Meet Jeff Wasch: St. Joe’s Gompers partnership coordinator

Jeff Wasch, Ed.D. ’28, navigates through the dimly-lit cinder block hallways of Samuel Gompers School. It’s 3:15 p.m. on a mid-December Friday, so as students clad in their red uniform polos eagerly inch toward the weekend in buzzing lines, Wasch weaves through the crowd deeper into the building, guiding St. Joe’s students through the chaotic maze toward the library for a service event.

One Gompers student lets out a shout of excitement. Wasch, matching their energy, yells back.

“I’m like a big kid,” Wasch said.

Wasch uses his childlike glee to help build relationships with students in his position as St. Joe’s assistant director of clinical experiences and Gompers partnership coordinator. 

As he passes by a student, a first-grade boy barely half of Wasch’s 6-foot frame, Wasch reaches out his hand to meet him with a custom handshake the two of them had devised.

Though the handshake is unique to that one student, Wasch’s ability to build rapport with the students at Gompers isn’t.

“They see me in the hallway,” Wasch said. “They call me Mr. Jeff.”

Aimee Terosky, Ed.D, associate dean of the School of Education and Human Development and professor of educational leadership, counseling and social work, likens Wasch to an onion.

“I just find more depth to him. I find more skills that he has. I find more interesting aspects of his personality, of his own backstory,” Terosky said. “And every time you get through another layer, you’re like, ‘Wow, he’s even more incredible.’” 

Wasch, who’s heard the onion comment before, isn’t totally sold on the analogy.

“I think they’re making me deeper than I actually am,” Wasch said. “I’m like an onion in the sense that it’s simple.”

From kitchen to coordinator

Wasch had an unorthodox journey to his current position in higher education. Before making his way to St. Joe’s in 2022, Wasch was busy working in the kitchen.

He began working in restaurants at 16, starting in a pizza shop, where he may or may not have been a fully legal employee. A few years later, while living in Philadelphia’s Fishtown, Wasch worked at a variety of noodle bars in Chinatown, bouncing from restaurant to restaurant.

“I would get a new job every three, four weeks and get two paychecks and just quit, go somewhere else,” Wasch said. “I just learned so much.”

Wasch worked in restaurants while studying as an undergraduate and graduate student in philosophy at West Chester University in order to pay for school, eventually making his way to a sous-chef position at an upscale restaurant in 2020. After two years as a sous, Wasch decided to step away from the kitchen and focus on other career goals.

“I love the restaurant industry, and I love cooking for people,” Wasch said. “But at the end of the day, it’s 60-hour weeks, you’re working over a weekend night. You don’t get to see your loved ones.”

Wasch said he “fell into” his role in higher education, having no prior experience. In 2022, he was scrolling through Handshake, an online job application platform, and saw positions with AmeriCorps VISTA, a federal anti-poverty program that sends people to assist communities in need.

One of those positions was the Gompers coordinator at St. Joe’s, and Wasch applied.

Terosky immediately liked Wasch’s educational background and prior social justice work but was ultimately sold on his belief that the Gompers partnership with St. Joe’s was a two-way street: Both parties had something to gain, a relationship where one wasn’t “saving” the other.

“Jeff came in with that understanding and knowledge, which just made him stand out right from the start, because that’s something that you don’t just acquire overnight,” Terosky said. “It’s a philosophy, it’s an understanding, it’s a lifelong experience for some to get to that point.”

The coordinator job also fit within Wasch’s personal education philosophy, as it stressed an approach to education that didn’t simply rely on test scores. 

“I’m passionate about educational equality,” Wasch said.

St. Joe’s Gompers coordinator

After two years of working as an AmeriCorps VISTA Gompers partnership coordinator between St. Joe’s and Gompers, Wasch was officially hired by St. Joe’s in July 2024.

Two years in, Terosky considers Wasch’s ability to build relationships with both people in St. Joe’s and people in the School District of Philadelphia to be one of his strongest assets. 

“He is also now showing, time and time again, his ability to build relationships and find people who want to do the kind of work that Gompers is in need of, and he can find people that also want to learn from Gompers,” Terosky said.

Wasch credits humility and transparency as key to maintaining a successful community partnership and finding solutions when problems arise, as well as his care for Gompers.

“I really consider myself an advocate for Gompers more than St. Joe’s in a lot of ways,” Wasch said. “I don’t care if that puts me in a weird position. That’s how I see my role.”

Kelly Anatol-Castelli, a Gompers school-based teacher leader — someone who helps coach teachers — said Wasch always tries to do what’s best for students. 

“Jeff just really understands what our needs are,” Anatol-Castelli said. “He takes it upon himself to really be a part of our meetings and a part of our leadership team, and forges the relationships by finding the right set of students, kids who will be good for certain events.”

Wasch said being at Gompers as often as he can is also key to building relationships with the school. In addition to organizing academic programs, like high-impact tutoring, Wasch helps set up holiday events like the annual trunk-or-treat.

“I’m present. I do my best to make sure whatever programs we’re doing go well. Sometimes things don’t work out, but I’m honest about when they’re not working out,” Wasch said.

Anatol-Castelli praised Wasch’s character and work ethic. Some days, he checks in on her just to make sure she’s doing okay.

“I’m really thankful for Jeff,” Anatol-Castelli said. “I think we have a great partnership. It goes both ways. I can come to him or he can come to me.”

In addition to his role as Gompers coordinator, Wasch teaches philosophy at St. Joe’s as an adjunct professor, and is in the process of obtaining a doctorate of education in educational leadership and administration from St. Joe’s. Wasch said he finally gets to put his love of philosophy and his “extremely unmarketable” degree to use.

“I took a philosophy class and it really changed the way I thought,” Wasch said. “I wanted to do that for someone, and if I could change the way someone thought about themselves and thought about themselves in the world, then I could have done my job.”