Life’s Best Turns Started at NYU for Steinhardt Graduate Walter Oerlemans

By Jennifer Zwiebel

Walter Oerlemans, 77, is one of the oldest students to graduate from the Steinhardt School today, but he’s also one of the youngest at heart.

Oerlemans will receive a master’s degree in the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Steinhardt’s Department of Teaching and Learning.

“NYU has been my neighbor, my employer, my educator, and my love connection,” says Oerlemans, who met his wife here in the mid 1970s. At the time he was taking a class in personnel management and she was a new immigrant from Thailand, learning English and pursuing a certificate course in hotel management. Oerlemans offered to help her with a take home exam. And the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Oerlemans, who had a career in human resources that took him to France and Iran (when he worked for NATO), was looking for employment at the time. Opportunity knocked in the form of an index card on a bulletin board at NYU in 1991.

David Finney, then-vice president for enrollment services, and later the dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, was looking for a babysitter for his daughter. Oerlemans’ wife, Sompit, a kindergarten teacher, responded to the card and went to work for Finney, who then helped Walter find an entry-level job in NYU’s department of financial aid. He rose to the rank of financial aid counselor and for the past 15 years has assisted countless students in managing to attend the University.

Although he intends to retire from NYU soon, he plans to use his degree to volunteer teaching English at a local organization.

Following in her father’s footsteps, Catharina Oerlemans is graduating today with an M.S.W. from the School of Social Work. Sompon Maria Oerlemans, Walter’s other daughter, graduated magna cum laude from Gallatin in 2001 and earned her master’s degree from Steinhardt three years ago. She is now a teacher at a middle school in Brooklyn.

“Being here has meant so much to me,” says Walter. “All these unexpectedly wonderful twists and turns, you never know the paths life will take you on.”