Meet the Board

Susan McNaught

Board Chair

Susan McNaught has tutored at Mid-Valley for eight years and has served on the Board of Directors for six. Currently, she serves as Chair and as Interim Co-Director.

Susan got her BA at Oklahoma City University, her MA at Portland State University, and her PhD at Oregon State University.

She has taught ESOL at Chemeketa Community College, both credit and non-credit. She taught in the high school completion program there as well. At Oregon State University, she taught in the English Language Institute. She taught ESOL at Tokyo International University in Salem. At George Fox University, she taught ESOL, TESOL methods in the traditional program and management in the degree completion program. She wrote the curriculum for the writing classes and the ethics class for the management program, and developed a new program for Social Dynamics and Public Policy (nine courses).

She directed Developmental Education programs at Chesapeake College in Maryland and at Kentucky State University. When she retired, she was Dean of the Chemeketa Polk County Center.

Ed Noyes

Board Treasurer

MS International Development, UC Davis; MA, Cross Cultural Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary; BA, History, Stanford University.

Retired, International Ministries (American Baptist Churches USA) Missionary, DR Congo: 31 years of regional agricultural development and extension initiatives serving a population of 400,000, leadership training, project planning and oversight, and grant writing; four years as governance and accountability officer with a United Kingdom Agency for International Relief public health project working with fifty-two health zones in five provinces.

Lynda Bersani

Board Secretary

Lynda Brown Bersani is a retired learning specialist (special educator), researcher, special programs administrator and university lecturer who has worked at different levels in France, Canada and three states over her forty-five year career. Currently a Mid-Valley Literacy Center volunteer board member, Ms. Bersani is a dedicated advocate for language learning. She also serves as an MVLC tutor and liaison for an affiliated satellite center in her home community of Independence, Oregon.

Having grown up in Canada, Ms. Bersani came to the United States for graduate studies at Syracuse University, where she received her Master of Science degree in education and later married and started a family with her husband, Hank Bersani Jr. The family has been in Oregon since 1990.

Jim Merrill

Board Member

Retired Teacher; Current MVLC Tutor

Pat Moss

Board Member

Retired, Chemeketa Community College

Spanish Teaching and Translation

Donna Reid

Board Member

I am a cultural historian, specializing in the art and literature of medieval France. I was an Instructor of Art and English at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon for forty-two years. While at Chemeketa, I was Chair of the Art and English Departments, Head of the College Writing Center, and President of the Chemeketa Education Association.

Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz; Masters of Librarianship, University of Oregon; B.A. English, Stanford University. Danforth Graduate Fellowship. I taught in Florence, Italy for the Oregon Consortium of Community Colleges. I was selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities to participate in a seminar on Gothic cathedrals in Paris. Mid-Valley Literacy Center has given me the opportunity to utilize my lifelong love of languages and my delight in teaching.