Former faculty focus: Luke Bergeron (ASL 1973-91)

Mr. Bergeron in his classroom, 1974

When Mr. Lucien Bergeron arrived at ASL in the fall of 1973 to be the chair of the English department, he was already a seasoned teacher and academic. Born in Woodstock Valley, Connecticut, the self-described “ardent New Englander” studied at Brown and Princeton before teaching at the Hun School, New Jersey, for nearly a decade. Luke’s first stint in the UK was a teaching post at the Ley School in Cambridge, when he was a Fulbright scholar, followed by another period in the US at a boarding school in Ohio. His second move to London, and to ASL, would last nearly two decades.

Luke in 1986

Colleagues and students admired Mr. Bergeron for his “exceptionally dry wit,” his “dignified” demeanor and his dedication to his work. “Luke was on the job all the time to teach, and to teach well,” remembers Alice Leader (ASL 1975-2010). Outside of the classroom, he could be found strolling Primrose Hill, Regents Park and entertaining guests around his dinner table for a tasty meal—"he loved Italian food!” recalls former music teacher Georgia Bassett (ASL 1974-95). His contribution to the ASL cookbook in 1978, published to raise funds for an upcoming music tour, perhaps best embodies his love of good food and good literature. “Mr. Bergeron’s chocolate mousse recipe stands as a testament to the power of good writing,” one alumnus admires. In 1984, Luke took a sabbatical to write a biography of Logan Piersall Smith, an American-born British essayist and critic. Shortly before he retired, The Class of 1990 presented Mr. Bergeron with the “Outstanding teacher” award.

The ASL English department honors Luke Bergeron’s legacy with a writing-in-residence program, established in his name by friend and former colleague Keith Millman (ASL 1974-2014), whose memories of his late co-worker remain poignantly clear. “At Evensong at St. Paul’s, you’re told you are ‘...dropping in on a conversation already in progress between God and his people, which began long before you were born and which will continue long after your death,’” he described. “In Luke’s presence, you felt that literature, too, is such a conversation—like music, theater, painting or sculpture—and that he was attuned to them all, all the time, so that his conversation with you was, for him, part of those larger ones. I think his students felt he was trying to bring them into these conversations so that their inner ones would become, for them too, part of the larger ones. He was both a voluble conversationalist and an appreciative, practiced listener. The poster over his typewriter in our Middle Green pod said, Don’t just do something, sit there. In a silent classroom, he knew how to sit until the spirit moved someone, preferably a less voluble student, to speak. What was said was likely to turn up in later conversations with us in the prep area. He loved his work. It was a calling, but he wasn’t solemn about it. When I hear his voice in my mind’s ear, the word I hear most is hilarious.”