Alumni Spotlight: Cammie Dodds
Alumni Spotlight
Cammie Dodds
This month, we’re featuring a short spotlight article for our community about a graduate of Ambleside School and what she’s doing now.
“Ambleside shaped how I learn and live,” says Cammie Dodds, graduate of Ambleside School in 2004. Cammie was part of the very first eighth grade graduating class.
In those early years, when Ambleside was still meeting at Oakbrook Church, she watched her parents (Randy and Ginnie Wilcox) and a core group of teachers build a school from the ground up, guided by Charlotte Mason’s philosophy.
“It was clumsy, rough-and-tumble at times,” Cammie says, “and there was no permanent building. Teachers were often in short supply, and more than once, my mom was both my principal and my math teacher!”
Yet amid all that shifting and changing, she remembers that the pillars of ideas and the living books from which they came prevailed… along with more than a few memorable moments, including her sister Sarah’s performance as Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream — complete with paper-mâché donkey head.
Cammie credits Ambleside for fostering a real relationship with ideas. Whenever Mrs. Bellamy would announce, “And that's where we will leave off for today,” to signal the ending of Literature class, she would feel genuine disappointment that it was over.
“I never wanted it to end!” she remembers. For her, those lessons were about encountering living ideas that encouraged real thinking.
Later, as a Nursing student at Messiah College, Cammie saw the fruit of her Ambleside education bloom. “I’ve never been a great test taker,” she explains. “But when it came to deeper analysis and critical thinking, I finally excelled. My professor told me, ‘I’ve been waiting for your tests to reflect what you know. Because you understand how it all fits.’ That was the moment I realized what a gift Ambleside had given me.”
Today, Cammie works as a Registered and Certified Pediatric Nurse at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, floating between departments to help wherever she’s needed most. She and her husband, Sean, whom she met at Messiah College, live in Germantown, Philadelphia with their dog Abby and their three spunky daughters: Adler, Leta, and Raelynn.
“My main job these days,” she jokes, “is COO of the Dodds household, Preschool activity coordinator, and Director of Education.”
In many ways, Cammie is now passing on that same Charlotte Mason legacy to her own children. “Homeschooling can be challenging,” she admits, “but I remind myself of the value of this education—fostering a lifetime of learning.”
For Cammie, Ambleside will always be more than just her middle school. It was—and still is—a family endeavor, woven into her father’s chapel programs, her siblings’ teaching roles, and her mother’s 18 years of dedication.
“Everything about Ambleside taught me to connect deeply with what I’m learning,” she says. “I’m grateful that I can pass on that love of learning to my own children every day.”
