Mark Cline Lucey
Social Sciences Department
Basketball Coach
M.Cline-LuceyREMOVETHISBEFORESENDING@vermontcommons.org
Undergraduate Degree
- BA in Psychology, Connecticut College
Graduate Degree
- MA in History, Brooklyn College
Activities in college, athletics, extracurricular
- Founder of Earth House dormitory and Youth for Justice and Democracy student organization; varsity basketball; regular columnist for school newspaper; co-chair of Students Against Violence to the Environment and the Outing Club.
Quotation that gives you inspiration
- Taking a group of ten students to New York City for a week of history, excellent food and 14-hour days on the go. Oh, and winning the Pine Ridge Invitational Basketball Tournament in 2006. Oh yeah, go Flying Turtles!
Quotation that gives you inspiration
"Amar, Vivir, Luchar, Reir" (Love, Live, Struggle, Laugh) - graffiti I found on a wall in Chiapas, Mexico.
Interests and Hobbies
- Cooking, yoga, reading, doing fix-it work, biking, hiking, traveling, basketball, gardening, playing with my son.
I was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and enjoyed a childhood of traveling and outdoor adventuring with my family. I also spent a good deal of my youth playing baseball and basketball. I attended Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, MA, where I had the opportunity to learn from fantastic teachers and try my hand at everything from arts to new sports to writing poetry.
I went straight from high school to Connecticut College where I spent two years playing on the varsity basketball team before deciding to study abroad in Belize, Central America, during the fall of my junior year. That semester was a turning point for me and when I returned to Connecticut College I quit the basketball team and plunged headlong into environmental and political activism.
Apparently, the college liked the work I was doing because they created a paid position for me to continue doing environmental work for the next two years. As the Environmental Organizer I worked closely with students doing everything we could to make Connecticut College a more environmentally friendly campus. I also met my wife, Susan.
By that point the itch to travel had become overwhelming, so I packed my bags and spent the next 8 months in Central America – studying Spanish in Guatemala, doing solidarity work in Chiapas, and building houses in the rainforests of Belize, as well as traveling from Mexico City to Panama City with Susan.
Returning to the USA, Susan and I moved to the People’s Republic of Brooklyn, NY, and began the next chapter of our lives. After a brief stint as a delivery truck driver and a waiter, I began organizing hotel workers for Local 6 of the Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees union. After a long but successful campaign at the New Yorker Hotel, I turned my sights toward teaching.
My next four years were spent teaching history to high school students in the New York City public school system and working on my Masters degree at Brooklyn College. Three years ago, Susan and I packed our belongings and came north to beautiful Burlington, VT and two years ago, our son was born. It is exciting to have the opportunity to work at a school where academic rigor, social responsibility, and love of community come together so strongly.