On-site directors fill multiple roles for students and their own families
ACU sophomores Marissa Marolf (left) and Kelli Ingram toured the ruins of Pergamon with their classmates and professors.
If Dr. Kevin Kehl were to create a job And teaching opportunities abound, description for the perfect faculty-in-residence Jennifer said. at one of ACU’s Study Abroad sites, it might “I think everyone learns better if you’re really look like this: ready to push your students to think and confront Part teacher, part counselor, part their own cultural values,” she said. “You can just administrator, part travel agent, part parent, ride along, but I don’t think they learn as much.” part bookkeeper. Significant international Perhaps more than anything else, faculty and experience preferred. students both learn more about what it means to Piece of cake finding someone like that, right? be the other – the foreigner, the outcast – when “You live with students,” says Kehl, executive they are thrown into a foreign society without so director of ACU’s Center for International much as a common language. Education. “We don’t have a job on campus here For Shewmaker, that occurred when she where a faculty member tried to explain her lives with students. It’s a daughter’s burn injury to unique and probably one German-speaking nurses of the most complicated at a doctor’s office. Such roles we have.” experiences help forge a ACU has three bond between the faculty long-term Study Abroad and students, Shewmaker sites. In Oxford, England, said, because in many and Montevideo, ways they all are Uruguay, site directors learning together. live most of the year “ose little things on location. ey are like learning how to shop Dr. Jennifer and administrators first, at a grocery store, it’s Stephen Shewmaker Kehl said, and do challenging for all of us,” some teaching. she said. “We’re living in a In Leipzig, the newest of the programs, foreign country, too, with our three kids, finding a ACU does not own any property, so the faculty new school for them, finding doctors for them. are teachers who also manage the details of I have stories of dealing with those things myself. arranging housing, travel and the rest of the I try to normalize that for them.” intricacies of bringing a dozen college students e Shewmakers taught a 3-hour thousands of miles across an ocean into a International Studies course entitled A Mighty country with completely different language, Fortress, a survey of German history and culture, culture and norms. spanning everything from the Protestant “You’re going somewhere where you’re Reformation, the Holocaust and communism all foreigners,” said Dr. Jennifer (Wade ’92) to the region’s rich artistic traditions. Day and Shewmaker, associate professor of psychology weekend trips to relevant sites across central and faculty-in-residence for the Leipzig trip last Europe helped bring home the academic lessons. semester. “You’re really running this close-knit But perhaps even more valuable were the support system.” hours they spent in community with their students. at presents the obvious challenges, Every Monday, Stephen would cook – usually Shewmaker said, but it also presents tremendous Mexican food, given its scarcity in the region – opportunity for close bonds and in-depth learning and the five Shewmakers and 10 university among faculty and students alike. students fellowshipped together. “Being a faculty in residence offers you a “Our children really bonded with the students really unique opportunity to know your students as over there,” she said. “It was really special.” individuals,” Shewmaker said, adding that while she It’s that kind of communion that is so hard to can come to know her students in an on-campus achieve on campus – and makes studying abroad classroom setting. “It’s different when you’re so rewarding, she said. living in community together.” “As a faculty member here, I really hope In Leipzig, Shewmaker and her husband, students grow over the course of the semester,” she Stephen (’91), were an ideal fit, Kehl said, said, “but the impact of being in a foreign country because Stephen is assistant director of the and being in community with a student and sharing the growth and struggles, that’s amazing.” Center for International Education, fulfilling the administrative duties while Jennifer focused – PAUL A. ANTHONY on maximizing teaching opportunities for the 10 students living with them in a series of loft apartments near downtown.
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Summer 2011
BC30