Mark Cline Lucey - Vermont Commons School Skip to main content

Mark Cline Lucey

Social Studies and Film/Video Instructor - Appointed 2004

Graduate Degree

  • M.A. History, Brooklyn College

Undergraduate Degree

  • B.A. Psychology, Connecticut College

Activities in College

  • 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

Best VCS Moment

Swimming with dolphins and ten of my students in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Belize. Out of the classroom and into the ocean!

Inspirational Quote

“Amar, Vivir, Luchar, Reir” (Love, Live, Struggle, Laugh) — graffiti I found on a wall in Chiapas, Mexico

Interests and Hobbies

Playing with my three beautiful sons: Emmett, Zinn & Jay. I am also passionate about learning, cooking, yoga, reading, doing fix-it work, biking, hiking, traveling, basketball, gardening and guitar playing.

Brief Biography

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.

Then I packed my bags and spent the next eight 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 in History at Brooklyn College. Then Susan and I packed our belongings and came north to beautiful Burlington, VT where our son Emmett was born in 2005 and our son Zinn joined us in 2008, and Sweet Baby Jay was born in 2013. I have been at Vermont Commons School since 2004 and thank my stars every day that I have the opportunity to work at a school where academic rigor, the professional freedom to innovate, social & ecological responsibility, and love of community come together so strongly.

Scholarship. Community. Global Responsibility.

Students emerge from their time at Vermont Commons School intrinsically motivated to seek out their role for improving the world, with the skills and competencies to do so.