Biography
Dr Eva Rose B. Washburn-Repollo is an Associate Professor at Chaminade University in the Communications Department. Dr Washburn received her Bachelor’s Degree in Speech and Theater Arts from Silliman University of the Philippines, and went on to earn her Masters in Literature from the same institution, under the tutelage of Dr Edilberto and Philippine National Artist, Dr Edith Tiempo.
She left her native Philippines for Connecticut in the USA where she finished her Master of Science in Reading at Southern Connecticut State University. Her passion for her native culture subsequently took her back to the Philippines where she started The Spotted Deer, an arts and language program to benefit the street children of Dumaguete, while also teaching at her alma mater, Silliman University. In 2004 she moved to Hawaii where she earned a doctorate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She also explored and spoke at communication and multilingual conferences at Oxford University in England, Auckland University in New Zealand and other international academic gatherings. She recently received the Excellence in Education award from the United Filipino Council of Hawaii, in recognition for the many different community groups she volunteers for.
Dr Washburn wrote and directed three documentaries focused on the values of multicultural selves in a diverse learning environment. The latest was Among Gitukod, We Built It, a documentary on accountability and trust in donating to the Typhoon Haiyan disaster relief efforts. Her dissertation focused on the use of cultural interpretation in remedial English classrooms with diverse students from immigrant households, arguing that the discourses from home cultures offer new perspectives that bring into society other ways of being.
She contributed a chapter on multilingualism, whiteness and anxieties of whiteness, and the sociological and environmental dimension of development, to the book Whiteness Interrogated. She has three children’s books awaiting publication and a book of poems on Visayan culture. She has also been a speaker for workshops on Culture and Competence for Filipino Priests relocating to the Pacific. She has held teaching positions at The Foote School of New Haven Connecticut, Silliman University, Dumaguete City, Philippines, and serves as a Commissioner on the Hawai’i States Foundation on Culture and the Arts.
