"Writer Coach is an excellent, well organized program—the leaders are committed and talented, the training is well designed,
the volunteers are impressive people from many backgrounds, and working closely with a wonderful classroom teacher is invaluable.
All of this makes one-on-one coaching a very valuable experience for both the volunteer and the student."
—Dale Rogers Marshall, retired college professor and president
the volunteers are impressive people from many backgrounds, and working closely with a wonderful classroom teacher is invaluable.
All of this makes one-on-one coaching a very valuable experience for both the volunteer and the student."
—Dale Rogers Marshall, retired college professor and president
Staff and Board
Community Alliance for Learning’s small staff and part-time coordinators work efficiently to plan and oversee the WriterCoach Connection program and to recruit, train, and organize hundreds of volunteer writer coaches in four East Bay school districts.
Staff
Robert Menzimer, Executive Director
Lynn Mueller, Associate Director
Jayne L. Walker, Director of Instruction
Staff
Robert Menzimer, Executive Director
Lynn Mueller, Associate Director
Jayne L. Walker, Director of Instruction
Site Coordinators and Coach Trainers
Marilyn Alberts Jeanine Brown Kathleen Hallam Peg Healy Sahib-Amar Khalsa Karen Larson Laura Marlin Mark Pasley Annie Stine | Board of Directors
LuNell Anderson Cynthia Barnes-Slater Edmund Bussey, Jr. Denis Clifford Shelli Fried Harish Goli Kathleen Hallam Kristine Hafner Kathleen Kahn Loretta Kane Katherine Koelle Marty Price Amy Resner Kent Wright |
 | Robert Menzimer, Executive Director
Writing has filled Robert Menzimer’s life since he composed his first short story in pencil on a sheet of white tablet paper in third grade. From the Broadcast Journalism program at the University of Illinois, he began ten years in radio, as an announcer, news writer, producer, and program director. In 1984, he joined the information services company Meganews, Inc. as program director, supervising writers, editors, voice talent, and computer programmers and later became president of the company. His freelance writing background includes clients in education, marketing, and health care, and his background as a private tutor includes students and English Language Learner adults in writing and English. He served for two years in the Peace Corps in Bolivia, working as a public health technician and teaching English to elementary school students. His association with WriterCoach Connection began with volunteer coaching in 2004. Thereafter, he served for a year as the WCC site coordinator at Albany High School before becoming CAFL’s executive director in July of 2006.
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Lynn Mueller, Associate Director
Lynn Mueller joined WCC as a volunteer writing coach in 2003 and subsequently became CAFL's volunteer manager, business manager, and operations director. She holds a Bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of California Berkeley, a B.F.A. in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute, and taught photography in community colleges. Her desire to combine words with images and to use art to make a difference led her to the documentary film program at Stanford University where she completed a Master's degree in communication. She wrote, produced, and directed the Academy Award-nominated Silver into Gold. She is a founding director and officer of a non-profit, Independent Filmworks Inc., and has served as a non-profit consultant. In addition, she has years of experience as administrator for a high-profile San Francisco law firm.
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Jayne Walker, Director of Instruction
Jayne L. Walker was an assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University and then at UC Berkeley, where she had received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. She is the author of The Making of a Modernist: Gertrude Stein from Three Lives to Tender Buttons,and several scholarly articles. Before joining the University Writing Program faculty at UC Davis, she worked as a literary agent and developmental editor. At UC Davis, she taught the full range of undergraduate writing courses, from freshman composition to journalism and business report writing, and trained and mentored new graduate student instructors. Upon retirement from teaching in 2007, she began coaching for WriterCoach Connection, struck by the similarities between its philosophy and methods and her own teaching strategies. Her passion for teaching of writing has led her to ever-deeper involvement with WriterCoach Connection—as a trainer, grant writer and researcher, and director of instruction. She is also writing a book with David Reid, The Last Revolution of the Word: Anarchists, Beats, and Diggers in San Francisco.
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About Our Board of Directors
Kathleen Kahn, Chairperson
Kathleen Kahn (J.D., University of San Francisco, 1975) retired from practicing law in 2005. For most of her career, she specialized in criminal appeals, working at the Office of the State Public Defender and at the First District Appellate Project in San Francisco. She also clerked for the California Supreme Court for three years. Since her retirement, she has served on the board of the Community Alliance for Learning, serving as its chairperson since 2007. She is delighted that her career has taken such a cheerful turn, and loves working with kids who are still on the right side of the law.
Katherine Koelle, Vice Chairperson
A Master’s degree in writing from the University of San Francisco caps Katherine Koelle's academic career, which includes training with the Bay Area Writing Project and a secondary teaching credential from UC Berkeley. She has twenty years teaching experience at secondary and college levels, has done extensive curriculum planning, works with diverse student populations, and promotes community involvement in the schools. In the Tech Prep Program at the Peralta Community College District, she focused on school-to-school career advancement, working with high school and college instructors and establishing articulation agreements. She currently teaches English at Berkeley City College.
Kathleen Hallam, Secretary
Kathleen Hallam has a Master’s degree in English from San Jose State University, experience as a community college instructor and lecturer in composition, literature and writing skills, and extensive practical work in technical writing, copy editing, and freelance editing. She became involved with the WriterCoach Connection in 2002, helped develop the WCC training materials, and continues to serve as WCC coach trainer. She has also served as a WCC site coordinator at several schools, including Willard Middle School, Albany Middle School, and King Middle School, while mentoring new site coordinators and coaching at Media Academy in Oakland.
Denis Clifford, Treasurer
Denis Clifford is an estate planning lawyer in Berkeley, the author of a number of self-help law books published by Nolo Press, an essay writer, and painter. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review, has a BA in English from Amherst, and has long been interested in education and teaching writing. While with Alameda County Legal Services from 1967 to 1973, he worked with various groups and task forces to improve learning in the Oakland public schools. Mr. Clifford has served as a WriterCoach Connection coach at Berkeley High School and currently coaches at Media Academy in Oakland. His experiences as a writer coach have taught him the value and effectiveness of the WriterCoach Connection, and prompted him to join the board of directors.
LuNell Anderson
LuNell Anderson is an Administrative Judge with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board in the Western Regional Office in San Francisco. She has served as a hearing attorney with the Federal Communications Commission in the Broadcast Hearing Division in Washington, D.C. and as an attorney-advisor with the Board of Immigration Appeals. She holds a Bachelor's degree in sociology from UC Berkeley and a doctorate in law from Hastings College of the Law. At Berkeley High School she has been a founding member of PCAD, Parents of Children of African Descent. Judge Anderson has volunteered at Berkeley High School with WriterCoach Connection since 2001.
Cynthia Barnes-Slater
Cynthia Barnes-Slater has provided several years of service as a Human Resources Director with the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in North Oakland and is an experienced WriterCoach Connection volunteer at Willard Middle School in Berkeley and at Berkeley High. Her professional background includes HR support for the University of California Berkeley Foundation and the Berkeley Endowment Management Company. Her 20+ years career in HR includes work in Togo, West Africa, in London and in the public and private sectors. She is the mother of two sons who are creative artists (an actor and a jazz musician) educated in public schools in the East Bay. Ms. Slater is an active member of the Oakland Baha'i community and her hobbies include travel and reading, especially the Sunday New York Times. A graduate of San Francisco's Lowell High School (and a former English Honors student of the late Anne Wallach, a WriterCoach Connection volunteer), her education includes a BA in Government from Cornell University and a Diploma in Training Management from Southbank University, London. She is currently certified as a Senior Human Resources Professional (SPHR) with the Human Resources Certification Institute.
Edmund Bussey, Jr.
Edmund Bussey, Jr. graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. He was employed for twenty years with the Bechtel Corporation as senior engineer for a variety of engineering projects in the U.S., Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia. As a consultant for San Francisco Municipal Railroad, he wrote manuals for operation, maintenance, and repair for cable cars. Also, he designed fare collection systems for buses. As Chair for Higher Education and Campus Ministry for his church, he located many scholarships for students over a period of twelve years. He has served as a voluntary reader to first graders at a Richmond elementary school since 2001 and has served as a coach for the WriterCoach Connection since 2005.
Shelli Fried
With a passion for supporting youth to achieve their dreams, a Social Sciences BA from UC Berkeley, and a teaching credential, Ms. Fried started her career in Oakland elementary classrooms and as a Master Teacher training other committed teachers. Many years in adult education as Director of a Heald Business College campus and in the corporate training arena were punctuated by volunteer activities: being a Big Sister and working with underserved youth and families. Ms. Fried brings strategic planning, coaching, and alliance-management expertise to Community Alliance for Learning and is leading the organization's Cross-Sector Collaboration Committee.
Harish Goli
Harish Goli has worked in the technology sector for over a decade. He has assumed leadership and operational roles including programming, mathematical modeling, engineering and product management roles. He is currently a Product Manager at AT&T Interactive. His undergraduate degree in computer science and mathematics is from Mangalore University in India and he is pursuing an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Kristine Hafner
After completing her undergraduate degree in romance languages at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Ms. Hafner spent five years in France working in the press and publishing before returning to Madison to complete her PhD in French/Linguistics. Looking to expand her opportunities, she completed a professional MBA program at Wharton Graduate Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and subsequently spent 15 years in marketing and business consulting at IBM. From 1998-2008, she held several senior management positions at the University of California, working with the 10 campuses and five medical centers. She retired in 2008 after six years as Chief Information Officer of the University of California system. Since retiring, she has volunteered with WriterCoach Connection at King Middle School in Berkeley and Albany Middle School while investing time and energy in several board appointments and pursuing her passion for travel, hiking, gardening, and learning Spanish. She loves the hands-on commitment of WriterCoach Connection and the interaction with the wide variety of students.
Loretta Kane
Loretta Kane received her BA from Queens College (CUNY) in New York City, where she majored in English literature and minored in creative writing and education. She received her MA in language studies from San Francisco State University, where she also received a certificate in composition studies and the teaching of writing. Dr. Kane received her PhD in education from UC Berkeley, where she studied cognition and literacy. She taught all levels of composition, from “remedial” to advanced, at San Francisco State University, where she was the assistant director of the Reading and Writing Lab. She taught for the Subject A Program at UC Berkeley and high school English at Alhambra High School in Martinez, where she was the head of the English department. Dr. Kane was a field supervisor, guiding student teachers enrolled in the Multicultural Urban Secondary English (MUSE) Credential and Master’s program at UC Berkeley. She taught an academic literacy class at the San Francisco Art Institute and currently teaches in the Secondary Education Department at San Jose State University, and teaches reading and composition, critical thinking, and an introduction to education course at Berkeley City College. Dr. Kane has presented her research at professional conferences nationwide and recently published a book entitled Conceptualizing Academic Essay Writing.
Marty Price
Earl “Marty” Price received his B.A. from the UC Irvine, where he majored in Comparative Cultures, researching African American literature and presenting his senior thesis on the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, with a minor in Latin American Studies, specifically political integration in the Cuban Revolution. He later did graduate studies at Stanford on political and economic integration of Afro-Cubans in the Cuban Revolution. While at Stanford, he completed a union apprenticeship program as an Exhibit Builder. He has continued his membership in his trade union after serving on the Central Labor Council of Alameda County and the Building Trades Council. While on the Building Trades Council he renewed and revitalized the Joint Apprenticeship Training Program, which led him back to education. He received his M.S. in Education Leadership and Administration from Cal State, Hayward. He has taught at every level from elementary through senior high school. Mr. Price has served the Alameda County Office of Education both as a multicultural trainer and as principal/coordinator of Court and Community Schools. He also was part of the administrative team that revitalized the school culture at Oakland Technical High School from 2000-2005. He has formerly worked on curriculum development in three school districts, with a specialty in Language Arts Development. Mr. Price is a member of the board of Directors of the Kendra Alexander Foundation and is a past board member of the Youth Employment Project in East Oakland.
Amy Resner
Amy Resner has a J.D. from Boalt Hall and a B.A. from Smith College. She has worked as a Deputy District Attorney for Alameda County, as a Chief of Staff to the Mayor in Berkeley and as a speechwriter for the Chancellor at UC Berkeley. Persuasive reasoning and writing are two of the consistent elements in the zigzag of her career path. She has greatly enjoyed volunteering as a writer coach at Albany Middle School and Berkeley High School. She feels that public-school education is one of our country's most critical assets and regards helping students in their classrooms learn to express themselves as a highly dynamic and immensely gratifying process. Ms. Resner, a former ballet dancer, is an instructor at Berkeley City Ballet, a writing tutor and consultant, and the mother of two teenagers.
Kent Wright
Kent Wright understands the value of the one-on-one attention WriteCoach Connection provides to students. As Dr. Wright was growing up in rural Indiana, a retired first-grade teacher (also his aunt) who lived next door spent many, many hours doing just that for him long before he started school. From her he learned to love the power and magic of words. He earned a BA degree in chemistry at Hanover College, where he minored in biology, English and theology. After receiving an MD at Indiana University, he came to California to complete a residency in anesthesiology at the University of California/San Francisco. From 1970 to 2009 he practiced that specialty at Children's Hospital of San Francisco (now the California Pacific Medical Center). For eleven of those years he was chairman of the Anesthesia Department. He has also developed a second profession designing residential kitchens and baths. When he retired from medicine, he joined WCC as a volunteer, coaching at King Middle School in Berkeley and at Oakland's Media Academy. Dr. Wright regards coaching as a powerful and rewarding experience, one that both honors and remembers the wonderful woman who "coached" him as a child.
Kathleen Kahn (J.D., University of San Francisco, 1975) retired from practicing law in 2005. For most of her career, she specialized in criminal appeals, working at the Office of the State Public Defender and at the First District Appellate Project in San Francisco. She also clerked for the California Supreme Court for three years. Since her retirement, she has served on the board of the Community Alliance for Learning, serving as its chairperson since 2007. She is delighted that her career has taken such a cheerful turn, and loves working with kids who are still on the right side of the law.
Katherine Koelle, Vice Chairperson
A Master’s degree in writing from the University of San Francisco caps Katherine Koelle's academic career, which includes training with the Bay Area Writing Project and a secondary teaching credential from UC Berkeley. She has twenty years teaching experience at secondary and college levels, has done extensive curriculum planning, works with diverse student populations, and promotes community involvement in the schools. In the Tech Prep Program at the Peralta Community College District, she focused on school-to-school career advancement, working with high school and college instructors and establishing articulation agreements. She currently teaches English at Berkeley City College.
Kathleen Hallam, Secretary
Kathleen Hallam has a Master’s degree in English from San Jose State University, experience as a community college instructor and lecturer in composition, literature and writing skills, and extensive practical work in technical writing, copy editing, and freelance editing. She became involved with the WriterCoach Connection in 2002, helped develop the WCC training materials, and continues to serve as WCC coach trainer. She has also served as a WCC site coordinator at several schools, including Willard Middle School, Albany Middle School, and King Middle School, while mentoring new site coordinators and coaching at Media Academy in Oakland.
Denis Clifford, Treasurer
Denis Clifford is an estate planning lawyer in Berkeley, the author of a number of self-help law books published by Nolo Press, an essay writer, and painter. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review, has a BA in English from Amherst, and has long been interested in education and teaching writing. While with Alameda County Legal Services from 1967 to 1973, he worked with various groups and task forces to improve learning in the Oakland public schools. Mr. Clifford has served as a WriterCoach Connection coach at Berkeley High School and currently coaches at Media Academy in Oakland. His experiences as a writer coach have taught him the value and effectiveness of the WriterCoach Connection, and prompted him to join the board of directors.
LuNell Anderson
LuNell Anderson is an Administrative Judge with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board in the Western Regional Office in San Francisco. She has served as a hearing attorney with the Federal Communications Commission in the Broadcast Hearing Division in Washington, D.C. and as an attorney-advisor with the Board of Immigration Appeals. She holds a Bachelor's degree in sociology from UC Berkeley and a doctorate in law from Hastings College of the Law. At Berkeley High School she has been a founding member of PCAD, Parents of Children of African Descent. Judge Anderson has volunteered at Berkeley High School with WriterCoach Connection since 2001.
Cynthia Barnes-Slater
Cynthia Barnes-Slater has provided several years of service as a Human Resources Director with the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in North Oakland and is an experienced WriterCoach Connection volunteer at Willard Middle School in Berkeley and at Berkeley High. Her professional background includes HR support for the University of California Berkeley Foundation and the Berkeley Endowment Management Company. Her 20+ years career in HR includes work in Togo, West Africa, in London and in the public and private sectors. She is the mother of two sons who are creative artists (an actor and a jazz musician) educated in public schools in the East Bay. Ms. Slater is an active member of the Oakland Baha'i community and her hobbies include travel and reading, especially the Sunday New York Times. A graduate of San Francisco's Lowell High School (and a former English Honors student of the late Anne Wallach, a WriterCoach Connection volunteer), her education includes a BA in Government from Cornell University and a Diploma in Training Management from Southbank University, London. She is currently certified as a Senior Human Resources Professional (SPHR) with the Human Resources Certification Institute.
Edmund Bussey, Jr.
Edmund Bussey, Jr. graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. He was employed for twenty years with the Bechtel Corporation as senior engineer for a variety of engineering projects in the U.S., Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia. As a consultant for San Francisco Municipal Railroad, he wrote manuals for operation, maintenance, and repair for cable cars. Also, he designed fare collection systems for buses. As Chair for Higher Education and Campus Ministry for his church, he located many scholarships for students over a period of twelve years. He has served as a voluntary reader to first graders at a Richmond elementary school since 2001 and has served as a coach for the WriterCoach Connection since 2005.
Shelli Fried
With a passion for supporting youth to achieve their dreams, a Social Sciences BA from UC Berkeley, and a teaching credential, Ms. Fried started her career in Oakland elementary classrooms and as a Master Teacher training other committed teachers. Many years in adult education as Director of a Heald Business College campus and in the corporate training arena were punctuated by volunteer activities: being a Big Sister and working with underserved youth and families. Ms. Fried brings strategic planning, coaching, and alliance-management expertise to Community Alliance for Learning and is leading the organization's Cross-Sector Collaboration Committee.
Harish Goli
Harish Goli has worked in the technology sector for over a decade. He has assumed leadership and operational roles including programming, mathematical modeling, engineering and product management roles. He is currently a Product Manager at AT&T Interactive. His undergraduate degree in computer science and mathematics is from Mangalore University in India and he is pursuing an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Kristine Hafner
After completing her undergraduate degree in romance languages at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Ms. Hafner spent five years in France working in the press and publishing before returning to Madison to complete her PhD in French/Linguistics. Looking to expand her opportunities, she completed a professional MBA program at Wharton Graduate Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and subsequently spent 15 years in marketing and business consulting at IBM. From 1998-2008, she held several senior management positions at the University of California, working with the 10 campuses and five medical centers. She retired in 2008 after six years as Chief Information Officer of the University of California system. Since retiring, she has volunteered with WriterCoach Connection at King Middle School in Berkeley and Albany Middle School while investing time and energy in several board appointments and pursuing her passion for travel, hiking, gardening, and learning Spanish. She loves the hands-on commitment of WriterCoach Connection and the interaction with the wide variety of students.
Loretta Kane
Loretta Kane received her BA from Queens College (CUNY) in New York City, where she majored in English literature and minored in creative writing and education. She received her MA in language studies from San Francisco State University, where she also received a certificate in composition studies and the teaching of writing. Dr. Kane received her PhD in education from UC Berkeley, where she studied cognition and literacy. She taught all levels of composition, from “remedial” to advanced, at San Francisco State University, where she was the assistant director of the Reading and Writing Lab. She taught for the Subject A Program at UC Berkeley and high school English at Alhambra High School in Martinez, where she was the head of the English department. Dr. Kane was a field supervisor, guiding student teachers enrolled in the Multicultural Urban Secondary English (MUSE) Credential and Master’s program at UC Berkeley. She taught an academic literacy class at the San Francisco Art Institute and currently teaches in the Secondary Education Department at San Jose State University, and teaches reading and composition, critical thinking, and an introduction to education course at Berkeley City College. Dr. Kane has presented her research at professional conferences nationwide and recently published a book entitled Conceptualizing Academic Essay Writing.
Marty Price
Earl “Marty” Price received his B.A. from the UC Irvine, where he majored in Comparative Cultures, researching African American literature and presenting his senior thesis on the writings of Zora Neale Hurston, with a minor in Latin American Studies, specifically political integration in the Cuban Revolution. He later did graduate studies at Stanford on political and economic integration of Afro-Cubans in the Cuban Revolution. While at Stanford, he completed a union apprenticeship program as an Exhibit Builder. He has continued his membership in his trade union after serving on the Central Labor Council of Alameda County and the Building Trades Council. While on the Building Trades Council he renewed and revitalized the Joint Apprenticeship Training Program, which led him back to education. He received his M.S. in Education Leadership and Administration from Cal State, Hayward. He has taught at every level from elementary through senior high school. Mr. Price has served the Alameda County Office of Education both as a multicultural trainer and as principal/coordinator of Court and Community Schools. He also was part of the administrative team that revitalized the school culture at Oakland Technical High School from 2000-2005. He has formerly worked on curriculum development in three school districts, with a specialty in Language Arts Development. Mr. Price is a member of the board of Directors of the Kendra Alexander Foundation and is a past board member of the Youth Employment Project in East Oakland.
Amy Resner
Amy Resner has a J.D. from Boalt Hall and a B.A. from Smith College. She has worked as a Deputy District Attorney for Alameda County, as a Chief of Staff to the Mayor in Berkeley and as a speechwriter for the Chancellor at UC Berkeley. Persuasive reasoning and writing are two of the consistent elements in the zigzag of her career path. She has greatly enjoyed volunteering as a writer coach at Albany Middle School and Berkeley High School. She feels that public-school education is one of our country's most critical assets and regards helping students in their classrooms learn to express themselves as a highly dynamic and immensely gratifying process. Ms. Resner, a former ballet dancer, is an instructor at Berkeley City Ballet, a writing tutor and consultant, and the mother of two teenagers.
Kent Wright
Kent Wright understands the value of the one-on-one attention WriteCoach Connection provides to students. As Dr. Wright was growing up in rural Indiana, a retired first-grade teacher (also his aunt) who lived next door spent many, many hours doing just that for him long before he started school. From her he learned to love the power and magic of words. He earned a BA degree in chemistry at Hanover College, where he minored in biology, English and theology. After receiving an MD at Indiana University, he came to California to complete a residency in anesthesiology at the University of California/San Francisco. From 1970 to 2009 he practiced that specialty at Children's Hospital of San Francisco (now the California Pacific Medical Center). For eleven of those years he was chairman of the Anesthesia Department. He has also developed a second profession designing residential kitchens and baths. When he retired from medicine, he joined WCC as a volunteer, coaching at King Middle School in Berkeley and at Oakland's Media Academy. Dr. Wright regards coaching as a powerful and rewarding experience, one that both honors and remembers the wonderful woman who "coached" him as a child.
