains that patterns of hiring have become more complex in the past five years. “In this time, however, St. Stephen’s has attracted an abundance of superior candidates as jobs have opened up, even as other schools have struggled to find qualified teachers and staff members,” he explains.

Alumni whose professional paths lead back to The Hill as employees are not simply “punching time cards,” notes Gunnin, but instead are using their deep institutional knowledge to create new generations of forward-looking, mission-driven Spartans. “Alumni who return to join the faculty have a builtin appreciation for the nuances of our culture, character and climate. And they traditionally have tremendous pride in their work because they have been the recipients of the St. Stephen’s experience themselves. They understand at a core level that relationships are at the heart of our success.” He adds that beyond its high standard of excellence, St. Stephen’s is unique among independent schools because of its foundational commitment to inclusion, blended residential-day community and rugged Hill Country (Spartan) roots. Alumni see how the puzzle pieces fit together. The finished picture is a challenging and transformative experience for St. Stephen’s students within the context of a balanced program in academics, athletics and the arts. 

Three alumni, all appointed since 2022, recently chatted about their experiences returning to St. Stephen’s: how they got here, how they see things now and how they see their work in relation to their students.

As Dr. Ace Furman ’12 was completing his Ph.D. in physics at The University of Texas at Austin, he had a nagging sense that he was “supposed” to go into university-level academics, but then he realized there was a better path for him. Highly trained as a computational theorist, he conducted research in complex condensed matter systems. (For the layperson: He simulated experiments on a computer, acquiring and analyzing data and then making generalizations about how things worked.) Specifically, he studied quantum chaos theory. While he found research gratifying, he shied away from postdoctoral programs because he realized what he really wanted to do was ignite student curiosity about science at the high school level, as his own had been by his science education at St. Stephen’s. In that way, he could help counter what noted planetary scientist Carl Sagan called America’s puzzling “scientific illiteracy.” His former St. Stephen’s science teacher and mentor, department chair Frank Mikan, invited him for a “serendipitous” visit back to St. Stephen’s as he was completing his graduate work. “The support you get from this community [as opposed to that of] a higher-level academic community is leagues apart,” Furman explained. When a physics instructor position became available in 2022, Furman applied and got the job. 

Furman remembers Frank Mikan, Melissa Livsey and Johnny Wilson as life-changing science educators. He recalls the impact of these teaching legends as he creates a class vibe similar to what he experienced as a student and one that respects curiosity, embracing the scientific questions that don’t necessarily have easy or “right” answers. “The essence of science is discovery,” he says, “trying things, not worrying if they’re wrong.” He also incorporates some of Laurel Eskridge’s effective classroom techniques into his own courses and says that Dr. Jan Hines still influences his everyday life and writing. “Think for yourself! Then say what you mean,” she commented on one of his papers long ago. Now he strives to be the kind of teacher he once had.

Appointed as a St. Stephen’s faculty member in 2022, Furman enjoys entertaining and engaging his students with the flair of a flaming handmade Rubens tube to demonstrate standing wave theory, the drama of falling raw eggs to explore inertia and the hairraising properties of a Van de Graaff electromagnetic generator to create static electricity. During the historic April 2024 total solar eclipse, he enthusiastically helped students observe the changing skies with the observatory telescopes. An avid enigmatologist (a devotee of logic and word puzzles), he sponsors the Upper School Puzzle Club, which draws a fan base of communal problem-solvers. He also was faculty co-organizer of the ambitious TEDx SSTX Youth event at St. Stephen’s in September, for which the theme was “Forward.” Furman values his ability to form close ties with his students, acknowledging that for young scientists, “it’s gratifying to be taken fully seriously by an adult.” He respects the kind of “creativity where you’re bouncing ideas off each other, trying new things and collaborating.” He is excited that St. Stephen’s has prioritized a science center in the school’s comprehensive campaign, and he envisions many years of future collaboration and experimentation in the new space.

Another recent hire — one with deep knowledge of St. Stephen’s — is Soccer Academy coach Andy Lopez ’14, originally from McAllen, Texas. Lopez attended 6th and 7th grades as a day student and then was a boarder from 8th through 11th grades. For his senior year, Lopez moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri, when his brother Mikey ’11 became a professional soccer player. Lopez considers St. Stephen’s to be his true school and credits the Residential Life program as the springboard for his most enduring friendships and a great deal of personal growth. He is on a daily text thread with five of his previous dorm mates. They hail from different countries and have different backgrounds but are united by their love for soccer and — most important — their St. Stephen’s memories and ties. 

Lopez attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he played Division I soccer and majored in sports administration. After graduation, he worked at Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, where he was the soccer academy head coach and a dorm parent. He looks back with special fondness on Octavia Sadler in the Middle School and Dr. Colleen Hynes in the Upper School; Sadler revved him up as an entering 6th grader, and Hynes helped break down complex academic tasks like writing and encouraged him to risk some answers in class discussion. He said his academic work at UNC was a breeze after learning from the St. Stephen’s faculty. The most important coach and mentor to him of all was Shane Maguire, director of the Soccer Academy, who was an inspiration and now is both a friend and colleague. 

Because of his own St. Stephen’s experiences, he can talk to the guys in his dorm and his soccer players about the need to be coachable as both students and athletes. “I can empathize with students about their experiences and be a guide for the next generation of students to be successful in school and soccer. I love the community here — the faculty members here made me feel at home when I was a student. Now I always feel at home. This is home for me.” And, he says, he can “pay it forward” by helping instill that feeling of connection in new Spartans. 

Friend, classmate and colleague Liza Ayres ’14 stopped by to join the conversation with Lopez. Now the International Program assistant (“assistant” covers a lot of territory!), Ayres along with her sisters, Hallie ’14, Phoebe ’16 and Miranda ’18, graduated from St. Stephen’s. 

“As a student I thought I knew what was going on at school with my teachers, but I had no idea. There’s so much that the faculty and staff do that was not apparent to me at all. I did not comprehend how much every teacher and adviser understands about each student,” Ayres said, reflecting on what she knows now versus what she perceived as a student. She has a renewed appreciation for her own teachers as well as those serving this crop of Spartans. 

The newest St. Stephen’s alum to join the faculty, Claire Zagrodzky ’16, returns to Austin after teaching 8th grade English at St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis, Tennessee. Her undergraduate studies were done at Rhodes College in Memphis, where she double-majored in English literature and educational studies. Zagrodzky was a so-called lifer at St. Stephen’s, entering in the 6th grade and graduating in 12th, along with her siblings Chloe ’13 and Will ’18. A core teacher for the youngest Spartans, she teaches 6th grade English and will coach lacrosse. Because of her own days at St. Stephen’s, she pairs high academic expectations and standards with deep understanding, striking a fine balance between challenging and nurturing her young scholars. She hopes her 6th graders will respond to her serene classroom space and a classroom style that gets kids excited about reading, writing and discussing. She is interested in curricular design and has developed her course around themes of justice. Teaching at the Middle School, she says, is a privilege, and she relishes the unbounded curiosity of her students. She fondly recalls several teachers from her St. Stephen’s days, especially those with even-keeled classroom styles. She gives a special nod to Upper School math teacher and alum Kurt Oehler ’93 for his understanding when she experienced a rough patch during her senior year. “It really made a difference to me,” she recalls. 

Yes, it is a little odd to call her former teachers by their first names (a comment made by almost all younger alumni returning to St. Stephen’s as colleagues), but Zagrodzky is getting used to it. She says she gets a kick out of making eye contact and talking with her former classmate Henry Tschurr ’16, another lifer, in English faculty meetings. Tschurr joined the Upper School English faculty in 2023 after graduating from The University of Texas and earning a master’s degree from the University of Virginia. Tschurr has his own St. Stephen’s lineage: His parents are Betsy Williams Tschurr ’78 and the late Mark Tschurr, both beloved former running and cross-country coaches at St. Stephen’s. In addition, Betsy Tschurr formerly taught English in the Middle School, and Henry Tschurr’s sister, Helen ’14, also graduated from St. Stephen’s. 

“It’s really good to be back,” Zagrodzky said. “So many things have changed, but the core of St. Stephen’s hasn’t changed at all. This is a close-knit community that is very welcoming but also challenging. That is what I was looking for, and that’s what I found.” 

In this respect, Furman, Lopez and Zagrodzky all agree: After years of absence as they explored life beyond The Hill, they’re grateful to be able to contribute meaningfully to their alma mater and to once again be at a place that feels so much like home. 

What do Furman, Lopez and Zagrodzky care most about from their time at St. Stephen’s and want to impart to their students and players? They value collaboration and connection, academic freedom, the time and space to be curious and creative, a supportive community, shared values that also have room for questioning, and a school culture that promotes growth. These bedrock ideas are both old and new, but they never truly get old. 

As Gunnin says, “The core tenets of the school have served us well for the past 75 years and should serve us well for another 75. Rigorous scholarship, sharp minds, compassionate hearts and fierce spirits — these have been the model for St. Stephen’s for many years and will continue to serve our students even as our curriculum and programs change with the times.”

This story was originally published in the Winter 2025 Spartan Magazine. Read the full issue here.