“I have fallen in love with teaching high school students.”

Not that long ago Skyler Dovi ’17 was a boarding student, a prefect, and an athlete, all of which helped her prepare for her various roles today: dorm head in Cutler Hall, social science teacher, head coach of the junior varsity girls soccer team, and an assistant coach of girls track & field.

When she was growing up in southern New Jersey, she saw herself as a teacher, working with younger kids. That vision changed at Boston College, when she thought she wanted a career in sales and marketing. She tried it for a year, didn’t enjoy it, and switched to teaching, which she has done for three years at Loomis Chaffee. “I have fallen in love with teaching high school students,” she said. “They are fun to interact with and more complex [than younger kids].”

Skyler said she wants her students to continue to learn about themselves and have some fun along the way. She wants them to not only understand who they are but also to have confidence in the person they are becoming.

“The best teachers,” she said, “are the ones who bring their full selves to the classroom, those who are not trying to be someone else and are just authentic with their students, able to make mistakes in front of their students, laugh, just be themselves.”

At the celebration marking the end of the 2024–25 school year, faculty and staff receive recognition for their accomplishments. Skyler was in the room when a description of the Austin Wicke Prize winner was read. As she listened, she said, she had someone else in mind until she heard the words “... creating an excellent new course that deftly weaves together economics and psychology.” Then she knew: They were talking about her. The Wicke Prize is awarded to a faculty member of less than 10 years of service who has demonstrated a dedication to the discipline of teaching and a commitment to fostering the growth and development of young people.  

“That felt so nice,” she said of getting the honor, “to hear them talk about how far I have come.”

Skyler, a 2021 graduate of Boston College, created a behavioral economics course. “My background is in developmental psychology and economics from college,” she said. “Behavorial economics is at the intersection of the two. Economics is ‘What should we do in a perfect world?’ and behavioral is ‘What do we actually do and why?’” Skyler said the course also focuses on building presentation skills; students deliver four to five presentations per term.

In earning the Wicke Prize, Skyler also was recognized “for her ability to build intentional communities of belonging in the dormitory.”

Skyler said she enjoys her dorm role as much as any part of her job here. “You get to see a side of kids that is different from the classroom or coaching,” she said. Her days of living in the dorm as a student and then being a prefect allowed her to “learn how to build a community of respect while also relaxing,” she said. “I want the students to have fun here. This is your home but also the home of 48 other girls, so how do you tow that line? I was able to learn that [as a student], and I want to help others learn that.”

Skyler was a captain of the varsity soccer team at LC, and now she helps guide the JV players. “As a former athlete, it was really hard to be on the sideline at first,” Skyler said. “I wanted to play — but it has been fun to use my competitive nature to help them become the athlete I enjoyed being.”

She also excelled in track & field in high school. She was New England champion in the 300-meter hurdles twice (2016, 2017) and held the school record in that event until 2022. Skyler enjoys coaching the sport now.

“When you get to a meet, you are not coaching anymore,” she said. “You've given them the tools, and you get to see what they do with them. That lets you see how independent of an athlete the student becomes. … It is fun to see them break a personal record. It’s really a tangible moment in track & field, and I love that instant gratification.”

When Skyler is not teaching, she might be taking a hike, working out, reading a book (historical fiction or thriller), playing a board game (Catan is a favorite) or Nintendo Switch with friends and family, “turning my brain off” by watching a Bravo TV show or “picking up a random hobby.” She said she tends to drop hobbies after a while, then get back to them. Her latest was scrapbooking. Maybe with some chocolate nearby. “I love anything chocolate,” she said.

And if she has a choice, Alaska King Crab legs and artichokes with plenty of melted butter on the side — a favorite meal that goes back to her younger days. “We’d have a newspaper down [on the table], and we’d get kind of messy,” Skyler said. “It was a fun family meal.”