Homecoming 2026
Alumni Spotlights: Jonathan Avery ’86 and Allison McWilliams ’91
By Dylan Howlett
10-minute read
Homecoming at Durham Academy inspires few stronger emotions than gratitude, much of which extends to life-changing teachers and mentors who illuminated paths — however circuitous or uncertain — toward moral, happy and productive lives. Those grateful Cavaliers will reconnect in the coming days with Durham, the DA campus and each other, culminating with Saturday afternoon reunions for alumni whose classes end in 1s and 6s.
We caught up with a pair of alums from two of this year’s reunion classes who felt equally moved to dedicate their careers to education — one at a familiar nearby independent school, and one at a familiar nearby university — after watching their parents do the same at DA. They are bound, too, by a daily charge that has its roots in antiquity: instilling the value of classics and language in high schoolers, and operating by a creed of Pro Humanitate, or “for humanity,” as any well-intentioned Cavalier would.
The following conversations have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
JONATHAN AVERY ’86
Upper School Latin Teacher
Ravenscroft School
Raleigh
DA: This is your 28th year as an Upper School Latin teacher at Ravenscroft, so we must ask: What is your favorite Latin word or phrase that the general public could stand to appreciate more?
Avery ’86: “My favorite now — and it changes every few years — is tuxtax. It’s an onomatopoeia, and it’s the noise you make when you knock on a door. When my students ask to go to the bathroom or go to the water fountain, I say, ‘Yes, you may go, but you’ve got to say tuxtax when you knock.’”
DA: We also feel obligated to ask for your assessment of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Avery ’86: “So many people have asked me, ‘Have you seen it?’ I haven’t. I want to see it in IMAX, and I’d love to see it as a spectacle. I don’t have really high hopes for it. But it gets more people interested in these myths and in what we can take away — good and bad — from antiquity.”
DA: You enrolled at DA as a seventh grader. What were the Middle School and Upper School like in the ’80s?
Avery ’86: “DA was a great place to be. The teachers were amazing, and they had a lot of leeway to be creative — the ability to go with the flow in the moment if that’s what you need to explore a subject rather than sticking to some kind of curriculum that’s dictated to you. Lou Parry was my physics teacher in 10th grade and my Advanced Placement Physics teacher when I was a senior. He made everything so much fun and so interesting. We did a lot of projects that became classics: the toothpick bridge, the egg drop. I would see Mr. Parry during Tutorial, during office hours — and I learned so much about seeking help, about the importance of going and asking questions. That’s a skill that I really would like to instill in my students now. I also sought help from [former Upper School math teacher] Mr. [Jim] Ebert, who really encouraged it. He would assign us these complicated problems, and he’d give you a week to do them. We soon found out that if you went to Tutorial, he would really help you at every step of the way. It was almost like a lesson in seeking help.”
DA: Who helped cultivate your passions outside of the classroom at DA?
Avery ’86: “Well, then we get to Mr. [Dennis] Cullen [former Upper School math teacher and longtime cross country and track and field coach]. I treasure the opportunities I get to see him now: He comes to a lot of the cross country meets at Ravenscroft, and I also see Virginia Hall ’91 and Costen Irons ’98 regularly. [Hall is a Middle School social studies teacher and head coach for Middle School cross country and track and field; Irons is a Preschool/Lower School PE teacher, head coach for varsity cross country, and co-head coach for varsity track and field.]
“Mr. Cullen was such a great role model for me. I had him as my math teacher for Algebra II in ninth grade and Precalculus in 11th grade. I enjoyed his style and his personality, his dad jokes. He was such a clear teacher, and he always made sure to present things in a way that students could follow along and understand and replicate. I ran track all four years at the Upper School, and I was on the cross country team my junior and senior years. Mr. Cullen was a great coach, as is clear from all of the testimonials that you’ll hear and from just looking at his record. My times were nothing to write home about or remember. He remembers. I might have scored a point or two in the hurdles of a conference meet. He knows. Running track and cross country with Dennis Cullen were really major, formative experiences.”
DA: Speaking of memorable teachers: Your mom, Rachel Avery, also has quite the DA faculty legacy.
Avery ’86: “And that’s how I started at Durham Academy: My mother was a computer science teacher and math teacher. She had in her math classroom an Apple II Plus, which was the first computer at the Middle School. By the mid- to late-’90s, she was working with Lower School classes and ran a full computer lab.”
DA: You majored in mathematics and Greek at UNC-Chapel Hill, where your dad, Laurence, was an English professor. Is that where — and when — you cultivated an affinity for the classics?
Avery ’86: “I actually wanted to take Latin starting in seventh grade, but I didn’t have a chance: It didn’t start until ninth grade at DA. So I took four years with [former Upper School World Languages Academic Leader and Latin teacher] Edith Keene, and that was just always my favorite subject. I really enjoyed math and science, especially physics. My history and English courses were all wonderful. But Latin was the one that I always felt the best about. The kind of facility I have with language was very helpful there — my love of words, the influence of Latin on the English language, history, culture, mythology.
“We had a lot of great experiences outside of the classroom, including a trip that Ms. Keene led to Italy and Greece. It was so educational and such a great bonding experience. Ms. Keene also took students — along with a number of other DA world languages teachers — to Salem College for Salem College Language Day. There was a poetry competition in Latin. There were plays, and six or seven of us were willing to spend our time outside of class and come in and rehearse in the afternoon. My freshman year, a group had gone over and sung a song they wrote called ‘Roma, Roma’ to the tune of ‘New York, New York.’ Ms. Keene made those opportunities available and helped with writing those songs and the rehearsals and helping students get ready for the poetry portion. She let us follow our eminent interests more than we might be able to in the classroom when we were studying Caesar.”
DA: We imagine education was close to your heart, considering both of your parents were educators. But what eventually prompted you to become a teacher yourself?
Avery ’86: “I just wanted to explore the world that I had dipped my toes into in college. I really enjoyed my Greek classes, and I wanted to pursue it in graduate school. I got accepted to a couple of programs, and the best opportunity worked out at Yale. I really enjoyed the courses and spending time with people who were also interested in classics. But original research was not something that I enjoyed all that much: It was working with students. I had a lot of opportunities to teach, and that was what really set that experience apart. Starting in third year, I was a teaching assistant, and then I had my own section of Latin I. Pretty soon, I lucked out and got to teach intensive beginning Greek. I really enjoyed working with students, and so that’s how I ended up here at Ravenscroft when I was applying for jobs. There was an opening here: They had already had an upper school teacher who had a Ph.D. in classics, and the head of school at the time knew all about Greek and Latin. I think my application caught his eye. It’s been great. Working with students and watching them grow over the years has made it so worthwhile.”
DA: We’ll close with an intentionally obtuse question: In 2026, what is the value of still teaching, and learning, the classics?
Avery ’86: “That’s such a good question that people ask a lot. There are a whole lot of advantages to the learning process and all of the things that are key to gaining skills. We really focus a lot more on language proficiency than past Latin programs. There’s just so much to be said for reading and for learning how to get better at something, how to practice resilience. Those are really good intangibles to take away. And much of the history that students learn along the way provides great examples of what not to do — how not to run your country, how not to treat your siblings. There’s just so much that has influenced our culture for centuries, for millenia, that it really offers so many opportunities to connect.”
ALLISON MCWILLIAMS ’91
Assistant Vice President, Mentoring and Alumni Personal & Career Development
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem
DA: Your dad, Pete McWilliams, was a Middle School language arts teacher from 1981 to 2012 — and both you and your brother, Robin McWilliams ’89, overlapped with his tenure here. What was it like sharing a campus with your dad?
McWilliams ’91: “I had him as a teacher by choice: He taught seventh grade English, and he offered to move up to eighth grade for that year so I wouldn’t be in his class. I said, ‘No. I want to do this.’ He was pretty notorious for his homeroom and some of the things they did, and so I wanted to experience it. He taught me seventh grade language arts, and I also had him for speech. Seventh grade is a particular age. (Laughs.) I’m not sure it was the easiest year for either of us, but I would not trade that experience. It was fantastic. He’s such an unbelievable educator and teacher, and he is who he is to his core. I say somewhat jokingly — although it’s kind of not — that everything I know about grammar, I learned in seventh grade from him. Looking back on it, I recognize how good of a teacher he is. This is what he was meant to be doing, and he still does it: He leads his Sunday school class. He is an educator at heart, and he got a calling to do that.”
Editor’s Note: Pete McWilliams and his wife, Bonnie, continue to support DA through the McWilliams Scholarship Fund. Established in 1999 in honor of Allison and Robin, the award provides need-based financial aid to a Middle School student who has “demonstrated excellence, or the potential for excellence, in character, scholarship, leadership and service.”
DA: How much overlap do you see between the seeds that DA planted and the seeds that you’re planting in Winston-Salem with Wake Forest alumni?
McWilliams ’91: “There’s this element of my job that is straight-up career development. We’re reviewing résumés and talking about job searches. But there’s this bigger piece that we do that I actually enjoy much, much more, which is: Who are you, and what matters to you? What are your strengths and values and interests, and how are you figuring those things out? How does all of that help you figure out your career decisions, your life decisions? I think that is also baked into a place like Durham Academy. There’s an ethos in both of these places — Wake Forest and DA — that is very similar. There’s a critical thinking piece and a big focus on leadership and character. Our motto here is Pro Humanitate, or ‘for humanity.’ I think there’s a lot of similarities between the two institutions and how we think about developing the whole person.”
DA: It seems that you’ve already done much of that work on yourself. You’re an English major (Wake Forest) turned journalism degree holder (University of Georgia) turned higher education administration degree holder (UGA) turned author (Five for Your First Five: Own Your Career and Life After College, which you published in 2017 and updated in 2020). How did you go about determining your own path?
McWilliams ’91: “One of the things that I say a lot when I’m talking to students or young alumni is that I am such a planner. I am one of those people who makes to-do lists for their weekends. But nothing about my path has been remotely planned. It has all sort of come together — and when you look back on it, it all connects and it all makes sense. There are a lot of different paths I could have taken. The job I’m in now literally didn’t exist when I graduated from Wake Forest. But everything that I have done along the way, in some form or fashion, has been about career development, or organizational development, or change management. It’s all about helping people and organizations grow and improve.
“You stay open to opportunities. You listen to people. I have been tremendously mentored along the way, and some of that was because I was willing to pay attention when people were speaking into my path. I’ve had some great people along the way who’ve sort of tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, come over here and do this,’ and it’s led to great experiences. I worked really hard and did all of those things. But there’s a lot of serendipity in what happens, too.
“I think with today’s generation, we’ve sort of created this monster in a way. They are very thoughtful and they’re very reflective. They’re very worried about a lot of things, and one of those things is about making the exact right decisions now so that their life turns out successful and happy. They ask really good questions about meaning and purpose, and what makes for a meaningful life. I love that they ask those questions. I think we had it a lot easier because nobody was asking us those questions. It was just, ‘Go get a job,’ you know? And so we did. But at some point, you have to ask the questions. Whether you do it at 25 or 55, the questions are going to bubble up. What we are figuring out is if you can commit to being a lifelong learner, and if you know how to build relationships, then you will be successful for the rest of your life no matter what happens. That’s what we want to lift up. It’s core to being human.”
DA: What does a typical day look like in your office?
McWilliams ’91: “There is no typical day. There’s sort of the one-on-one: ‘Let’s talk, let’s do a career coaching conversation, let’s chat about where you are, where you’re trying to get to.’ That’s straightforward career support. There is also a bucket that falls into broader education: what we know about what’s happening in careers, teaching alumni how to build relationships effectively, how to do some of the reflective work on who they are and how that impacts their career trajectory. And then there’s this piece that is the most fun work, which is the more innovative stuff: How do we think about pushing the career development industry forward? How do we lead the industry in thinking about this whole idea of alumni career support and why it matters so much that it’s no longer just nice to have but rather a critical piece? Wake Forest is a very expensive place — roughly $400,000 all in. I say all the time that if we say to people that for $400,000, you get four years and a certificate at the end, then we might as well close up shop. But if we can say, ‘Hey, it’s an expensive place, but what you get is a lifetime of connection and support and guidance and access, and also you’re going to get this degree along the way,’ then it’s a very different value proposition.
“This is year 16 for me at Wake Forest. It’s crazy. And I would still say 70% of my time is spent talking to people and saying, ‘What is it that you do, and how can we help support that?’ That’s people across this campus, but also our alums, subject-matter experts, employers. It’s a lot of relationship-building and learning on our part. Those are the fun conversations to have.”
DA: Over your 16 years at Wake, what specific moment stands out to you as a time when you helped a Demon Deacon find out who they are?
McWilliams ’91: “I have had the really good fortune of being on a shared journey with quite a few alums. What’s lovely is there are quite a few whom I have known since they were students, and now they’re in their mid-30s. There’s one I’m thinking of in particular: I knew him as a student, and he worked really closely with a student organization with which I worked. I remember saying to him, ‘You are going to end up in higher education one day. I can see what’s going to happen here.’ He went corporate and got an MBA. A few months ago, he asked to have a conversation and told me that he had been offered a job at Vanderbilt University in career development. I said, ‘Of course you have. That’s exactly where you’re meant to be.’ It’s amazing. And it’s taken him a while to get there, right? It’s less of the arrival: It’s that exploration piece where you can see that they’re asking really interesting questions and trying some things out and not overly worried about having it all figured out. I love those moments.”
DA: Writing is your self-described passion project, and you recently secured a literary agent. You wrote a piece on your personal blog about that news in which you said this was something you’ve been working toward for nearly 30 years. If you were speaking with a soon-to-be DA graduate as they’re trying to think about how they can realize their dreams in 30 years, what would you say to them?
McWilliams ’91: “We're really big fans here of Virginia Evans, who wrote The Correspondent. She lives in Winston-Salem. I was just talking with someone at lunch about that book, and I said, ‘I really enjoyed the book, but what I like even more is her story.’ She worked for a decade trying to make that happen. She was about to quit writing altogether. Her entire family moved to Ireland so she could do a Master of Fine Arts, and The Correspondent isn't even the book she wrote during that MFA. It was rejection after rejection after rejection, and now she's had this huge success. And you can look at it as if she wrote the first book she ever published was this huge success, but behind that book are eight to 10 books that didn't go anywhere. It would have been really easy for her to give up. I think, particularly in today's world, there's a lot of headwinds out there. You build great relationships, build great community, do your homework, be willing to put in the work — and then, I think, you can be successful.”