Loreta H Ulmer, Ed.D.
My journey into education was completely unexpected. I got married in 1970 to a fellow who was in dental school, and we set up a dental practice together where I was his office manager. After a couple of years, I asked him when he planned to pay me, and he said he couldn't pay me until I generated income. So I looked up our community college's dental hygiene program and took the classes to become a dental hygienist. As a result of a presentation I had to do as an assignment in that class, the college hired me as a teacher. While teaching at Delaware Tech, someone from our church approached me about their Mom's Morning Out program, saying they didn't know what they were doing and wondered if I could help. I ended up putting together St. Cornelius Preschool from scratch. I created a board of church members, developed the curriculum, and hired teachers. We started with one class of maybe 12 kids, then became overloaded with applications, so I hired another teacher and acted as director. From that preschool, they asked me to prepare curriculum for first grade, then kindergarten, and the school is now K-6. They asked me to be principal, but I said no because I was still teaching at Delaware Tech. Seeing something that was in my brain become brick and mortar was just incredible and amazing. I began to realize a void in my knowledge, so I contacted Penn State and enrolled for my instructional design degree. I had gone to University of Delaware for my undergrad, and now I was getting my master's in instructional design from Penn State. That program was so over-encompassing of what is involved with education. It broke down education into its teeny bits and pieces, and that was the reason I was able to do what I did with the school. Instructional design is very ubiquitous - it's about breaking everything down into pieces and parts of how to build something. Once you understand how to strip things down into its pieces and parts, once you can take it apart, then you can build it back up again. After I had finished that program and gotten my master's degree, it really opened a lot of doors for me. I was hired at Old Dominion University and worked there for 10 years as an instructional designer in their Center for Learning Technologies. ODU was converting all their courses to online so that military personnel - the Navy, Air Force, and Army in Norfolk - could take courses while on ships or finish their degrees after leaving Norfolk. I worked with almost all of the faculty at ODU to develop all sorts of courses, breaking down complex subjects into their component parts so students could understand what they needed to know initially to get to the end. I retired from ODU in 2009. Now in retirement, I spend time with my grandchildren and do before and after school care for grades K through 6, working for the YMCA of Delaware and Boys and Girls Club of Delaware, helping kids with their homework and reading to them. Every summer, I drive out west to places like Wyoming, Montana, and Utah.
• EdD
• Master's in Instructional Design
• University of Delaware (Undergraduate)
• Penn State (Master's in Instructional Design)
• Doctorate (EdD)
• Delaware Dental Hygienists Association (President)
• American Dental Hygienists Association (Delegate)
• YMCA of Delaware (Before and After School Care)
• Boys and Girls Club of Delaware (Before and After School Care)
• Sewing Lessons for Kids (Assistant)
What do you attribute your success to?
I have to attribute it to my dad, who was a physicist. He started school at 4 years old because he was making his mom insane, and she brought him to school for some peace. He started that young and went through school, went to Boston College, and was so good in his physics classes that they hired him as a teacher. He ended up working at Burroughs Corporation and was involved in the first landing on the moon and all of that stuff. But he was someone who saw everything as a new experience, something you want to learn about. His motto to me was, learn something new every day. When you have that person that's nudging you, not exactly pushing you, but at least making you interested - like when he'd be taking the TV apart because he blew a tube, instead of saying go outside and play and get away from me, he would engage me in the things that he was doing. He would share it with me, saying 'Now, you see this? This is a capacitor, and it's necessary because it'll blow.' So I kind of had guidance, and someone who made learning things interesting, and not a burden.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
People need people. A learner alone is never going to learn as much as a learner with another learner. Throughout all the years that I taught classes, I put my students into groups, groups of four, because we learn from each other. To me, that was the most valuable piece of teaching in a classroom. Even online, I had my students in groups so that they could help each other. I value people and what they have to offer, what they can do. Every person has something to contribute - I haven't found anybody yet who hasn't had something to contribute, something that I never knew, something that they know, something that they did that I never even knew existed. Every person has a story, they have their own experiences, they have their own uniqueness. The world is comprised of a mixture of people, and we need to acknowledge the students who are going to be in the classes, not just focus on other goals. Don't try to do everything alone - reach out, work with others, and value what each person brings to the table.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
What I value most, first and foremost, is people. I see people as people, with all their mixtures and experiences that they've had. I value those people because they have something to contribute, always. I haven't found anybody yet who hasn't had something to contribute - something that I never knew, something that they know, something that they did that I never even knew existed. So what do I value? I value people, because every person has a story, they have their own experiences, they have their own uniqueness. That's what I value.
