From left, Kalleah Morseth holds a going-away poster from her students in Quillota, Chile. Center, at her closing ceremony with co-teacher Patricio Mansilla. Morseth received a medal for her teaching, and a certificate for completing her service with the Open Doors Program in Chile. Right, with a Chilean student.
instruction to students throughout the Chilean public schools system. The program provides teacher training, instructional materials, English immersion camps, language competitions and scholarships for university students. It aims to provide future generations of Chilean students with the tools to succeed in a globalized world. During Morseth’s experience, she taught at the Colegio Ingles, a college in Quillota, Chile, and lived with a Chilean host family. She taught a wide range of students from kindergarten to high school seniors. Instruction focused on English language immersion through various geography and science lessons, games and cultural exchange. “I was embraced by a community, a school and a group of friends that can only be made when you truly get out of your comfort zone,” says Morseth, who returned to the U.S. in December. For Morseth, living and teaching in Chile was a main course, but it was her experiences prior to graduation at CSB that initiated a hunger for this global exchange. During her experiences at CSB, Morseth spent a semester abroad in Spain during the spring of her junior year. She describes her experience as invaluable, as it prepared her to travel alone and fully engage in all that this culture had to offer. “Spain and studying abroad in general gives you a set of skills that you just can’t get in the classroom – those survival skills that you will need as an adult,” Morseth says. After returning from abroad, she spent her senior year working for the Center for Global Education and supported the Office for Education Abroad at CSB/SJU. She served as a social liaison to all of the international student groups the center hosted during the summer and school year. This included groups from Chile, India, China, Japan and South Africa. “Kalleah spent time doing administrative work but a greater amount of time with the international students helping them
become accustomed to Central Minnesota life. She was a cultural liaison as well as a friend. Her passion to understand and bridge the gap between cultures is what really made her successful,” says Joe Rogers, director of the Center for Global Education at CSB/ SJU. It’s these global relationships that led her to life abroad after college. Because of the relationships Morseth has built globally through CSB/ SJU, she’s craving more. Morseth includes the possibility of living abroad once again in her future but counts for now her cultural experiences as defining moments in her life. “I have learned passion and love through the eyes of several cultures. I have become an empathetic person who makes friends around the globe,” Morseth says.
25