Faculty Directory

Dr. Jeffrey Bond
Headmaster

Dr. Jeffrey Bond has been involved in liberal arts education since he first encountered Plato and Aristotle as an undergraduate at Kenyon College from which he graduated in 1978. Inspired by these ancient authors, he went on to study at the University of Chicago where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in political philosophy. While completing his graduate studies, he became convinced that Plato’s and Aristotle’s insights into reality had been perfected by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, which led to his conversion to Catholicism. For the past forty-five years, he has taught the great books on both the high school and college levels. Jeffrey and his wife Donna have nine children and seven grandchildren.

jbond@ChestertonSJE.org

Mr. Isak Bond
Liberal Arts Teacher

Mr. Isak Bond was born in Princeton, New Jersey. He was homeschooled until his sophomore year of high school, at which point he attended a regional Catholic high school where he ran track, played baseball, wrestled, performed plays and competed with the academic team. He studied the Liberal Arts at Thomas Aquinas College, from which he graduated in 2010. He has been teaching across a wide range of subjects – from logic and life science to poetry and literature – since 2012. He has also occasionally been seen in the streets writing poems for strangers on a vintage 1964 Smith Corona typewriter, on stage performing for Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival, and reviewing children’s books on YouTube. He spends a lot of time thinking about Homer. Isak and his bride Olivia are parishioners at St. Benedict Catholic Church in Richmond, VA, and they are the proud parents of five bouncing children.

Mr. Daniel Kirkland
Music Director

While studying music and majoring in piano performance at Emory University, Mr. Kirkland came into contact with the rich musical heritage of Western culture and the prominent role of the Church in its development, which only strengthened his desire to evangelize through beauty. His encounter with the Extraordinary Form during this time also had a profound impact on his understanding of the role of music in the liturgy and the late Pope Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity.” Such music could not be simply relegated to classrooms and concert halls. He started chant Scholas at his home parish, St. Francis of Assisi, as part of his larger mission to rebuild the Church by responding to the Vatican Council’s call to preserve this “treasure of inestimable value.” This eventually led him to become the Director of Music and Liturgy at Holy Comforter, where he integrates what is learned in the classroom with the living worship of the Church. Daniel grew up in the heart of the Shenandoah valley in Staunton, VA, and has always loved the tranquility of the countryside, whether it be enjoying a good hike in the mountains or a swim in a lake or river. He also enjoys boardgames, chess, playing the accordion, Gilbert and Sullivan, and philosophical discourse.

Mrs. Kelly Wilkinson Coffin
Art Teacher

Kelly Wilkinson Coffin is a native Virginian and graduate of the University of Virginia (Col "88).

She returned to Charlottesville, VA to open her own studio after completing three years of full time study at the Ingbretson Studio of Drawing and Painting, an atelier in the tradition of the Boston School, which combines the drawing and discipline of the Academies of 19th Century Paris with the color and light effects of the impressionists.

Additionally she completed a semester studying portraiture and figure painting at the Charles Cecil studio in Florence, Italy.

Prior to pursuing painting full time she served on Active Duty as a Naval Aviator for 10 years and later flew as a First Officer with US Airways while continuing to serve in the Naval Reserve.

She has been painting, exhibiting and working with other painters and students in the Piedmont area of Central VA for the last 20 years.

Gratitude for the education and opportunities she has been given has drawn her to teach adults as well as children and she now serves as the art instructor at the GK Chesterton Academy of St. John the Evangelist in Charlottesville, VA.

A life long Catholic she is a firm believer that we are led to God through beauty and her faith very much informs her work.

Married to Tad Coffin, Kelly lives on a farm with her family in Ruckersville, VA.