teaching the teachers

by Sara Horn

The realization that she is now in a different world strikes her hard as she passes through passport control into the waiting area where she is expecting to meet her escort. Women, veiled from head to toe, stand waiting for their respective someone, seemingly silent statues – invisible bystanders – a sharp contrast from the hugs and enthusiastic greetings the men are giving one another on the other side of the room. A good reminder to keep physical touching at bay for awhile, the usually affectionate professor thinks to herself. She walks towards the man holding a sign that reads “Livingstone.”

A global awareness
With the arrival of the 21st century and significant advances in telecommunication and internet technology occurring almost daily, the world as we know it is getting smaller. Buzzwords like ‘global view’ are gradually seeping into our streams of vocabulary and with it, an awareness and perhaps an awakening of just what that means. Now, more than ever, the Institute for International and Intercultural Studies at Union University is working to provide both faculty and students opportunities to experience other cultures, and in return, share a little of their own.

“Because we are who we are, we’re extremely well received in universities around the world,” says Cindy Jayne, professor of language and director of the institute. “We’re fortunate to have highly qualified faculty and excellent students with a strong willingness to work as partners at other institutions around the world. Of all the things I know that the international academic community would like to see, that’s the thing they want most – the opportunity to dialogue, work and share intellectual experiences with one another.”

More than 61 students and 26 faculty have traveled overseas in the last two years for academic endeavors. This doesn’t include the many that have participated in spring and summer international mission trips.

Jayne says it’s the values that the mission of Union represents – commitment, excellence, integrity, moral and ethical values – that have been welcome in every university’s country with which Union has begun programs or participated in partnerships. This includes China, Spain, Morocco, France, Canada, England, Thailand, Syria, Honduras and Tunisia.

“Lots of people (universities) are given opportunities [to go overseas to other universities] – but we’re consistently invited to return,” says Jayne. “We’ve kept our promises.”

After a good night’s sleep at the hotel where she is staying, Ann Livingstone is taken to the city of Homs, two hours north of Damascus. Along the barren stretch of two-lane highway, she takes in the sights and sounds that pass.

“You see shepherds with herds of sheep and goats, you see Beduoins living in their tents, buildings half constructed, you see towns that spring up from nowhere and vanish as you pass them by,” says Livingstone.

As she approaches Homs, a blue-collar area of Syria that specializes in petrochemicals and refineries, she notices that the trees begin to take on a 45-degree angle, a result of the wind which blows so strong across the sterile dust that was once soil. She is deposited at the Homs Grand Hotel where she is left on her own to wait. A professor will soon pick her up and take her to the university where she will teach six hours a day for the next six days.

To China and back
Four Union faculty participated this summer in a visiting faculty program to the eastern part of the world through the English Language Institute of China, an organization dedicated to sending Christian Englishspeaking men and women to teach their language and make a difference in the lives in which they come in contact. While Jan Wilms, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and associate professor of computer science, and Pam Sutton, associate professor of English, seemed to have very different experiences, they each came away with similar lessons.

Wilms, who is himself from Belgium, would consider himself a seasoned traveler, having visited Thailand, his wife’s home country, as well as Japan, Canada, Africa, and just about everywhere in Europe.

Assigned to teach at the university in Hohhot, the regional capital of Inner Mongolia, Wilms was not so much concerned about the difference in culture such as food or clothing, but in values.

“The lectures I taught were all based on web design and computer ethics,” says Wilms. “China is one of those countries where their sense of intellectual property is quite different then from over here [in the U.S.],” he explains, referring to the standard policy that the Chinese government has on monitoring email and other forms of communication that its citizens participate in.

When Cindy Jayne, director of Union’s Institute for International and Intercultural Studies at Union, first began teaching Spanish at the university more than 25 years ago, little more was done in the way of international experiences than the occasional standard study trip that was led by an energetic and enthusiastic faculty member. Times have certainly changed. “When the short term mission trips began to be popular (in the early nineties), we had some opportunities to be involved,” recalls Jayne. “The first Honduras trip in particular became very important because several student nurses went and out of that interest, a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't be involved in international travel began to understand what impact it would have on students.” A committee was formed which began to take a hard look at what the possibilities could be and ways that faculty were addressing international issues in their classrooms. Over a five to six-year period, the realization that international studies would play a vital role in the lives of Union students was made, and the Institute was formed, originally as a Center for International Studies in 1996. Jayne is credited by many others as the positive force and the reason why the Institute came about, but she gives the credit to others and attributes her passion for international cultures to her parents, a Mississippi native couple who until they were adults, had never had an opportunity to travel out of the state, besides the country. “As early I can remember, they traveled internationally,” recalls Jayne. “I can still recall the stories they told us when they came back.” Jayne says it was always important to her parents that their four children have opportunities to travel, and she can still remember her first trip she took by herself to Ecuador, helping some family friends who were missionaries by conducting a Vacation Bible School during a mission meeting. “It must have made an enormous impact on me, because after studying German for five years, I immediately switched to Spanish when I returned,” Jayne laughs, adding that it was very important to her parents that they all speak other languages. “My parents felt very passionately that the world was changing in ways that made it important for countries to understand one another – to be more aware of what people were like, and how they thought,” says Jayne. “We still keep in touch with international friends we got to know through my parents’ various trips abroad.” Jayne admits that she is excited and proud about what is happening at Union. “Not only do we have current students who are excited about international opportunities, but more and more prospective students are looking at us because we have these opportunities,” says Jayne. “We have faculty who are enthusiastic about developing international programs that are geared to the program offerings. That's exciting.” Administrative support has also been very helpful. “I find that in so many institutions that whatever is done internationally is done almost strictly as extracurricular activities by a few dedicated faculty,” says Jayne. “We are so fortunate to have funds that are committed to this and to have very real administrative support where our efforts to develop international programs are acknowledged. That's excellent.”

Pam Sutton had different challenges. Her first trip overseas, she was excited for the opportunity but found herself relying on creativity in order to overcome the language barriers she discovered with her students. Her assignment – the Qufu Teacher’s University in Qufu, China in the Shandong Province, which has an enrollment of more than 15,000 students.

“I was only the second visiting professor that university had ever had,” recalls Sutton. “Personally, this was a huge opportunity for me – I’ve always felt a little overwhelmed when my students at Union have had more experience traveling outside the U.S. than I. Now that I’ve traveled over there, I feel I can relate better.”

Sutton gave five lectures, all on the English language and literature, to more than 100 faculty and students each night. The students there were eager to hear her stories about America, as well as her family and students back home.

“That Tuesday night, I gave my second lecture and showed pictures of my family, friends and Union,” recalls Sutton. “All of the female students ‘ahhed.’ I started noticing that I was not using contractions but more synonyms for every English word I wasn’t sure that the students would understand.”

While the buildings at Inner Mongolia Electric Power University where Wilms taught for a week were rapidly aging and decrepit, the computer labs were amazingly up-to-date.

“It was a little unnerving trying to use the Chinese version of Windows and Office – everything was in Chinese characters,” recalls Wilms, shaking his head at the memory with a chuckle.

Both Sutton and Wilms say their recent experiences were powerful ones and they’ve both applied to participate in the program next year – this time, in Vietnam.

“I told my students before I left,” says Sutton, “I will never look at the phrase ‘made in China’ the same way again – that’s what education and experience does for us – it opens our eyes.”

Livingstone, or “Dr. Ann” or “Teacher Ann” as her Syrian students are calling her, has met with her class of 15 students every day now for almost a week. The students who are faculty at the Institute for Foreign Languages at Al-Baath are primarily concerned with how to better teach English to their classes, made up of 200 to 300 senior faculty members. Basher Al- Assad, the president of Syria, has determined that American-style English will be taught to everyone beginning in the first grade.

“This is where it is so interesting for me,” says Livingstone. “Here on one hand, there is a desire to move into the Western environment, but for every desire like that, there is that powerful fundamental religion that is unwilling to give up those cultural identity markers – it’s very hard for a 23-year-old to be teaching a senior faculty member something new – even a new language such as English.”

Many of the students bring their master’s work to her to critique and give guidance which she takes very seriously. One afternoon, she fields questions.

“Do all Americans hate Arabs?” a student asks.

“Can you go to the president and ask him to change foreign policy?” questions another.

“Do all Americans wear cowboy hats?”

“All of these were serious questions,” says Livingstone. “What they get from us is CNN, reject movies and music. There’s as much mythology about who we are to them as about who they are to us.”

Points of connection
Walt Padelford, interim dean of the School of Business and professor of economics, has traveled extensively on both mission and academic trips to Latin America. His office is filled with artifacts, brightly colored blankets and 3-D art he has brought back with him from his various trips. He says he has always been a big supporter of the work that Cindy Jayne and the International Studies area has done and continues to do.

“I think the work they do is important because in my way of thinking, until Christ comes back, I believe that the world economy and just people movements in general are going to be more interconnected,” says Padelford. “Americans are working in more countries around the world and, likewise, more people are working in the U.S. You get all of these kinds of intercultural relationships in which our students are going to be engaged.”

Padelford points out the number of graduate students he teaches in the MBA program who come up to tell him they’re going to be absent for a few days.

“There’s always two or three who come up and say I’m going to be in Japan for a few days, or Germany, maybe England – it’s already happening. American workers are already spending a lot of time in other countries,” says Padelford.

“The more I travel, the more deeply I believe that we must understand that the world is in a state where there is tremendous movement,” says Jayne, “more than any other time in history. We must develop a way of communicating with each other and finding grounds for respect for each other that allows us to develop a different way to relate. I don’t think we can do that if we isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and each other.”

Her time at Al-Baath University now drawing to an end, Livingstone takes her students to lunch before she leaves to participate in a lecture and panel series two hours away in Damascus for the remainder of her time in Syria. She is surprised by the gifts that they have brought her.

“It was very humbling and to a certain degree it made me very sad, because I knew many couldn’t afford it,” says Livingstone.

One woman couldn’t afford to buy anything so she gave her teacher a fan that she owned – it was old and stained and frayed around the edges but it was something that belonged to her and she gave it – with the whisper “please do not forget me.”

Another student who Livingstone will hate to leave is Manal – a young woman who keeps her head covered, a tiny, timid, fair-skinned and blue-eyed Arabic girl, with beautiful English and strong critical thinking skills.

Livingstone tells her she would love for her to come and study at Union.

“My father is dead, my mother is very fond of me and my uncle said I cannot,” the young woman smiles sadly. “Please do not forget me, Dr. Ann.”

The political science professor knows that the experiences she has had during her 18-day trip will be brought back with her, spilling over into her classroom and class discussions of issues of development and policies of the state, international relations and Middle East affairs.

“It’s no longer abstract, it’s very real,” says Livingstone. “If nothing else, it’s aroused my intentions and passions far more. Now if we talk about war in the Middle East or attacking somewhere like Syria, I know people who are there.”

“I have friends who live there.”