OLCHS Welcomes New Faculty to the Spartan Family

OAK LAWN, IL -- Oak Lawn Community High School welcome three new faculty members this year to the Spartan family at the beginning of the current school year. All three earned education degrees at Saint Xavier University.

Shannon Greene, a new member of the OLCHS English department, earned her degree in English and secondary education from Saint Xavier University and is currently finishing her master’s degree as a reading specialist at University of St. Francis. Greene taught middle school language arts for ten years at Christ the King School in Beverly. She will teach English 2, English 3, and reading strategies. Her favorite quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”

Colleen McWalter, also a new member of the OLCHS English department, earned her BA in English literature and secondary education from Loras College and her MA as a reading specialist from Saint Xavier University. McWalter taught for four years at years at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts Academy and five years at Barrington High School. This year McWalter teaches reading strategies, English I, speech, and college prep writing. Her favorite quote is by Eleanor Roosevelt: “Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’”

Magen Newman, a new member of the OLCHS art department, spent her first years of college at Illinois Institute of Art where she studied visual communications/graphic design before attending Saint Xavier University in Chicago. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in secondary art education with an endorsement in middle school education in 2009. Since graduating, she has taught in a variety of settings, both public and private, with her most recent experience at a private high school in Chicago for the past five years. She has even taught journalism courses. This year Newman teaches all photography classes and a few extreme art sections.