Profiles

Professional staff profile:  Brett Tomashek

Brett Tomashek

Brett Tomashek believes that it’s only by traveling far away from your culture that you can see what it lacks. That’s the explanation he gives for taking off for Saudi Arabia in 2000, where he taught English to Aramco employees in Riyadh for a year.

“Who has the opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia?” he asks. “It’s so farfetched.”

The same might be said for Bulgaria and South Korea, where Brett has also logged some time. In truth, much as he loves to travel, Brett also enjoys living in the town where he grew up and teaching at the high school he attended.

At the ELI, most of us see Brett in his summer role––manning his command post as coordinator for special programs from one of the computers in the teachers workroom. This past summer he coordinated the bridge program for Saudi students (see SABIC article). And for two prior summers he assisted Baerbel Schumacher in coordinating the Partnership for Training program for teachers from the Middle East.

It’s a job he loves.

“My strength is knowing what it’s like to be in another country and needing someone on the inside for everything. My mission has been to give these guys as much unique insight into the culture as I can.”

Brett’s passion for multicultural learning began when he received a scholarship in his senior year at UD to attend a seminar in Bulgaria at Sofia University. The year was 1990, and the political science major found himself right smack in the middle of protests against the communist government by the pro-democracy movement.

“There were people living in tents throughout the city. I went out every day and hung out with Bulgarian students and talked to people. I just threw myself into it.”

After graduating from UD, he returned to Bulgaria to teach English for two years in a high school in Kazanlak, the heart of the rose growing region in the center of the country. There weren’t too many native English speakers in the town.

“I was the trophy teacher,” he recalls with a chuckle.

Once back in the States, Brett started his master’s in TESL at UD and also began tutoring at the ELI, where he learned of an opportunity to teach English at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. He jumped at it, spending about a year in Korea. Upon his return to Newark, he continued his studies. He also applied for a position with what was then the Office of International Programs and Special Sessions as project assistant with a group of Bulgarian media specialists.

“I took the job and never left,” he says.

That program was followed by others for Vietnamese businessmen, Japanese nonprofits and Russian teachers. Eventually, the travel bug hit again, and Brett took the job in Saudi Arabia. There he opted out of living in the American expat compound, spent his days teaching and developing curriculum and his evenings in the cafes watching soccer with the locals.

“All my best friends were Saudis,” he said.

He returned home shortly after 9/11, went back to school to get certified to teach social studies and started working at Newark High School.

“I’ve started to teach all my old friends’ kids,” he says. “It’s a neat thing. That’s why I came home.”   • BM

Staff profile:  Saundra Chapman

Saundra Chapman

During the American Revolutionary War, Lieutenant General Rochambeau marched his 5000 French troops from Connecticut to Virginia, where they helped General George Washington force the British troops to surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Now a grassroots movement to preserve the Delaware portion of the historic route hopes to place that corridor in the National Park System.

Saundra Chapman, ELI office coordinator since 2006, is at the heart of this movement.

Combining her interests in American history and the park system with her leadership as president of the Delaware chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), Saundra hopes to leave this as her legacy to Delaware, the last state to have a national park within its boundary.

Through casual conversation with the ELI’s office coordinator, one can easily learn of her passion and commitment for her family, especially her teenage daughters, who fully occupy her time outside of work. But in the past, Saundra also loved to fish and bow hunt and has lived in the mountains and woods with coyotes. She has had experiences that others can only dream about. Having studied forestry, she worked for the Rough River National Forest in Oregon, where she worked on the Pacific Northwest Trail.

Because her parents moved far from their own parents, she grew up having many questions about her ancestors. Genealogy research became a passion. She came from a close-knit family in eastern Kentucky, some of whom were descended from Cherokees. When she married and moved to Delaware, she joined the Daughters of the American Revolution, a social group of women interested in historic preservation, education and genealogical research. Through the state chapter, she was able to see the inner workings of the national organization in Washington, D.C., where she served as a DAR page. A member of the organization for 23 years, she has served in many leadership positions, including state treasurer and president.

At the ELI, Saundra cheerfully greets students and visitors alike. She is the resource person for just about everybody at the West Main Street building. A detail-oriented person and a “computer geek wannabe,” Saundra enjoys working out new, efficient systems to support the Institute’s growth –– creating her legacy at the ELI, too.  • JL

Tutor profile:  David Robertson

David Robertson

Among ELI tutors, hidden talents abound. Some can sing in Welsh, play cowboy songs on the guitar or cook for medieval feasts. Others engage in organic gardening, guiding tours of Civil War battlefields or teaching infants to swim. Tutor David Robertson also has many aptitudes and interests outside ELI, including the arts and community activism.

One of the few native Delawareans at the Tutoring Center, David was raised in the northeast corner of the state in Claymont. His family also farmed near Middletown, so he got both a small town and a rural upbringing. As a teenager, David loved how words sounded, so he decided he wanted to work with language. He entered the University of Delaware and received a bachelor’s degree in English.

But he also enjoyed drawing and visiting museums. His first job working as a lab analyst at a local oil refinery left him plenty of time to visit the art scenes in Philadelphia and New York. After moving to Newark in the 1970s, David worked at the College of Agriculture in the darkroom. This and a stint as supervisor at Kinko’s reinforced his interest in design, which he was studying in evening courses in Philadelphia and at UD. He found he really enjoyed turning other people’s projects into attractive publications.

In the 1980s Robertson worked at the State Theatre on Main Street as the concession manager, selling popcorn and homemade cookies to patrons. When the owners decided to tear down the historic site, David and other residents gathered signatures in protest, but they could not save the movie venue, which needed massive and expensive repairs. That attempt started David on the path of community activism that continues today.

For decades, David has unfailingly attended Newark City Council meetings and serves on its Town and Gown committee, which meets to coordinate university and community concerns. He also founded Friends of Newark, a volunteer group that seeks to make sure Main Street continues to be a viable center that caters to the community and not just to students.

While working and organizing, Robertson is “always writing.” He submits poems to journals and competitions, winning prizes and fellowships. When a local bank, MBNA, supported grants for Writer, Artist or Poet in Residence, Robertson was selected several times. These grants allowed him to create workshops for local schools to expose children to art and poetry in non-traditional ways.

In 2000, ELI instructor and fellow activist Janet Louise suggested he apply to tutor at the ELI. After three years, however, he joined the Delaware Mentoring Council. As community mobilizer for New Castle County, then mentoring coordinator for the City of Wilmington, Robertson visited elementary schools to promote and organize mentoring of at-risk children.

David returned to ELI’s Tutoring Center in 2006, where he enjoys the warmth, “curiosity and motivation” of his tutees. He is known for helping countless students with their writing assignments. His secret of success?

“Really listening,” he says.

Robertson’s poetry also reflects a listening sensibility. Here is an excerpt from “Keeping Watch,” published in 1995 in “Witness,” Oakland Community College, Michigan.  • WB

I keep listening to hear the geese go over
those streams that cross the green-lit sky
on an icy evening

that held me
as knots of darkness
thickened at the edges of the world
and in the sword’s path of light, the stubble leaves twisted and whispered—

line after line coming down from the north
the pattern each flock made
varying from perfect chevron to diviner’s staff
to taut line with a hook at the end,
every figure holding true
against the metalled colors of sunset . . . .