Bob Shurtz
Bob Shurtz has been teaching science and math and coaching speech and debate at Hawken School for over 30 years. He has been the Director of Speech and Debate since 1998. He has received his third diamond from the National Speech and Debate Association and is a member of the Ohio High School Speech League Hall of Fame. He has coached many state champions in Lincoln Douglas Debate, Public Forum, Policy Debate, and Congressional Debate as well as numerous students in the final round. He has also coached a national champion team in Public Forum and in Congress. A graduate of the University of Michigan with a master's degree in physics from Harvard University, Mr. Shurtz has received teaching awards from the Tandy Corporation, MIT, Stanford, and Williams College and has served as the Academic Director of the United States Physics Team. He is currently the Director of STEMM Pathways.
Becca Marks
Becca Marks attended The Ohio State University and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English with minors in Creative Writing; Jewish Studies; and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She then attended Harvard’s Graduate School of Education to earn her Master of Education degree in secondary English education. She joined the Hawken community as a 9th and 10th grade Humanities teacher in fall 2015 and loves Hawken for its innovative programming, collaborative faculty, and most importantly, inquisitive and compassionate students.
Becca joined the Speech and Debate team coaching staff in February 2016 after attending the Harvard Invitational Tournament. While she accompanied the team to Boston simply to help chaperone, she quickly fell in love with the program and its hard-working students.
Susan McGraw
Susan McGraw has been teaching high school English and writing for 24 years. A graduate of The University of Florida where she earned a B.A. in Secondary English Education, Ms. McGraw is a former National Board Certified Teacher of High School Language Arts. She comes to Hawken from Florida where she first got involved in speech and debate in 2010 teaching debate classes and overseeing a small, fledgling competitive team. In 2012, her school district entered into a debate initiative with the National Speech and Debate Association to grow the debate presence throughout the district, and in 2015 she qualified the first two students from an initiative school to the NSDA National tournament, growing a team of 6 to a team of over 100 with qualifiers to nationals every year since. She has coached state champions in original oratory, program oral interpretation, oral interpretation, and public forum debate. In 2017 she coached the third place finalist in original oratory to the NSDA national tournament, and in 2018 she coached the sixth place poetry supplemental competitor and the second place public forum team to the NSDA national tournament. Her program was host for the past five years to the debate initiative monthly novice tournaments, and she served as an initiative mentor to new coaches to the district and to debate. In 2015 she was honored as the Broward County Debate Initiative Coach of The Year and that same year as the Florida Forensic League Hurricane Region Coach of The Year.