Meet Your Advisors
Our Admissions Team members (also known as our A-Team) are Beata Keller and Debbie Sandstrom.
They are smart, hard-working, funny and kind. They are here to help students from the time they start their application to the moment they receive the Tutorium certificate of completion.
Let's learn more about who they are...
Beata Keller Heading link
Job at Tutorium: Senior Lecturer, English for International Professionals Chair
Where is home for you? — Crystal Lake, IL, a suburb about 50 miles from Chicago.
Do you have any nicknames? — Some of my friends (or people who can’t pronounce or remember my name!) call me Bea or just “B.”
What’s your favorite movie? — Sorry, you can’t ask me to choose just one 😉
Who is your most listened-to musical artist? — I listen to a number of modern Christian artists.
If you could have one superpower, what would it be? — The power to heal. I would love to see a world with no illness, pain, or suffering.
Do you have any pets? Children? — No pets, but I do have two young boys.
What’s one of your favorite words in English? — Rugrats, which is what you can call little kids. My husband used to call our sons his “Little Rugrats,” and I thought that was the sweetest thing!
Do you have a favorite word in another language? — I think a lot of German words are funny (and long!), but if I had to pick one foreign word, it would be Xièxiè, which is “thank you” in Chinese.
Debbie Sandstrom Heading link
Job at Tutorium: Associate Director
Where is home for you? — Elmhurst Illinois, but really anywhere my family is.
Do you have any nicknames? — Debbie is the main one, but others are Dee, Deba, Debs.
What’s a movie you like a lot? — I can’t think of one. I love the Great British Baking Show.
Who is your most listened-to musical artist? — Hard to choose! Dobet Gnahoré and Michael Peter Smith
If you could have one superpower, what would it be? — To be able to click my heels and be anywhere I imagined.
Do you have any pets? Children? — No pets. Two children and a son in law.
What’s one of your favorite words in English? — Hullabaloo. This means a loud, long mixture of noises or a lot of unhappy protest about something. For example, “I looked out my window to see what the hullabaloo was about.” or “After the announcement, there was a huge hullabaloo on social media.”
Do you have a favorite word in another language? — Likambo te. This means, “No problem” or “no big deal” or “don’t worry about it” in Lingala, a language from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.