Toastmasters International -

Group of people posing during online Zoom meeting

When Clara Rispler, Ph.D., a college lecturer and corporate consultant, learned about Toastmasters, she was certain a club would benefit her academic colleagues at Max Stern Yezreel Valley College (YVC) in the Jezreel Valley of northern Israel.

“I saw it as a wonderful platform to practice English-speaking skills, strengthen networking opportunities, and build camaraderie among the staff,” says Rispler, the club’s founder and President. Additionally, the opportunity to hone skills and have fun doing it would give everyone an enjoyable interlude from professional stresses, Rispler adds.

The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College Toastmasters Club, chartered in 2023, is one of some 500 university-
based Toastmasters clubs around the world. Membership in many of these include students and staff. However, YVC members are all professional educators. The online club is sponsored by YVC’s gender equity committee, which supports efforts to ensure diversity, tolerance, and mutual respect in campus culture.

To charter the club, Rispler asked for help from Toastmasters with academic backgrounds. Ian Bratt, DTM, Ph.D., and his son Michael Bratt, DTM, two longtime members in South Africa, stepped up to help. Between the two, they have decades of club-building, leadership, and competition experience.

“The club wanted a coach who could understand what specific benefits the faculty would want in a club,” says the elder Bratt, who lectures at the university level. Both Bratts helped host a successful Toastmasters demo meeting for YVC faculty that resulted in 22 charter members. They still attend and take roles at YVC’s monthly online meetings when they can.

Rispler says the club’s current priorities include learning and practicing Toastmasters training, which offers the precise core skills that are important to college educators—such as language, critical thinking and deductive reasoning, the ability to analyze information and persuade, advanced writing skills to produce articles and research papers, and the ability to advocate for change—all proficiencies essential to professors in a robust research and teaching culture.

Prepared speeches and Table Topics® are especially valuable, Rispler says. The club holds Q&A sessions after speeches, so speakers can practice answering questions, as they would in class or a peer symposium.

“Delivering a speech about a research topic in a few moments helps me to adjust my message and presentation,” says Oshrat Sassoni-Bar Lev, Ph.D. “Practice has made me more aware of language usage, such as using crutch words.”

Vered Elishar, Ph.D., head of the YVC communications department, says Toastmasters expands her speaking versatility.

“There’s always room for practice and improvement, especially when it comes to using a second language,” she says. “I feel very confident when I lecture, but Toastmasters offers new opportunities to communicate in other contexts and situations as well.”

YVC also enjoyed an infusion of cross-cultural connection during the coaching and chartering process. “Having two non-Israeli mentors was extremely beneficial,” says Elishar. “They brought an international touch that enriched the whole experience.”

South African coach Ian Bratt, a member of the Benoni Club and the Manzini Raconteurs, agrees. “One of the great benefits I’ve gained from interactions with this club has been to experience a very different culture. It’s definitely broadened my horizons … a benefit I perhaps hadn’t fully foreseen when I first got involved.”

“I want to applaud YVC members,” adds Michael Bratt, who is also a member of the Benoni Club. “They truly see the fact that the more they put in, the more they will get out of Toastmasters.” Which is exactly the point for lifelong learners.

“I think Toastmasters makes us better connectors and teachers,” Rispler notes. “And what better example, from a learning center like YVC, to show our students that we, too, are committed to learning and growing?”