As NDA Spanish teacher Mrs. Diane Mulroney (known as Doctora) is out of school for a surgery, her friend of many years, Kristee Boehm, will be her long-term substitute. 

Boehm is from Lower Michigan, near Grand Rapids. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Alma College in Alma, Michigan, and earned her Master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Boehm has spent over 25 years teaching Spanish. As a grad student, she taught for five years at the University of Kentucky. After graduation, she taught at St. Norbert for a total of 20 years (1994-2004, 2009-2019) and the University of Washington in Seattle (2004-2009).

“I met Diane many years ago. I was a professor in the Modern Languages and Literatures Department at SNC when we hired her husband, Dr. Brad Ellis, as a Spanish professor,” said Boehm. “I met her through him, as he was a colleague of mine at SNC for many years.”

Boehm is relatively new to NDA. 

“At SNC, I had a lot of students in my Spanish classes that were NDA grads. My sons are active in music and theatre, and I have met students and teachers/former teachers at NDA through that,” she said. “That’s about my only connection to the school.”

Her hopes are to make “the transition as smooth as possible for both students and Doctora.” 

“I hope to come in and pick up where students are, help move them along toward meeting the objectives Doctora has for the year, and then turn the classes back over successfully so that Doctora can continue forward to the end of the semester,” she said. 

She is mainly looking forward to meeting and working with high school level students. 

“I have always taught at the college level, so this will be an interesting challenge and opportunity for me,” said Boehm.

Author’s Note:  As a student in one of her classes, I have noticed that the students really like Mrs. Boehm and her teaching style.  I have heard numerous remarks about how similar “Doctora Dos” is to Doctora Mulroney.