RIT/NTID Dyer Arts Center names five members to newly established advisory group

The Joseph F. and Helen C. Dyer Arts Center at Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf has announced its first advisory group in the center’s nearly 20-year history.

The advisory group members are:

• Leticia Arellano, who was born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and later moved to New Mexico. Fascinated by the colorful, cultural art of Mexico and New Mexico, Arellano also lived with and was influenced by deaf Kutani porcelain painters in Komatsu, Japan. She was a curator of the recent Arte de Corazón exhibition at the Dyer Arts Center, and collects deaf artwork from all over the world.
• David Nelson, who is the senior community outreach specialist at Amtrak. He is responsible for providing accessibility information, managing outreach activities by Amtrak to the disability community and ensuring ADA compliance. Nelson, an avid art collector, previously worked for Rep. Tony Coelho (D-CA), one of the authors of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He has served as president of the District of Columbia Association of the Deaf and the Florida School for the Deaf Alumni Association, and currently serves as a board member of the RIT/NTID Advisory Group and Delta Air Lines’ Advisory Board on Disabilities. Nelson holds degrees from RIT/NTID, and received National Association of the Deaf’s Fred C. Schreiber Distinguished Service Award, as well as the RIT 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award for NTID.
• Drew Robarge, who graduated from Indiana School for the Deaf in 2003. He attended Gallaudet University, earning degrees in history and French, and a master’s degree in museum studies from The George Washington University. Since 2009, Robarge has worked for the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History as a museum specialist working on collections, exhibitions and other research topics.
• Robert Roth, who has worked as a program coordinator for the King County Arts Commission (now 4Culture) in Seattle and has served as executive director for two nonprofit organizations providing social services to the deaf community in Seattle and in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has provided presentations on how deaf artists express their “deaf experience” in their artwork, and is also a founder of Deaf Spotlight, an organization that promotes deaf performing and visual arts and artists in the Pacific Northwest.
• Brenda Schertz, who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Boston and her master’s degree in Sign Language Education at Gallaudet University, and is a full-time American Sign Language lecturer at University of Rochester. She will begin teaching ASL at Cornell University this fall. She has worked as an adjunct instructor and lecturer covering topics of ASL, deaf studies and interpreting at Northeastern University, Emerson College, University of Southern Maine and at RIT/NTID. She coordinated USM’s annual Maine Deaf Film Festival for 12 years and most recently the Deaf Rochester Film Festival in 2017. She has served as an ASL consultant to various theater productions, and was a museum educator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Schertz served on the board of the American Sign Language Teacher Association as chapter chair from 2015 to 2017, and currently serves as the northeast region chapter coordinator.

 According to Tabitha Jacques, Dyer Arts Center director, the advisory group will provide guidance on developing a mission statement, fundraising assistance, exhibition ideas, and ongoing advice on the Dyer Arts Center collection. Members will serve either two-year or three-year terms.

“The Dyer Arts Center has been expanding steadily and is ready to move into the next phase of its growth,” said Tabitha Jacques, center director. “Our advisory board is comprised of leaders in this field with expertise that will continue to expand Dyer’s offerings in new and unique ways. We are thrilled at the opportunity to have these individuals on board.”