About Us
Academic Coaching Cooperative (ACC) is a worker-owned cooperative, dedicated to providing students of all ages with exceptional educational support. As members, we are passionate educators, lifelong learners, and public-spirited volunteers.
Our Values
Education for All
We make an effort to help every student we can, regardless of age, class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender expression, or belief system. To make this happen, we volunteer our time and talents, work assiduously with paying students, support each other as coaches and friends, and go above and beyond to make ACC a success.
Compassionate Spirit
We take the time to listen carefully and give help where we can. We believe in our students and their abilities, and support them when they falter. We approach each situation with compassion and generosity.
Extra Goofy!
We refuse to take life too seriously! We use laughter as a tool to make each day fun. We are silly, nerdy, playful, and joyful.
Our Coaches
Maria Moncur
Maria is a founding member and Senior Coach at ACC. She holds an MA and PHD ABD in History from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where she studied the War of 1812 and taught courses on early American history. During her decade in higher education, Maria learned that she prefers teaching to researching. Now, she spends her working hours assisting students with time management, organization, and work completion, along with subject-specific tutoring in math, science, social studies, language arts, and, of course, history. She specializes in working with students with anxiety and other learning challenges, and has worked with all age groups, from kindergarteners through college students. As a former university instructor, Maria is particularly well-placed to help students prepare for their college careers.
Stephanie Zuercher
Stephanie Zuercher is a founding member and senior coach at ACC. She got started tutoring standardized tests, and she's yet to meet one she can't help with. Even though testing is a specialty, she's also tutored everything from sixth-grade math to precalculus and early reading through AP Lit. She especially likes tutoring middle school and high school students, and she's working on adding more foreign languages to her repertoire. So far, she's studied French, German, Spanish, and Finnish. She has an undergraduate degree in music history and theory from Baldwin-Wallace College (now University), and she has a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School. In addition to having practiced law, she's worked for a number of nonprofits, and she's been on the board of directors of two locally.
Aidan Danbury
Aidan is a math tutor who graduated from Grinnell college with a degree in Music and Computer Science. Some of his interests include making music, programming, and playing Minecraft. As an older brother of three younger siblings, he has firsthand experience with some of the academic challenges students face, especially during this time of distance learning. He looks forward to meeting with students and helping them achieve their goals.
Elizabeth Lundstrom
Elizabeth is a graduate of Carleton College, where she studied Geology and Mandarin Chinese. With over a decade of tutoring experience she can help out with most subjects, but her favorites are Earth and Environmental Sciences, Biology, Spanish, Mandarin, English, Algebra, Geometry, and college applications. She has worked as a geochemist at the U.S. Geological Survey, Princeton University, and The University of Minnesota. In her free time she loves hiking, canoeing, reading YA fantasy novels, and teaching her cat to do tricks. She is a sucker for ice cream and vocal harmonies.
Dan Moncur
Dan Moncur holds a degree in English, and has held a variety of different jobs, mainly consisting of customer service, logistics, and the odd mechanical or janitorial position. He has come to the conclusion that the key to learning new skills is patience: patience with oneself while learning, and patience with others while teaching. This need for patience has only been reinforced by his experience raising a son diagnosed with ADD, and a daughter on the Autism spectrum. Dan is also greatly interested in the art of creating games, especially in regards to how a game educates a player in its systems and internal logic, and will happily talk for hours on the subject to any individual who expresses even a passing interest.