“What about my cross-cultural?”

This question has been at the top of the mind for many 91����Ƶ students as the COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the globe.

Where, when and how to meet this unique academic requirement – named by alumni as the source of as much personal transformation as their time on campus and in the classroom – is always the subject of much planning and consideration. Extracurricular commitments, academic requirements such as clinicals and practica, and individual preferences are all factors that students consider.

Now, being flexible and having a Plan B ask even more from students. Yet that’s the message of program director Beth Good and program coordinator Linda Martin Burkholder in meetings and communications.

“We’re committed to the success of this program, and also to working with our students to help them have this experience. Our cross-culturals may look a little different now and in coming months, but these are still exciting opportunities to explore a new culture or cultures, and stretch yourself in new perspectives,” Good said.

Currently, the spring 2021 Guatemala cross-cultural is being reconfigured because of travel limitations. The summer 2021 programs in Lithuania, the Middle East, and the Navajo Nation are currently on schedule. 91����Ƶ’s Washington Community Scholars’ Center is currently hosting 10 students for internships, coursework and urban exploration this fall semester and will do so again in coming semesters and summers. Programs as far out as summer 2022 are already scheduled.

Program director’s nursing experience informs response

Adapting to complications is nothing new for one of 91����Ƶ’s most distinctive curricular programs. In its 30-year-history, cross-cultural groups abroad and in the United States have endured other disruptive events, including natural disasters, political unrest, government crackdowns, and 9/11.

Good acknowledges that a global pandemic brings new and rare challenges to programming that features moving students and their faculty sponsors into different cultures – often across oceans, continents and borders.

She’s well-qualified to both make this observation and help to prepare the program: Good holds a doctorate in nursing and has lived and worked in 15 countries. While also adapting 91����Ƶ’s cross-cultural programming this semester, she is leading and managing 91����Ƶ’s own COVID-19 contact tracing response. (Good is also the parent of four 91����Ƶ alumnae, each of whom experienced the crosscultural requirement differently.)

Faculty leaders at the forefront of adaptations

Good says the committed faculty who lead 91����Ƶ’s cross-culturals are the main factor in the program’s successful adaptations.

“This program is still thriving amidst all these challenges because of the creativity of our faculty and their deep connections to the people and places of their specific cross-cultural sites,” she said. “They enter into these challenges with the spirit of ‘Let’s try this,’ because they truly see the value of these experiences and these transformational learning opportunities for our students. They bring so much experience and conviction and heart to these courses.”

For example, last summer, groups were scheduled to travel to Ohio, with Professor Vi Dutcher, and to Lithuania, with Professor Jerry Holsopple. A third group was slated for the annual summer local context cross-cultural, with Professor Deanna Durham and Byron Peachey, academic advocacy advisor.  

Instead, Dutcher, Durham and Peachey created an online course that introduced the Ohio and local context students to Amish culture and Harrisonburg’s historic Black neighborhood and vibrant  immigrant community. Assignments included watching a documentary about the historic Lucy F. Simms School, listening to a podcast about Mennonite history, perusing a photo essay on refugee resettlement, and making quilt-like collages. Students still got a taste of different cultures through culinary assignments, like purchasing ingredients at a Latino grocery store and making Mexican mole sauce. 

“We thought that since we would not be eating local food cooked by our hosts or going to ethnic restaurants, we would have the students prepare food based upon each ethnic group,” Dutcher said. 

Holsopple created a class on world cinema, in which the students watched and discussed films “around particular cultural variables, dealing with understanding cultural values, history, historic trauma, some religious differences and observations about how different genders were expected to live.”

Student: ‘Cultural intelligence is a continuum’

Taylor Baldwin, a nursing major who was scheduled for the local context cross cultural, wrote in her final paper that she’s “gained insight and a deeper understanding into culture as a whole through this specific event and within this course.” 

“Our cultural intelligence is a continuum and must be treated as such,” Baldwin wrote. “Cultural intelligence is not a stagnant thing. Our world is ever-changing and our people in it are too. I am determined to learn from each and every opportunity presented to me in order to improve my knowledge, mindset, and skills to continuously grow to be more culturally intelligent.”

Durham said she “found it poignant to hear students reflect … about their experiences with one another. In my section I had students from rural and urban locations, different races, some quite religious and others not religious at all, some unfamiliar with Harrisonburg’s racial history and others with personal experience in the Northeast community. I heard them challenge, question and push each other in class.”

“We were amazed and moved by the depth of their sharing and what they learned and how they experienced reportedly life-changing ideas,” Dutcher agreed. 

Some of the students responded to the portion of the class on African American history in Harrisonburg and, more broadly, racial violence and injustice in the U.S. Dutcher pointed to a poem, “Does It Matter?”, that business administration major Tim Jones wrote and presented as particularly poignant. 

“Does it matter that I fear for my future children that have not taken a single breath on this planet? Again.. Does the color of my skin matter? Does it matter that I don’t look like you? Does it matter that I don’t sound like you?” Jones wrote. Read the poem in its entirety here.

For Holsopple, cinematic globetrotting was a balm until he can once again lead students to “feel the sand in your toes on the Baltic sea coast, walk the cobblestones in an old cities, stand on the site where thousands died in the Holocaust, peer into the torture cells of the KGB, taste the chocolate, smell the incense in varied churches, and try to keep from dancing at the music festivals.”

Stay tuned for another update on the cross-cultural program early in spring semester 2021.

Cross-cultural study, which students have called an integral and “life-changing” component of 91����Ƶ’s core curriculum for more than 30 years, has taken students to more than 80 domestic and global locations such as the Middle East, Lithuania, Central America and China.

Whether with a full semester abroad or as part of a summer or alternative program, students fulfilling their cross-cultural requirements establish the foundations they need for living, serving and leading in a global context.

Summer cross-culturals

“What we’ve experienced, which has provoked much thought and emotion, are the many ways in which one history can be told,” the South Africa group wrote in the “Understanding the Boer Narrative” entry on the cross-cultural blog. That trip is focused on the nation’s legacy of colonialism and apartheid, and its attempts to overcome that past.

In Puerto Rico, students observed the “awe-inspiring” perseverance of people still suffering the effects of Hurricane Maria, wrote Emily Lam. The group, led by Professor Jenni Holsinger and Adam Yoder, also learned about the island’s history, participated in service, and visited Aibonito, San Juan and El Yunque.

The group in Mexico, led by Linda and Brian Martin Burkholder, learned about cultures in different regions of the country, and visiting Mexico City, Teotihuacan and the Costa Esmeralda of Veracruz. They also visited a church youth group in Ecatepec, near Mexico City.

“Despite the language barrier we all got along great,” wrote Emma Picht. “Some of us made bets over hot salsa, and we played word games to practice our Spanish and their English. … Jessica, one of the girls from the youth group, and I connected over music and singing, despite my limited vocabulary.”

In Washington D.C., students in 91����Ƶ’s cross-cultural urban studies, internship, and community living experience at the Washington Community Scholars’ Center are gaining professional experiences through internships. They also learn about urban cultures, history and life through various tours and a course titled “Blues & Dreams: A Multicultural History of Washington D.C.”

2019-20

Upcoming cross-culturals in the 2019-20 academic year will take students to Vienna and Europe, the Washington Community Scholars’ Center and Guatemala and Columbia.

Beginning August 1, Beth Good ’03 will be 91����Ƶ’s director of Intercultural Programs. Currently the Kenya Country Representative for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), she has also lived and worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Her other roles have included MCC’s global health coordinator, the director of clinical services of Hope within Community Health Center, the HIV program coordinator for Eastern Mennonite Missions, and instructor for 91����Ƶ’s RN-BSN program. She earned her PhD and MSN from Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania.

Each semester and summer, 91����Ƶ students spread out across the globe, usually accompanied by faculty and staff who have lived in the area and who, with the help of natives, introduce a perspective into the culture that is far more intimate than just visiting the usual tourist sites. The experience is much more unique than typical study-abroad programs in which students are housed in universities and take traditional academic coursework.

Several graduate programs also offer cross-culturals, including the and , MA in biomedicine [read more and ], and .

View a of 91����Ƶ’s cross-cultural program.

The unforgettable experience of her semester travels in France and the Ivory Coast “still permeates my life 20 years later,” said Carrie Stambaugh Bert at a 2014 . More recently, student Sarah Regan shared that her Central Europe travels “really broadened my view.”

“I learned so much more about things I never even thought about at home, things I never thought existed to know,” she said.

A panel discussion, “Drinking in Knowledge at the Source: 91����Ƶ’s Cross Cultural Program,” at the 2017 faculty-staff conference discussed the origins, goals and changes over the years of one of 91����Ƶ’s most unique programs, which started formally in 1982.

Panelists included:

• is a nursing professor, director of the Humanitarian Action Leadership program and interim cross-cultural program director. She and her husband Jim have led several cross-culturals, most recently to Guatemala and Cuba. The couple spent 10 years in church-sponsored service in Central America.
• , program assistant, has accompanied groups with her husband Brian Martin Burkholder, most recently to Bolivia.
• , emeritus professor of German, was one of the first cross-cultural leaders. His introduction to the cross-cultural experience came with an alternative service tour in Austria with Pax, a program of created in response to the reinstatement of the military draft in the United States after the start of the Korean War. Glick helped to launch Goshen’s Study-Service Term in 1968 and led a year of this program (1969-70) in Guadeloupe, FWI.
•  has led the local context cross-cultural and groups to the U.S./Mexico border, Guatemala and Cuba, often with his wife, Professor Deanna Durham;
• , psychology professor, has led groups to India, where she spent many years as a teenager;
•  is a professor of history and director of the Washington D.C.-based , housed in the Nelson Good House in the Brookland neighborhood. She has also led two groups to Europe.

Audience members included faculty and staff alumni who had experienced cross-culturals themselves as students, faculty and staff trip leaders, prospective leaders, and one faculty member, speaking for many others, who said he was “jealous … When do we get to go?”

Challenging changes: technology and globalization

The first broad theme to be discussed was notable changes over the years. Technology came up several times. Instead of leaving behind their family friends, students have access to phones and computers, which leaders say can be a distraction and even a destabilizing presence.

“It’s difficult for the experience to be an immersive one,” said Brenneman.

This accessibility also impacts parental demands and expectations: “Some parents think that because their child can contact them every day, that they should be talking or Skyping every day, and when they don’t, that becomes a challenge for the student,” one panelist said.

Peachey also mentioned creeping globalization: for example, visiting an American-style mall in Guatemala “can make you think you’re in Bethesda, Maryland.”

At WCSC, Washington D.C.’s rapid gentrification has changed the demographics and diversity of the area. Schmidt, a longtime D.C. resident, points out that when she first started as director in 1999, the city had more than 70 percent African American residents; that number has fallen to just over 50 percent.

She pointed out, though, that the cross-cultural experience is very much shaped by the choices of the leader. For example, one could visit Germany with students, as she did this summer, and completely ignore the current refugee crisis. Her students did not; they interacted with Syrian refugees. “It’s all in how you teach it and what you expose your students to,” she said.

Defining and measuring ‘success’

Professor emeritus Ervie Glick posed a question about measurement of success to his fellow panelists. “There is no test afterwards,” he pointed out, adding that the extensive journaling required of student-travelers often provides a window into unwitnessed and subtle changes to student worldviews.

Burkholder said a “growth in empathy” was a quality she considered to be a favorable measurement. One group of students, when visiting a poor area of a South American city, showed increased awareness of how their presence might be perceived negatively by residents.

Brenneman shared an anecdote of two students who became lost in Kolkutta —“one of the safest cities in Asia” — and eventually, using broken Hindi, found their way back, exhilarated by their new-found confidence.

Within a day of arriving at WCSC, Schmidt says students are sent on a scavenger hunt around the nation’s capital, using any combination of public transportation to visit known and not-so-known places. The tradition builds confidence in a very tangible way.

“In our culture, there’s not enough opportunities for proving themselves and taking risks and having an adventure,” said Peachey, theorizing about what makes the cross-cultural program such a transformational experience for undergraduate students. “I think that’s one of the big draws.”

More on 91����Ƶ’s cross-cultural program

• Visit a to see the program’s history of travel and immersion around the world.
• Learn more about 91����Ƶ’s cross-cultural requirement and visit the cross-cultural blog.
• Read more about to Europe, Bolivia, Navajo Nation and Spain.
• The explored Anabaptist and Reformation history, with special attention to women’s history and to sites in Austria.
• The first in fall 2016, led by Professor and his wife Amanda, attended 35 plays, visited 38 theaters, and produced their own dramatic piece about the different stages of cultural integration.

The final blessing, offered by Undergraduate Campus Pastor , included a prayer for each attendee, the students from all faiths and backgrounds who would begin arriving on campus that day, and — in acknowledgement of — for courage to confront “systems of racism that destroy rather than build the Kingdom of God.”

This year’s theme — “Expanding the Legacy, Enlarging the Tent” — emphasized integrating 91����Ƶ’s history and traditions with a vision for its second century; the conference also officially launched 91����Ƶ’s celebrations.

Strong vision

President donned three different types of eyewear during her keynote address to illustrate the “special kind of seeing we do in Anabaptist Mennonite schools … more clearly, deeply and widely.” [Listen to the .]

91����Ƶ is well-poised with “strong vision and high purpose” for the future, she said.

Merging perspectives of hindsight and foresight with Anabaptist-inspired insight, she noted 91����Ƶ’s strong and vibrant historic legacy; a robust, holistic and distinctive education that includes cross-cultural study and faith formation; and a cohesive, faith-filled community of faculty and staff.

“We have just begun to promote a vibrant future of counter-cultural Mennonite education, one that prepares our students for relevant and in-demand careers and meaningful spiritual lives shaped by the reconciling love of Jesus,” Huxman said.

While praising 91����Ƶ’s entrepreneurial spirit, epitomized in pioneering professor emeritus and philanthropist Margaret “Speedy” Martin Gehman and Alumnus of the Year , Huxman noted new academic offerings: the program, offered collaboratively with Goshen (Indiana) College, as well as the new four-year and a neuroscience minor.

Approximately 380 new and returning employees participated. The fall semester begins Monday, Aug. 28.

 Many voices

A panel of respondents to Huxman’s speech included , , and . The final session of storytelling, a much-loved tradition, included , , , and .

Special guest Donald B. Kraybill provided a one-hour preview of his forthcoming Centennial history, 91����Ƶ: One Hundred Years of Counter-Cultural Education (Penn State Press, 2017) to be released at the Oct. 13-15 .

Four breakout sessions highlighted influential programs, themes and concepts:

• — Professors and traced the history of racial-ethnic diversity at 91����Ƶ, with special attention to current diversity trends and shifting paradigms. They asked, “How could and should paradigms and power structures shift? How can and should our new diversity help us more fully understand and realize the radical nature of our Anabaptist values?” Click here to .

• Drinking in Knowledge at the Source: 91����Ƶ’s Cross Cultural Program — A panel of five experienced cross-cultural program leaders discussed one of 91����Ƶ’s most unique academic programs and included , professor and interim cross-cultural program director; , program assistant; , emeritus professor; , cross-cultural leader and adjunct instructor; and professors and .
• Creating a Beloved Community at 91����Ƶ: Organizational Culture as Blessing and Barrier — Professor discussed culture and sub-culture identities as both assets and liabilities. He invited the group to list both blessings and barriers to 91����Ƶ’s culture (and multiple sub cultures), noting that you must first understand your own organizational culture before you can interpret for — and thus fully integrate — newcomers.
• “Thy Word is Truth”: Old Song, New Tune — Professor , associate dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and Professor discussed “word” and “truth” as the biblical writer imagined these words, and engaged with ways that the motto speaks to 91����Ƶ at 100 years.

In a recent blog post, Payne reflected her own growth as she ‘mimicks’ her experienced guides and then steps off on her own.

As a child, I played follow the leader. I mimicked the actions of others for fun.

As a college student, I find myself in a very similar situation. This cross-cultural is an extreme game of follow the leader.

Our leaders, Kim and Seth, model how to function in contemporary Europe. They guide us through cities and on public transportation. They gladly share their wisdom and calm our nerves. We follow. We learn by example.

These times of mimicking prepare us for times of independence. Almost daily we are given opportunities to explore or assignments to find specific locations. This is when the roles reverse. My peers and I will take turns directing, learning through practice.

Although this ever-changing game of follow the leader is fun and challenging, it has a specific focus. We are tracing the paths of our Anabaptist roots.

Besides the “Radical Europe” tour of Anabaptist sites in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, 91����Ƶ cross-cultural groups are in Bolivia, the Navajo Nation and Spain.

• The Bolivia group is led by Brian Martin Burkholder, campus pastor, and Linda Martin Burkholder, cross-cultural program assistant.
• The Navajo Nation group is led by Gloria Rhodes, chair of the applied social sciences department, and Jim Yoder, biology professor.
• The Spain group is led by Professor Adriana Rojas, of the language and literature department, her husband Patrick Campbell, and Barbara Byer, the department’s administrative assistant.

The 91����Ƶ cross-cultural experience, which has been part of the curriculum for more than 30 years, is very different from the typical “study abroad” program. Approximately 68 percent of all 91����Ƶ graduates go on an international cross-cultural trip; the remaining students fulfill the cross-cultural requirement exploring the vast diversity here in the United States. Most graduates name their cross-cultural experience as a significant part of their 91����Ƶ education.

Trips are led by faculty members who have deep roots in the countries and communities where groups travel. As an example of these deep roots, nearly 20 faculty and staff are “Third Culture Kids,” who spent significant years of their youth in another country/countries. Some 20 countries on six different continents are represented tin these experiences. Most 91����Ƶ faculty and staff have also lived and worked abroad for significant periods of time.

Upcoming cross-cultural trips include:

• Israel/Palestine, fall 2018, with Bill Goldberg, director of the Summer Peacebuilding Insitute, and Lisa Schirch, research professor at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding;
• Guatemala and Cuba, spring 2018, with Byron Peachey, academic advocacy program adviser, and Lisa King, instructor in the nursing department;
• India, spring 2018, Kim G. Brenneman, psychology professor, and her husband, Bob Brenneman;
• Kenya, summer 2018, with Roxy Allen Kioko, professor of business, and her husband, Felix Kioko;
• Paraguay, summer 2018, with Greta Anne Herin, professor of biology, and Laura Yoder, professor of nursing;
• Marginal(ized) Europe: Bulgaria and Greece, summer 2018, with Andrew White, professor of English, and his wife, Daria White;
• Lithuania, summer 2018, with Jerry Holsopple, professor in the visual and communication arts department;
• , offered each semester in Washington D.C. allows for immersion into urban culture, while acquiring valuable work experience in an internship.

Suddenly the father found himself, his girlfriend, and his child in a homeless shelter. He had no money for transportation to seek help from social services. After two weeks, they were forced to leave the shelter as well – and once out on the streets, were picked up by the police and put in jail. The father was able to pay bail and return to the work force, leaving his family behind while he saved money.

“I figured since they had shelter and hot meals, and that was a better situation than being on the streets,” he explained.

The father was a character, played by student Kayley Argenbright, as part of the poverty simulations staged in late October at 91����Ƶ. More than 40 students participated.

“My goal for the event was for the students to have a better understanding of low income families and the struggles they deal with,” said Cristin Sprenger, a agent who coordinated the exercise with , student advisor for . [To learn more about VCE poverty simulations, click .]

Frustration, anxiety surface after activity

Students, grouped into “families” with specific obstacles and backgrounds, had to meet certain quotas of working, feeding their children, paying bills, meeting medical needs, and managing transportation by visiting different stations around the room. Every 15 minutes represented a week, with four weeks in the simulation followed by a debriefing.

Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards were filled and ran out, the pawn shop was booming in furniture but refused to buy microwaves, and the bank service was slow and swathed in red tape. Children were left in daycare when their parents could not afford transportation vouchers. Chairs, representing homes, were overturned with eviction signs – often illegally. Interfaith services had extra transportation, food, and clothing vouchers to disperse, but only two families were aware of that resource. The schoolteacher spoke only Spanish.

The simulation was realistic enough that in the debriefing, students voiced frustration and anxiety. Only one family paid for the minimum food necessary during all four weeks. Three people admitted to doing something “illegal.” No family paid their rent in full, on time, every time.

“It is never one thing at a time” that causes poverty, said volunteer , an assistant in the cross-cultural program who acted as the Department of Social Services. “Things layer up.”

Burkholder came to her role with life experience: the impoverished people she met while working in a community development agency were beset by several misfortunes at once – disabilities, injuries, teenage pregnancies, car failures.

Sprenger wanted students to be realize that this “layering-up” effect can happen to anyone. “My hope is that they will take this experience with them as they enter the workforce and be understanding of the people that they work with in the community.”

Difficult choices

Nursing student Rebecca Powell, who played a young homeless mother, said that the simulation brought these common difficulties to life. “In the future I hope to be able to make a difference and touch the lives of the patients that I encounter by delving into their personal lives,” said Powell, “seeing them … in a more holistic view – spiritually, mentally, physically, socially.”

Ry Bergum, also of the nursing program, played the father struggling to care for his family and a mother-in-law. Bergum comes from a background in which this is not uncommon, but saw the impact of this exercise on his classmates’ faces.

“The vast majority of the time, it is not a red or a blue issue,” said Bergum about the tendency to view poverty in terms of policy rather than people. But, he explained, when poverty is seen only as a partisan issue, “the victims in that are the impoverished people in our society.”

“It is real life,” answered Sprenger. “People make the best decisions that they can. Sometimes they’re choosing between food and medication.”

And in that case, Kayley Argenbright added, “There’s no right thing to do [in that situation].”

An annual and favorite tradition among the 91����Ƶ community is a trip to Sprague’s Barbershop in downtown Harrisonburg, where Tyrone Sprague gives haircuts along with lively conversation on the sixth floor of a Court Square building. Sunlight streamed in through lacy beige curtains as a group of 91����Ƶ students filed in to learn and discuss the history of racism in Harrisonburg.

“America’s original sin is that America was established as a white society,” with slavery being a key foundation of the nation, said visit facilitator Stan Maclin, vice president of the Northeast Neighborhood Association, a community group working to keep that area of Harrisonburg clean, safe, and crime-free.

In the 1950s and 60s, the northeast corner of Harrisonburg – where Rose’s and Autozone are now – was a bustling neighborhood of black culture and business. Then came Project R4. Cities across the country were given the opportunity to receive development funds for “urban renewal” projects in areas labeled as slums. Harrisonburg’s black neighborhood was declared eminent domain, residents were displaced, and their land sold to commercial developers.

Maclin cited King’s “Beyond Vietnam” address in response to structural racism such as Project R4: “I am convinced,” King wrote, “that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.”

Sprague, giving a haircut during the visit, said that he sees this “revolution of values” happening in younger generations. Across different ethnicities, “they eat together, they laugh together, they go dancing together. In the 1960s and 70s, you didn’t see that,” said Sprague, who grew up in Farmville, Virginia. Sprague remembers that his mother – and white culture – taught him to fear repercussions for looking a white woman in the eyes if he passed her on the street.

The celebration also brought visitors to the 91����Ƶ campus and the local community, including The Rev. Dr. Nikita Okembe-Ra Imani, a prominent poet, hip-hop artist, musician, and black history scholar from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Speaking at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a Sunday service, Imani credited King’s confidence in the face of such ingrained mistrust to his faith in God. When we see “mayhem and destruction, the kind of sickness without compassion,” said Imani, “the world is calling for the people of confidence.” King’s ideology and strategies were direct results of his pacifistic Christianity, Imani explained. “The system had tanks. The system had batons … the system had financial power. King had the Word.”

At the next day’s MLK Day chapel service, Imani called all Christians to join together. Cultures of violence, he said, are ultimately impotent before Christians, who “bring power and brotherhood where there is hatred and malevolence.”

Accompanying Imani to Bethel AME and also during the on-campus MLK Day service was the 91����Ƶ gospel choir and newly installed Harrisonburg mayor Chris Jones.

Jones, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), led an afternoon community program at Lucy Simms Center (formerly Lucy Simms School, this segregated school taught area black children from 1939-1966).

The program included two songs by the MLK Celebration Choir. 91����Ƶ members of this community group included campus chaplain , program assistant , and , of .

Thomas co-chaired the MLK Celebration planning committee with student Christian Parks. The committee wanted to “create a celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. by concentrating on who he was as a person as well as what he did for our country,” she said.

“The hope is that King’s vision and dream can inspire more dreams and more efforts,” said Parks. “In the gathered beloved community, I believe we can dream an America that truly finds the beauty in all things.”

The basics about cross-cultural

Each academic year 91����Ƶ offers three or four semester-long cross-cultural programs to destinations all over the world. At some point during their time in college, slightly over half of all 91����Ƶ students study overseas for a semester. Additionally, up to a half dozen three- to six-week programs are offered every summer.

Between the two options, a large majority of students at 91����Ƶ study abroad to fulfill its requirement for cross-cultural education, and the remainder have a supervised cross-cultural experience nearer to home. It’s a distinctive, long-standing and wildly popular part of the curriculum.

“We overwhelmingly hear from alumni that this is one of the best things that they did as an undergraduate because of the life experience and the self-understanding that they gain, the perspective [and] the language skills,” says , assistant to .

After surveying several dozen students recently returned from an overseas cross-cultural, we’ve compiled a list of the most common reasons students look back on the experience as one of the best of their college years.

1. Gain new self-confidence

Getting from A to B in a strange place is part of every cross-cultural, and students find it’s a fantastic way to build confidence in their abilities to navigate new life situations.

“After riding many trains, planes, and automobiles – and one camel – I now have the confidence and know-how to travel by myself to just about any destination,” says Emma King ’15.

Nursing major Afton Vanderwarker ’15 says being “able to function completely independently for the first time in my life on our week of free travel … showed me how much I’m capable of and that I really can go anywhere and do anything in the world.”

2. Learn a language

Many cross-culturals include formal language study as well as an immersion experience with another language. There’s no better way to learn.

“I left knowing zero Spanish and returned able to speak enough to have conversations with host families and most people I met on the street,” says Alex Witmer ’15.

3. Make new friendships from home that will last forever

“I left the U.S. with a group of strangers and came back with a family,” says Rebekah Graham ’13.

Expect to form tight, long-lasting bonds with the other students in your group. Emma King ’15 explains why: “They were the ones who helped you carry your bag up a mountain. They ate the same sketchy looking soup with the unidentifiable green stuff in it that you did. They can now speak a foreign language just as badly as you can and laugh along with you when you accidentally ask a shop owner for a kiss rather than asking for their attention. They know all your embarrassing digestion stories. They are the people that know you at your best and at your worst.”

4. Form friendships abroad, gaining insights into the world

“I am still in contact with people from Syria to Palestine that I met through home stays and our living experiences, as well as [having] connections with people from places such as Guam and Ukraine that I made during free travel,” says ’13.

Syria and Ukraine have been spending a lot of time in the international headlines lately; Nafziger’s contacts there have given him greater understanding of the events putting those countries in the media spotlight.

5. Expand your food horizons

Chances are good you’ll eat things you’ve never heard of before (e.g., chocobananos), and maybe things you’d never considered food before (e.g., chicken feet). And, chances are good, you’ll be very glad you had the opportunity.

“The street food which we were warned not to eat was the best food I’ve ever had in my life,” says Vanderwarker. “I’d fly back for street food.”

6. Do things you couldn’t possibly do at home

Hike Spain’s Camino de Santiago! Swim with sea lion pups! Tour the Colombian countryside by motorcycle! Students come back from their cross-cultural with memories to last a lifetime.

“I got to visit Hobbiton [movie set in New Zealand], which was the greatest day of my life,” says Bonnie Fisher ’14.

Kaitlin Heatwole ’11 spent her free-travel hiking a section of the Israel National Trail, hampered by a lack of English-language maps. The best one she and her friends could find wasn’t great – imagine using a road atlas to hike the Appalachian Trail – and they did indeed go a bit astray. But gummy bear candy kept spirits high and they made it to the end intact, on time, and the better for it.

7. Change your life forever, and for the better

Talk to students who have been on a cross-cultural, and you’ll hear some variation of this over and over:

“This semester abroad marked one of the greatest times of my life – challenging, but beautiful,” says Annie Dutcher ’08. “My time in Guatemala and Mexico was completely life-altering in all the best ways. I credit 91����Ƶ and this trip with opening my eyes to life outside of the U.S.”

Here are a few more take-aways:

“Even now, almost 15 months after returning to the U.S., I continue to strive for that sense of profound engagement with the world around me that I felt while on cross-cultural, and struggle to find ways to step outside of comfortable American life.” – Meg Smeltzer Miller ’13

“I learned how to choose to be content in each and every situation, no matter how difficult.” – Caitlyn Suttles ’13

“It did make me more reflective and thoughtful in my daily life. I don’t go a day without thinking of Honduras and the struggles those people face each and everyday.” – Patrick Campbell ’12, MA ’14

“If you want to leave college feeling like you’ve learned something and changed who you are in the best ways, cross cultural is the path you want to take. It’s a struggle but every moment – the hours in language class, the weight gain, the homesickness – is totally worth every penny and drop of sweat.” – Lani Prunés ’14

More info about cross-cultural

Learn more about cross-cultural study abroad at 91����Ƶ on the program website,��student blogs and our .