In 2012, math teacher Ms. Rose Adkisson first joined the La Salle community as a freshman. Now, 12 years later, Ms. Adkisson has joined La Salle a second time, not as a student, but as a teacher.
As a student at La Salle, Ms. Adkisson was heavily involved in many different aspects of the community. She played soccer her freshman and sophomore year, moving to captain of the JV team sophomore year, and participated in tennis as a doubles and singles player during all four years.
She was a part of the art program, taking an independent art study and participating in art competitions. She was also a member of National Honor Society and the Lasallian Scholars Program with former adviser and current principal Ms. Alanna O’Brien.
Ms. Adkisson attended Harvard Model Congress, as well as an immersion trip to Los Angeles focusing on gang violence, and consistently worked to support and attend theater productions.
Throughout her four years at La Salle, she had many teachers that are still here today, such as history teachers Mr. Mike Doran, Mr. Alex Lanaghan, and Mr. Hugh Hegarty, science teacher Ms. Carie Coleman for Honors Biology, science teacher Mr. Kyle Voge for Physics, religion teacher Mr. Edward Kendrick for Christian Lifestyles, and Athletic Director Mr. Chris George for Health 1.
Two teachers that had a lasting impact on her life were math teacher Ms. Loreva Bromley, who she had freshman year as her Honors Geometry teacher, and English teacher Mr. Christopher Krantz, who she had junior year for her AP English class.
Both teachers left a lifelong impact on her, making her high school experiences even more memorable than they already were.
“[Ms. Bromley] is the reason I’m a teacher,” she said. “I think she was phenomenal, the way that she cared for her students, but also had really high expectations and really believed that we could do more than before.”
She remembers coming out of Mr. Krantz’s classroom and crying since she did not get the grade that she wanted, but it pushed her to work even harder.
“It didn’t happen until the semester one final that it clicked, how to actually write effectively,” she said. “It just changed my world and made me better at writing than I actually am at math, which I really love.”
Her favorite memories at La Salle were the early mornings of each school day spent studying and chatting. “I would come here before the librarian would begin at that time and sit in the hallway and wait for it to open, because that’s where all my friends would gather in the morning,” she said.
Harvard Model Congress and the service immersion trip to Los Angeles were two experiences that greatly impacted her time at La Salle. During Harvard Model Congress, she met two of her good friends and was able to bond with them. When in Los Angeles, she learned about La Salle University because of a friend that she met at a fellow Lasallian school, Cathedral High School.
Because of this, she applied and eventually ended up going there, making her realize that “being a part of that Lasallian network was really big for me,” she said. “I continued doing those service immersions when I was at La Salle University in Philly, too.”
At La Salle, she feels like “there’s a really strong sense of community here, and understanding your responsibility for yourself, but also that how you interact and behave with others impacts the entire community,” which is what made her want to become a teacher at La Salle ever since she was a student here.
Her friends always comment on how Ms. Adkisson used to say that she wanted to come back and work here.
“When I told them that I was working here, they were like, ‘you always said you wanted to work here — I can’t believe you actually are doing it,’” she said.
But it was not just the La Salle community that made Ms. Adkisson want to come back; it was also Ms. Bromley, who showcased what type of teacher she wanted to be and illustrated to her why education is so important.
“She was the most caring and understanding person I talked to, while also being really passionate about what she did,” she said.
Ms. Bromley inspired Ms. Adkisson to be a teacher even more than she already wanted to be when she first entered La Salle. Since eighth grade, Ms. Adkisson knew she wanted to work as an educator. As an eighth grader at St. Rose School, formally named Archbishop Howard School, she was given the opportunity to help tutor a fifth grade student, which allowed her to see that teaching was something she was good at.
Teaching is the profession that she sees as the “most impactful thing that I can do with my life,” she said.
“I really like teaching math because everyone understands it a very different way,” she said. Ms. Adkisson loves being able to hear what her students are thinking about math because she gets to see how everyone understands it differently, which allows her to try to explain it to others in a way that they can hopefully understand.
Coming back to teach at La Salle, she has been able to learn new things about math through her students, as well as through her fellow peer staff members who were once her teachers.
The transition from walking down the halls of La Salle as a student to teacher has been strange for her. The most weird aspect for her has been “just calling [teachers] their first name,” she said. “It’s odd.”
Despite her initial feelings, she said “everyone has been super welcoming, and there are so many alumni who are staff here, it feels really normal honestly.”
Her fellow staff members who were once teachers are now “less scary,” she said. “I was terrified of Mr. Voge when I was a student here, but he’s the most chill and relaxed guy that I know.”
She loves how she can now have conversations with past teachers about their class and her experience in the class, such as with Mr. Krantz, and how she can view teachers as peers.
Inspired by her past teachers, she wants to make sure students feel supported and always feel comfortable to ask questions.
“I want to be, but I know I’m never going to be the teacher that goes to all the sports events and goes to all the plays,” she said. “But I feel like what I can do as a teacher here is to be that teacher who’s here early in the morning, later in the day, and as long as I have a student in my classroom, I’m here.”
