ALFA Mentors

Alan Fillip

I'm Alan Fillip and I'm excited to be an ALFA Writing Mentor for your class. By way of education I hold  Bachelor and Master degrees in Environmental Engineering. I started my professional career as an entry level engineer with the Vermont Agency of Environmental Conservation, Solid Waste Program. After seven years there I became an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Norwich University in Vermont teaching fundamental and upper level classes. For the past 32 years I worked for large consulting engineering companies doing project and program management, business development and client management before retiring in 2020. 

While I worked in various segments of the engineering field, one constant for me was the importance of writing. To be able to review diverse data and information and produce a well organized, concise document that answers the question "what does all this mean" was critical to my professional success as well as the success of the organization where I worked. I look forward to sharing my experiences with you and helping you lay the foundation for your future. 

Kathy Frederickson 

Kathy Frederickson graduated from Fitchburg State College in 1974 with a degree in English.  After several years of teaching in middle school and high school in Fitchburg and Lunenburg; literacy programs in central MA; Composition I and II in the MA Correctional System; she returned to English studies at UMASS/ Amherst.  She earned a Master's in the 90s but left the PhD program to accept a position at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester.  She redirected her languishing dissertation into new courses mainly focused on working-class and immigrant literature, then online learning.  Retired after 30 years at QCC, she's currently an adjunct faculty member in the college's Honors Program.

Gail Hoar

I grew up in a log cabin on an island in the middle of Lake Washington, just east of Seattle. From an early age a knew that swimming would forever be part of my life in some way, and I would always have art around me and flowing from me. I later graduated from the University of Washington with a joint degree in art and art history and minors in anthropology and English. I’ve drawn on all of these in my jobs as a writer and designer for NYC publishing companies, in Nigeria as an art teacher and as a proof-reader for both a university historian and demographer , and even as an anthropological researcher while living in a small village in Chad, Africa.

I lived on the African continent for a total of five years, the last two in the Ivory Coast with three children in tow. When we returned from our last tour in Africa, I enrolled at the University of New Hampshire and picked up a Masters Degree in counseling, while creating my own program on cross-cultural counseling. I also joined the New England Masters swimming group and began competitive swimming again.

I’ve volunteered for years in my community of Wilton, NH serving on several different boards as well as establishing and running our Town Hall Gallery. For the past eight or more years I’ve been involved in FSU’s ALFA program as a board member and student and have served as a Mentor for two years. The Mentoring Program feels like a good fit where I often learn as much or more from the students with whom I work as they receive from me. I think it’s a program worth emulating throughout the university, if for nothing else than the intergenerational understanding it provides.