The Hill School offers interns an opportunity to work for a year to receive valuable teaching and coaching experience. After the year, some of the interns are offered full-time positions, while others elect to pursue new opportunities elsewhere. Eight interns came to Hill this year from all over the world and worked in various departments throughout the school from assisting in the classroom to coaching to working with the administration.  

Josephine Phillips, from North Wales, Pa., graduated from Penn State, where she predominantly studied finance. She interns for the Colhoun Internship Program, which promotes teaching finance to students. Phillips fostered her passion for finance at Penn State by becoming an ambassador at their Financial Literacy Center. Phillips will not be returning to Hill next year as she will be attending the London School of Economics and Political Science in the summer, and then attending Penn Carey Law in the fall, where she plans to receive her JD. “In addition, I plan on continuing to advocate for financial literacy in our schools,” she stated in an email.

Nathan Taubkin ’17 is a Brody Intern at Hill and graduated from Oberlin College in 2021. In college, he worked as a teacher’s assistant in his college’s film program, but “in terms of real work experience outside of school” interning at Hill is it, he stated in an email. Being a Brody Intern involved being the videographer, the electronic media coordinator, teaching a film class with the Head of School Zack Lehman, and also coaching cross country, JV boys ice hockey and thirds tennis. He first got interested in film and photography in his sophomore year of college and later went to film school in Prague. Taubkin is coming back next year where he will be working as a teaching fellow. 

Mckenna Edwards is a Bissell Intern at Hill, where she assists with the photography and environmental science classes. Before Hill, she was the assistant women’s lacrosse coach at Franklin and Marshall College. She coaches girls varsity lacrosse in the spring, but in the fall she took pictures of the various games happening, and in the winter she assisted with rock climbing. Edwards is coming back next year as the assistant director of student activities and will still coach lacrosse and teach rock climbing, which she is “very excited about.” 

Kris Donaldson is another Colhoun Intern who graduated from Thomas Jefferson University in 2021, where he interned at two different financial firms. Working at Hill was his first full time job after college. “Funny story, Mr. Lehman actually reached out to me with the opportunity, so I didn’t really search for Hill, I guess they found me,” Donaldson recalled. At Hill, he teaches Economics and AP Economics, coaches soccer in the fall, and thirds tennis in the spring. He will return to Hill next year, where he will “be working with the advancement office while also still teaching financial literacy here.”  

Vimbai Mawoneke, who graduated from Bryn Mawr College, is a Bissell Intern in the science and math departments here at Hill. Mawoneke has held a passion for chemistry since high school, majoring in it in college. She found out about the internship on LinkedIn, where Head of School Lehman had reached out to her. A day in her life consists of helping to teach Integrated Math and AP Chemistry, cleaning up the labs before lunch, and after classes during afternoon activities heading to the Warner Center. Mawoneke will not be staying at Hill, as she is heading to California “to do research for public health policy using data from hospitals.”

Ben Bala ’16 is from Annandale, N.J. and is a graduate of Seton Hall University. “I found out about interning at Hill through some of my old classmates, who were a part of the internship program last year,” he stated in an email. He interns in the English department at Hill, where he teaches English 1 and 2. After teaching, he assisted with strength and conditioning in the fall, assisted coaching boys varsity ice hockey in the winter and now coaches JV boys lacrosse for the spring. Bala will continue working at Hill as an English teacher and coach.

Kendra Clarke graduated from Georgia State University in 2021. “I was only out of college for two and a half weeks before I moved here,” she explained. At Hill, she is an intern in the Religious Studies and Philosophy Department. “I teach one section by myself, Worldviews and World Religions, and then I TA for two sections,” she said. Clarke also coached JV girls soccer in the fall, assisted with strength and conditioning in the winter and coaches girls softball in  the spring. Clarke will not return to Hill next year, as she will attend graduate school in London for bioarchaeology.

Samantha Walther, a graduate of Hamilton College and Nichols College, works in the history and language departments. At Nichols, she received her master’s degree in counterterrorism, was the assistant coach for both women’s ice hockey and lacrosse, and also played professional ice hockey. Later, she worked for a counterterrorism think tank, conducting research and gathering intelligence from law enforcement, the military, and other areas of the government on topics of national security. Now, Walther teaches 20th Century History, Arabic, and coaches JV and varsity girls ice hockey and lacrosse. Walter will remain at Hill, living in Lowndes with her dog as a fulltime history teacher, ice hockey and lacrosse coach.