Faculty and Staff Profiles

Faculty Profile: Grant Wolfe

Grant Wolf

One ELI teacher is quickly becoming noticed for his new and increasingly popular English Through Broadway Musicals course. However, most people who know Grant Wolf would say that he is usually the last person who would seek the limelight. Broadway might be too much for this country boy!

While growing up in South Haven, a very small town on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan,Wolf had plenty of space to wander and wonder.Wolf’s parents ran a summer resort on the family’s 18 acres, and his grandparents were farmers. His rural roots gave him a lifelong love of gardening, as well as an increasing thirst to travel internationally and meet people of differing cultures. So after getting his bachelor’s degree in music at Michigan State University and another in French at James Madison University in Virginia,Wolf, then in his late 20s, realized his fascination with languages and culture, which led him back to Michigan State to get his master’s degree in teaching ESL. He also started a life of travel— initially through Europe, then later in Central America and then to Israel.

Wolf admits that he has loved teaching ESL from the very first day he set foot in the classroom.

But his first love is for his wonderful family, which consists of his “brilliant wife Debbie and marvelously creative 9-year-old son Gregory,” who continues to amaze him daily.When not teaching or spending time with his family,Wolf can be found reading, cooking, tending his garden or directing a local Baha’i choir. A devout member of the Baha’i faith since the age of 30, Wolf said that becoming Baha’i was the most important decision of his life and that the Baha’i teachings on human potential and world unity continue to sustain him in every aspect of his life.

Wolf has been able to integrate his musical talent and his faith by singing in a Baha’i choir which performed at Carnegie Hall in 2002. Next summer, he hopes to sing in an international Baha’i choir in London. His future dreams include exploring the western United States and visiting Hawaii, Japan and Korea when son Gregory is older. In the meantime,Wolf can be found soaking up the limelight at ELI surrounded by his students or soaking up the sunlight in his garden surrounded by his family.

Staff Profile: Laurie Fuhrmann

	Laurie Fuhrmann

Laurie Fuhrmann is a familiar face at ELI. Her dark, shining eyes and bright smile gleam from her place at the computer in the office she shares with admissions counselor Kelly Galvin. It seems as if she has always been there. But the road that brought Fuhrmann to ELI has been a long one, and the journey has taken many twists and turns.

Born in Garden Grove, California, a mere stone’s throw from Highway 22, which winds north into the heart of Los Angeles, Fuhrmann married into the itinerant life of military service. Her husband’s work took them far from their California home to the great state of Texas. Later assignments would lead them to criss-cross the country from the West Coast to Mississippi to South Carolina, but they always seemed to return to Texas. As a matter of fact, both of Fuhrmann’s children—a son and a daughter—were born in the Lone Star State.

Later, Fuhrmann lived with her children in New Jersey as a single mother and worked with Data Systems and Software, a NASDAQ corporation.When she met her current husband, the family’s journey continued as they moved once again—this time to the Port Deposit area of Maryland. Fuhrmann first came to the University of Delaware’s ELI two years ago as a temporary worker, lending her much needed expertise in computers to the team working on ELI’s CEA accreditation. She quickly made herself indispensable and was asked to stay on as a permanent part-time admissions assistant. Yet, Fuhrmann does much more than assist Kelly Galvin with admissions duties. Her responsibilities include creating graduation certificates and programs, assisting with orientation and writing the weekly Orientation Express newsletter.

Aside from her work, Fuhrmann reads avidly and enjoys gardening and photography. She likes traveling with her husband to add new machines to their antique tractor collection, and her travels have also taken her outside the United States. Once, while walking through a mall in Australia, she was asked if she would mind being filmed for a commercial. So international model and celebrity can be added to her list of accomplishments!

When asked what she liked about working at ELI, Fuhrmann responded, “ELI students are the best. They’re so courageous! Although they’re very far from home, they show such fortitude. They put on a brave face, even when they’re hiding their homesickness beneath a smile.”

How does Fuhrmann herself keep smiling? “Life is a journey, not a destination,” she says. “We should enjoy all of life’s adventures.”