Sandra Schachter first moved to Carmel Valley in 1970 after living in northern Ohio and New York City. She left to teach in Switzerland in 1983 and returned in 1999. She has a BA in English from Oberlin College (junior year at the University of Edinburgh in Scoland) and an MA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University with a specialization in History of the English Language. She did further graduate work in Applied Linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at Columbia Teachers College. She has taught English as a Second/Foreign Language, English composition, and language teaching methodology at Columbia, Harvard, the American College or Switzerland, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where she helped to establish the American Language and MATESOL programs. She was also a Fulbright instructor in Constanta, Romania, during the Ceauscescu regime. She retired from part-time teaching at Monterey Peninsula College several years ago.
Sandy was a founding member of the Friends of the Carmel Valley Library and served on that board as secretary in the 1980's and as organizer of the First Saturday lecture series from 2000 to 2006. She has also served on the board of the Carmel Valley Angel Project as secretary, and was in charge of the Holiday Store for several years. She was a founding member and secretary of Carmel Valley Save Open Space. She is a docemt at the Carmel Valley History Center, volunteers for Pacific Repertory Theatre, and volunteered at Tularcitos School when her son was attending there.
She has been secretary of the CVA Board since 2008, serves on the Outreach/Communications Committee and co-edits the Carmel Valley Voice. She also coordinated the Carmel Valley Voices lecture series.
She is married to David Burbidge, retired from CSUMB. Her son Jason attended Tularcitos and Carmel Middle School and is currently working for the United States government. Her hobbies include walking and otherwise spoiling her rambunctious rescue dog, watercolor painting, reading, and hunting for misused apostrophes.
