"Fresco Como Lechuga"

Graphic and digital artist, Youtube aficionado, father of two and Ewald dorm head, Modern Language instructor Fermin Perez is a man of many talents. Be it coaching soccer with Zuming Feng, designing brochures for Jeremiah Smith Hall or equating his beginnings with Pablo Picasso, Super Señor is on the job.Perez first came to the US in 1994, sporting a major in psychology. However, his real fascination lay in education. “I could have pursued a job in the psychology field when I came to the US, but the truth is that I had always been interested in language and literature,” Perez said. “So I got my master degrees in teaching Spanish, literature, and language, and that’s what led me to teach.”After a year at Princeton and four years in Baltimore, Perez was ready for the boarding school sector. “I came to Exeter in 1999, around the time Miguel, my son, was going to be born. My wife and I decided that we wanted to find a boarding school where one of us could teach Spanish,” Perez said. “We wanted to find a new school where we could start our life with our family, our son, and that’s why we came.”Besides teaching, Perez maintains many other interests. Art plays a major role in his life as a form of expression and a release. “I design mostly for pleasure. I am interested in art and digital art, and mostly I work with a computer,” Perez said. “like to spend some time doing that whenever I am free, you know. Even though sometimes it can be weeks that I don't get to it.”Perez is working to bridge the gap between two of his passions, art and teaching. “One of the projects I want to do is to create a graphic novel for students. The aim is for students who want to learn Spanish. It’s based on some classics of Spanish literature,”he said. “In fact, I already have a couple chapters, and I shared it with a couple of my classes and it went well. They liked it, so perhaps I should keep working on it. I'm interested in graphic art and, within that, graphic novels, especially for teaching the language.”A large role in Perez’s life is his dorm environment. As the dorm head of Ewald, he received the utmost of praise from his proctors. “I've know Señor since coming in as a new lower. He's a very funny and caring dorm fac[ulty],” senior proctor Griffin Py said. “He's a great teacher, very committed to helping his students succeed. He's extremely outgoing and positive, he's Super Señor after all. Always cheery, with his classic saying ‘fresco como lechuga’ [means “fresh like lettuce”].Lower and advisee Jeff Mellen echoed Py’s praise for Perez. “Señor is a great dorm faculty member, very relaxed and very helpful and supportive as an advisor,” Mellen said. “I have never had more fun in a required appointment than I do when playing Harkness Tennis, eating donuts, and filming movies for YouTube during Señor’s advisee meetings. ‘Fresco Como la Lechuga’ is a mantra I live my life by.”Students maintain high praise for Perez’s leadership because of the importance the position as language instructor has for him. “I love to teach. I love to be around teenagers and I like to live in the dorm,” Perez said. “This year makes fifteen for me living in a dorm, and I will have to move out of Ewald. I think I am going to put up a barricade and a flag of Ewald and the police will have to come and take me away. Living in the dorm, I find it very rewarding.”Perez leads quite an active life outside of Ewald as well. The diversity of his talent knows few bounds, springing between whatever role the Academy needs him to fill. “There are many things I have done. Besides teaching, I was also an interviewer for admissions for three years,” Perez said. “I enjoyed getting to see the kind of applicants that we get here. That was an enjoyable experience that helped me see the school from another perspective.”Perez continued on his interest in soccer. “I coached JV soccer, that was something I really enjoyed. Coaching boys first with Mr. Farnham and Mr. Sneeden was fun, but the two undefeated girl’s seasons with Mr. Feng were the best. We had all the Feng with that! But to lose is important too, very pedagogical, and I left some losses for my time coaching with Mr. Bartkovich, alias Número Uno,” he said. “I am very soccer oriented. I like to follow the European leagues. Real Madrid is my favorite of course.”Perez’s colleagues praised his charismatic persona. “He has a great sense of humor and is also an intellectually interesting person. He likes to think, and ideas really matter to him,” history instructor William Jordan stated. “At Exeter, I think that these are the most important qualities to successfully engage students.”There are many facets to Perez, one of which relates back to his major in psychology. “Unknown to most, Señor Perez is a philosopher. Get him talking about the meaning of life, and you'll see his face really light up,” Jordan said. “On Facebook, he's always translating some Spanish philosopher into English and posting it into his status. Of course we also once had a conversation about how people post on facebook and he has a philosophical theory about that, too.”Perez has set a few traditions in place, preparing a legacy for whoever will don the cape and role of Super Señor. “I start every class telling the students I am from Spain, from Malaga. There are two people famous from Malaga,” Perez said. “One is an actor, Antonio Banderas, and the other is Pablo Picasso. I was born the same day, same city, same day of the week as Picasso, but eighty-five years later. There is a sentence, an expression in Spanish that I like to tell people in the dorm. I go around, I say go to bed so tomorrow you will be, Fresco como la lechuga – it’s something people know I say. It’s a trademark. It’s my trademark.”Proctors, teachers and students know him as Super Señor, and he is known by others as Señor Perez. Either way, he has touched the lives of people around him for nearly fifteen years and will continue to do so for years to come.