Remembering Mrs. Gooen

Written by Christina Harcar '86

I’m still thinking of the sad news of Mrs. Susan Gooen’s death on November 10, 2023. Her large and loving family, especially fellow Argonauts Michael Gooen ’83 and Cindy (Gooen) Lesser ‘85, will always feel the loss of a person who, with her characteristic generosity, perseverance, and brio, wore so many hats in life: daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, friend, woman of faith, and teacher. I’d like to take a moment with the Prep community to appreciate Mrs. Gooen’s gifts to our school family.

As a teacher, Mrs. Gooen had both a genius for bad puns and the showmanship to run the joke-telling equivalent of a “long con” on rapt classrooms; if you haven’t heard the tale of the Rary in the garbage truck about to go over a cliff (aka “That’s a long way to tip a Rary!”), then you have missed out. I have personally observed how the mere mention of her ineffable and improbably Pythagorean shtick, Soh-cah-toa, can stop former students in their tracks and unite generations with laughter on Alumni Day. In other words, she made learning fun. 

When I ran into trouble with geometry in November 1983, Mrs. Gooen’s approachability gave me the courage to ask for help. She stayed late with me, patiently explaining and re-explaining the basics. Eventually, I worked myself into a lather of frustration, wailing, “Why do I have to prove anything when it’s all so obvious?!” I treasure the memory of her calming hand on my arm in that moment of panic and her serious but good-natured answer. “Listen,” she said, “I’m trying to get you ready for when things aren’t obvious. You’ll be able to think your way through much bigger problems than this.”

A week after that epiphany, Mrs. Gooen’s classroom—along with an entire wing of the Upper School—burned down. Well, you’ve heard all the stories—Mr. O’Connell organizing the delivery of trailers late on a Friday, brigades of students and faculty walking around campus, dazed but helpful, etc. My memory of seeing the trailers for the first time was Mrs. Gooen grimly scrubbing a trailer floor—in the November chill, by hand—as if her mission in life was to make that Formica gleam. Years later, at Michael and Karen’s seder table, I told Sue how inspiring her courage and hard work were to me in the face of random misfortune. She shrugged it off, then leaned in and said with a blaze of the career woman’s quiet pride, “And do you know? Not a single student withdrew because we were in trailers!” Of course not—she (and others) made those trailers feel like…Prep.

Fast forward past the rest of the trailer stories (although, really, the gems featuring Sue and Al Gaggini as office-mates cry out to be retold at the next Alumni Day picnic), skim over the years of lasagna dinner skits, and don’t even try to count the number of students who learned abstract thought under her tutelage. By 2002, Susan Gooen had been (or still was) the chair of the Math Department, the vice principal of the entire Upper School, and the faculty advisor for the debate club, quiz bowl, and the Judicial Conduct Board. Adil Ahmed ’05 remembers that during his freshman year, “she made a strong impression because she made me feel welcome…she knew I wasn’t comfortable at Prep at first, but she saw me as someone who wanted to succeed.” Adil joined Prep’s various debate competitions under her aegis. As he recalls, Mrs. Gooen tirelessly rooted for the team’s success, and then announced the results during morning meeting in a way that made everyone feel seen and valued. 

Adil also had a close working relationship with Mrs. Gooen via Prep’s student government (and the Judicial Conduct Board). “All four years…every week,” they worked together for a fair and welcoming Prep community for all. After he got into Columbia, Adil fell victim to senioritis (my diagnosis, not confirmed by science). “Let’s just say I got a little loose with the dress code,” Adil said. One day he got a hole in the elbow of his favorite sweater, “so I sewed a patch over it, pretty badly, but I was actually proud of the patch. Now, she knew I wasn’t being arrogant finding a loophole in the dress code (pun intended); she said exactly what I was feeling but couldn’t say.” Mrs. Gooen pulled him aside and remarked, “I know you’re proud of your tailoring skills and just want to be comfortable.”

However, as Adil recounted with a chuckle, “Next thing I know, my friends told me my name was up on the demerit board in her window! I was astounded. I didn’t think she’d give a demerit to me, and I went to her office to talk to her about it.” Wait, what? After four years of student-faculty comradeship-in-arms, Susan Gooen gave Adil Ahmed a demerit in the spring of his senior year? “She never let me slip,” Adil says fondly. “She showed me that my privilege [didn’t negate] the awesome responsibility to follow my values through.” Adil took the demerit, and believes that Mrs. Gooen’s lesson serves him every day in his role as senior advisor to US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

Sue Gooen had a talent for seeing young people for who they are and coaching them toward who they needed to become, and I can’t think of a higher bar for success as a teacher. Personally, I am grateful for her presence in my life, both as a teacher and as a mother of dear friends. As a Prep alum, I believe she embodied our community’s highest ideals. May her memory be for a blessing.