Debbie Davies's Three-plus Decades at USN

During Debbie Davies' tenure at University School, well over 2,000 USN students have benefited from her knowledge of math and talents as a teacher. Her capacity to draw the best out of her students has been shown again and again in their test scores and in her students' experiences later, when they discovered college math to be a relative breeze. Her abilities garnered national recognition in 1989, when she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics education for which USN received $10,000 to be used to improve mathematics education at USN.

1989 was also the graduation year of the 2011 PDS/USN Distinguished Alumnus Gideon Yu. Teachers often rely on faith that their work has a lasting benefit for their former students. At Convocation Gideon affirmed that faith when he called Debbie up to the stage to thank her for being one of the people most responsible for his success in life.

He said that Debbie helped him not only learn math but also become someone who genuinely loves learning. You can read more about Convocation here.
 
No life is without its rough patches, and 1994 was a hard year for Debbie and her family. Her husband Keith was diagnosed with brain cancer and subsequently passed away. It was important to Debbie that while Keith was ill her students not suffer adversely. During that year USN hired a full-time assistant for her so that she could be where she needed to be, and the students would still have consistency. She asked that we let everyone know how very appreciative she is of how supportive USN was during this period.
 
Very recently Debbie announced that this would be her last year teaching at USN. She is looking forward to doing some volunteer work. She is definitely looking forward to spending more time with her children, Michael ’88 and Trefor ’91, and grandchildren as well as her three cats.
 
She is also enjoying being able to read again after several eye surgeries. Currently she is reading Ted Kennedy's biography. Like Debbie, he had Portuguese Water Dogs. Her dogs were named Prince Henry the Navigator and Thurman Munson.
 
She says she will miss her time at USN and wants “to stress how thankful I am for my time at USN, it is a wonderful place and has given me so many opportunities.”