As the seasons shift from summer to fall, with temperatures dropping and leaves falling, changes can also be seen within La Salle’s staff and faculty. This school year brings ten new faces, filling diverse roles spanning the math, science, and religion departments to admissions and communication.
The Falconer spoke with these new members of the Lasallian community, hoping to learn how they landed at La Salle, their goals for the year, and who they are as individuals. Scheduling conflicts prevented us from connecting with two of the newest staff members; however, stay tuned for additional coverage coming soon.
Ms. Rose Adkisson
Finn Christensen-McElroy, Editor in Chief
Math teacher Ms. Rose Adkisson might not be the type of person you’d expect to see on a mock trial team. As an introverted, self-proclaimed math and cat lover, she didn’t join until college, and even then, her participation wasn’t sparked by a love of law or public speaking.
In fact, it was the opposite.
“I was really afraid to talk in front of people,” she said. “And I was like… ‘if I’m going to be a teacher, I need to learn how to do this.’”
A 2016 La Salle alum, Ms. Adkisson shared that her passion for education was sparked in the same classrooms where she has returned to teach. She credits that to her freshman Honors Geometry teacher, Ms. Bromley.
“Being in her classroom made me think, ‘oh, this is something I could do and love every day of my career,’” Ms. Adkisson said, adding that, because of her experience, she “always knew that I wanted to come back here.”
Ms. Adkisson is now entering her third year of teaching full-time. While she still puts in significant time outside of class in order to be prepared and calm when instructing students, Ms. Adkisson noted that for the most part the experience she had with mock trial in college greatly reduced her nerves. As the newest addition to La Salle’s math department, her courses this year include Geometry, Honors Algebra II/Trig, and the new AP Precalculus. She explained that teaching five periods will be a lot of work, but she’s excited to help so many students, particularly those making the transition from Honors Algebra II/Trig to AP Precalculus.
Before rejoining the La Salle community, Ms. Adkisson got her degree in math and secondary education at La Salle University, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although she grew up in the Portland area, she spent eight years in Philadelphia, working part time at the university and for two years at a charter high school.
That experience, Ms. Adkisson said, was tough.
“I didn’t think I was going to last long as a teacher there,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I understood the culture or the community… There was no underlying principles that led everyone.”
So when her fiancee was offered a job at Oregon Health & Science University, she reached out to Direction of STEAM and Innovation and Design Teacher Ms. Carie Coleman, looking to return to Portland not only because her family lives here, but because she wanted to be “somewhere teaching where I know what the community is and I love the community.”
In regards to the year ahead, Ms. Adkisson said she is looking forward to helping her students become comfortable with challenges, and her wedding this spring in the Dominican Republic.
Ms. Alayna Enos
Harper Coleman, Editor
Science teacher Ms. Alayna Enos always thought she wanted to work in the medical field. After graduating from the University of Texas, where she studied biology and health professions, she gained experience in orthopedics, obstetrics, and gynecology through several jobs in the medical field before deciding to make the transition to a career in teaching.
Ms. Enos realized that what she enjoyed about medicine was not treating her patients but educating them. The shift of the COVID-19 pandemic inspired her to take the opportunity to throw herself into education, applying to Teach for America and eventually teaching chemistry at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas, Texas.
When Ms. Enos’ partner moved across the country to begin a residency program at Oregon Health & Science University, Ms. Enos was faced with a difficult decision: to continue teaching in Texas, or to uproot the life she had been building for the last 28 years.
Ms. Enos said she “chose the adventure,” making the move to Oregon by early July and starting at La Salle a short month and a half later.
“I’m really pumped,” she said. “I do get really energized by beginnings, and just carving a new path in unfamiliar territories motivates me.”
The main thing that drew Ms. Enos to the La Salle community, she said, was the feeling of connection and community she observed among the staff, especially her fellow members of the Science Department. Ms. Enos explained that her experience during the interview process was what sealed her decision to teach at La Salle.
Ms. Enos relates the bonds she observed in La Salle’s community to the feeling she gets when she’s out in nature. She’s fascinated by the interconnectedness of the outdoors, and enjoys hiking and spending her weekends outside because of that. The many readily-available trails, creeks, and forests here in Oregon are some of the things she appreciates most about the state.
Her love for life manifests itself in her passion for teaching. A formative experience that broadened her awareness of the importance of education was the 4,000-plus mile bike ride she was a part of in college, known as the Texas 4000 for Cancer, a fundraiser for cancer research and support services. The eye-opening journey across her state brought her a changed perspective on life and privilege, one that has continued to shape her as a teacher.
“It really just illuminated to me the power of education, and I really believe it is a fundamental human right,” Ms. Enos said. “Because that’s what we deserve, and that’s what you deserve, and every kid [deserves].”
That zeal for education and learning is the energy that Ms. Enos hopes to bring to her classroom and foster in her students.
“I’m just feeling optimistic,” Ms. Enos said. “It’s exciting to start fresh and to have this blank canvas to paint on.”
Ms. Bri Freitas
Finn Christensen-McElroy, Editor in Chief
To put it simply, a job in education was not where Campus Ministry Associate Ms. Bri Freitas saw herself after college.
An organizational communications major who graduated from the University of Portland this May, Ms. Bri explained that, upon graduating, she was unsure of what she wanted to pursue. At the recommendation of one of her friends — a teacher who saw the ministry job posting for La Salle — Ms. Bri chose to apply, as she was heavily involved in campus ministry at UP.
“I’d never thought about working in ministry or even at a school, but I really enjoyed the ministry stuff that I did at UP,” Ms. Bri said. “And so I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll give it a shot.’ And here I am, and I really like it.”
As someone who enjoys working with young people (and even considered becoming a teacher, before deciding it wasn’t the right fit for her), Ms. Bri said she is excited about the upcoming year. With a role that encompasses running Mass, coordinating immersions, and tracking service hours along with Director of Campus Ministry Mr. Carter Powers, she explained that her goals moving into this year are to encourage more student involvement in immersions, particularly those that are not as well-known or widely attended.
However, Ms. Bri also hopes this year will offer her room to grow as an individual. This will be her first official venture into the workforce after college, and her aim is for it to support her in gaining a clearer understanding of what her career in the future could be, along with personal professional growth and the development of skills she is working to improve, such as public speaking.
Mostly, though, she’s looking forward to connecting with her students and coworkers.
“I’m super excited to get to interact with the students and build relationships there, and be a part of that school community,” Ms. Bri said.
One way Ms. Bri will do that is as a JV girls soccer coach. An avid soccer lover, she also enjoys hiking, reading, and country line dancing — one of her favorite things to do on the weekends — in addition to cooking and baking.
An aspect of her job that Ms. Bri thinks people may not fully know about is the amount of planning that precedes immersions. The trips themselves are just the tip of the iceberg, and as she explained, each one has months of coordination and organization behind it, with considerable time and effort being put in to ensure that they go smoothly and are beneficial experiences for students.
Mr. Peter Gefroh
Clover Martin, Assistant Editor
Academic Resource Assistant Mr. Peter Gefroh’s path to La Salle came naturally.
As his parents are La Salle alumni, his impression of the school has always been positive, and in his short time working here, that’s stayed true.
“Staff and students have both been very friendly and welcoming and supportive of me in my first few weeks,” Mr. Gefroh said.
One aspect that initially led him to La Salle was the school’s small size. Mr. Gefroh attended Grant High School here in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle University in Washington — both schools with a larger student body.
At Seattle University, Mr. Gefroh double majored in history and English. In his sophomore year at the school, one of his professors approached him with an offer to teach his peers Japanese at the tutoring center. Mr. Gefroh took part in the Japanese immersion program while growing up, and has been studying Japanese since kindergarten.
Mr. Gefroh said that his professor “could tell that I had more experience with the language, and that I would be good at tutoring because I had a lot of prior knowledge,” he said.
Tutoring at Seattle University first began as just a way to get an on-campus job, but soon became a big aspect of his college life.
“I especially liked the kind of connections you could build with peers,” he said. “When you were the one teaching them one-on-one you could really see how they were improving.”
The experience sparked Mr. Gefroh’s interest in pursuing a career in education, so when he was fresh out of university and returning to his hometown, La Salle was a no-brainer.
“This particular job posting was, I felt, perfect for me because it combined two of these interests I had: one in education and the other in pursuing a career in librarianship,” Mr. Gefroh said.
For Mr. Gefroh, getting the peer tutoring program up and running is a priority, and he’ll be working under the Director of Academic Resources Dr. Chris Long to make that happen. After his prior experience in tutoring, he intends to help emphasize student agency.
“My hope is that what I can do in the library is make sure it’s as student-centered as possible,” Mr. Gefroh said. “I want to help make it as welcoming of a space as I can.”
While running the peer tutoring program will be a key aspect of his job once it starts up, in the meantime, he enjoys the day-to-day tasks around the library. He hopes to continue meeting students and staff alike, and for the weather to cool down to make his commute to work — biking — a little bit easier.
Mr. Dan Marcantuono
Kayah Cieslak, Editor in Chief
Religious Studies teacher Mr. Dan Marcantuono, also known as Mr. Marc, has returned to Oregon after traveling around — from Los Angeles, California, to the American midwest, and Edinburgh, Scotland — for his college studies.
Although he was born in San Jose, California, he moved to Oregon when he was three years old and eventually graduated from Westview High School.
He begins his third year teaching with a fresh start at La Salle and the hope of connecting the subjects he teaches to his affinity for literature. This is Mr. Marc’s first time teaching religious studies and the subject of morality, with his two classes, Christology/Paschal Mystery and Catholic Moral Thinking/Catholic Social Teaching.
Having pursued a master’s degree in Fine Arts and Creative Writing, he has a background in literature, and he found that the subject connects to religion in a surprising way through the subjects’ shared foundations of nuanced and hard-to-answer questions. As a teacher, he appreciates the ability to help others work through those difficult instances.
He conveyed that “[his] goal is to make class enjoyable and less stressful.” One of the ways he does this is by implementing a sense of empathy into the class environment. By the end of the year, he wishes for students to have their own gauge of empathy and moral discernment developed.
Outside of school, Mr. Marc also enjoys running and playing basketball. He is a big fan of the Portland Trail Blazers.
His deeper passions include reading and writing, so although he does not have prior experience with teaching religious studies, he wants to “apply those same things that I love about literature to religion.”
While Mr. Marc has the dream of becoming a writer, he enjoys developing relationships with students and surrounding himself with younger folks.
“I like the light, the levity that comes with just being in a classroom of energetic students,” he said.
After teaching college students for two years, he found that one of his favorite parts about the job was the office hours and how they offered him the opportunity to connect with students.
New to both the Catholic school system and to teaching high school students, Mr. Marc noticed that starting at La Salle has brought a notable amount of change for him. As the number of classes Mr. Marc teaches has increased, he has a chance to fix mistakes in the event that something doesn’t go as planned the first time.
“I get to practice and evolve as a teacher every day,” he said.
For everyone — not only as a teacher, but as a person — Mr. Marc believes that “our greatest asset is the ability to empathize with others.”
Mr. Marc’s choice to incorporate empathy into his teaching is something he attributes to his mother, a role model of his and the former leader of the youth group he was a part of. He describes her as someone with an “intellectually kind spirit.”
Ms. Francesca Marquez-Stock
Audrey Waters, Editor
For Admissions Engagement Coordinator Ms. Francesca Marquez-Stock, her journey to La Salle came unexpectedly.
Ms. Marquez-Stock was born and raised in Portland and attended St. Mary’s Academy. While there, she connected with the values they promoted, and — as she had existing aspirations to be a teacher — found that working for a private school became one of her priorities.
Furthering her education, Ms. Marquez-Stock attended Portland State University and majored in Health and Fitness, hoping to become a Health and Physical Education teacher. After graduating in 2023, there was a lack of P.E. and health teaching roles, and she transitioned to work at her alma mater, St. Mary’s, where her former co-workers brought up the idea of working at La Salle.
Those coworkers were La Salle’s very own Director of Admissions Ms. Kelsey Hui and Dean of Students Ms. Kenzie D’Ambrosio.
Ms. Marquez-Stock had existing ties with La Salle from two of her brothers and her partner, all La Salle alumni. Due to these existing connections and relationships, she made the choice to apply. She noted that the transition to La Salle was nothing short of exciting.
“I would have never guessed that this is what I would have been,” she said. “But I’m really loving it.”
Currently, Ms. Marquez-Stock works alongside Ms. Hui and Admissions Marketing Coordinator Ms. Sadie Espinosa as a member of the La Salle Admissions team.
“We all balance each other out,” she said. “I’ve found that our communication styles really work well together.”
As Admissions Engagement Coordinator, Ms. Marquez-Stock works to engage with prospective students and the general public. This includes helping with events such as Future Falcon nights, Falcon for a Day, and the La Salle summer camp program, along with supporting ambassadors and current students as they help to promote the school.
“A lot of times, kids that are here, they know what they love about La Salle, and that can be a passion for them,” she said, “But how do we present and communicate to a wider variety of people?”
Ms. Marquez-Stock wants to focus on students understanding the school as a whole, rather than being limited by what they are involved in, and promoting it to as big of an audience as possible.
Although Ms. Marquez-Stock has only been at La Salle for a short time, as she joined over the summer, she noted that in the first week of school she has already experienced the community here.
“It has been so welcoming and so inviting,” she said. “We’ve already had kids coming into the office saying hello and just asking what’s up. And I can totally see how I can also play a role in the community for the students as well, and how they also include us in the community that they’ve created at La Salle.”
Outside of La Salle, Ms. Marquez-Stock enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking, backpacking, and camping. Her favorite trips include her past backpacking trips to Mount Hood and summiting South Sister with her mom last summer.
While at La Salle, Ms. Marquez-Stock said she hopes to “grow the amount of schools that we are pulling students from to come and visit us, [and] hopefully grow our population that way.”
Mr. Carter Powers
Rita Tran, Assistant Editor
Although this is Director of Campus Ministry Mr. Carter Powers’ first year as a La Salle staff member, the culture and core values are not new to him.
Not only were both of his principals from middle and high school La Salle alumni, but he was also able to become better acquainted with the La Salle community through his prior experience working at two Lasallian schools.
Joining the Lasallian Brothers after college, Mr. Powers taught at De La Salle High School in Concord, California, and lived at the nearby St. Mary’s College. He was sent on a retreat to La Salle where he was introduced to the community and got to meet Ms. Sarah Maher, the previous Director of Faith. After his retreat, he was struck by the environment of La Salle.
Mr. Powers noted how special he thought the school was — even without a community of brothers on campus. “I remember thinking, ‘wow, this is a really special place’,” Mr. Powers said.
A year later, he worked at Cathedral High School in El Paso, Texas, as the Director of Campus Ministry, running the El Otro Lado immersion program after leaving the Lasallian Brothers.
“The students were really joyful and passionate about social justice and excited to learn,” Mr. Powers said. “I just remember feeling really impacted by that.”
A month into working there, he found out that his parents and girlfriend were moving to Portland and thought that it might be a sign to come to La Salle after finding out that the Director of Campus Ministry position was open.
Mr. Powers felt called to this role because faith has always been an important part of his life. He wanted to provide an opportunity for students to connect to their faith and have a chance to address hard questions in their life.
This year, he is striving to encourage a strong sense of Lasallian spirituality and make “our Catholic faith and traditions more accessible,” he said.
His three main goals moving into this position are that he hopes to be able to acknowledge what has been working for students, recognize what students are missing that he can provide, and ensure teachers also get the same opportunities to facilitate their own spiritual development, and work to ensure that they “have the tools they need to recognize that they are loved, so that they can love you guys,” Mr. Powers said.
Ms. Lilly Grey Rudge
Tabitha Obuchowski, Assistant Editor
Graduating from the University of Portland in May, Ms. Lilly Grey Rudge, the school’s new Marketing and Communications Specialist, has already found a home in the La Salle community.
“My job is mainly about telling the story of La Salle,” said Ms. Rudge.
Ms. Rudge’s job focuses on writing content for the school’s publications, like the weekly Falcon Forum and the La Salle Prep Review magazine. She also works with the Admissions and Athletic Department for social media content.
Originally from Seattle, Washington, on her journey to La Salle, Ms. Rudge majored in English at the University of Portland and wrote many newsletters for the English Department.
She had an internship at an on-campus nonprofit called the Public Research Fellows, which focused on funding independent research in humanities, and was a communications intern at Multnomah County.
During the first of her three rounds of interviews for La Salle, Ms. Rudge was struck by how kind and friendly the staff were. Coming from a university where everything was community based, a supportive environment is important to her.
“I wanted a workplace where I felt like I was seen as a whole person, seen for the work I can do, but also seen for what I bring to the table,” she said. “Not just as a worker bee, but also as Lilly Grey Rudge.”
Looking ahead to her future at La Salle, Ms. Rudge is feeling excited.
“I think it was really great that I kind of got to get my footing in the summer,” she said.
In her free time, Ms. Rudge enjoys creative writing, reading, visiting friends and family in Seattle, and playing music.
“I grew up playing classical violin, and then I got super into fiddle and bluegrass later,” she said.
One of her favorite authors is Neil Gaiman. She looks up to him because of his ability to portray younger populations of people as fully developed. She thinks this should translate to the communications and marketing writing that she does, as she believes teens and high schoolers really are fully fledged people.
“It makes it fun and exciting to get up every day and be, like ‘Cool. I get to represent full human beings who are complex,’” said Rudge.
Her love of reading, writing, and storytelling was another thing that compelled her to join the La Salle staff.
“I find it really interesting to tell the stories of organizations that I really believe in,” she said. “And I think a school and education is the ultimate thing to believe in.”
