Teaching across the pond

Hana Johnson is no stranger to international travel.

The University of Idaho assistant professor first studied abroad in London, England, during her undergrad at the University of Washington. 

While pursuing her master’s of business administration at the University of California Los Angeles, she again went overseas, learning in Barcelona, Spain.

After coming to Moscow in 2015, Johnson, who specializes in management and human resources, said she started to look for other international opportunities at the land-grant college.

Through the International Programs Office, she received a Faculty International Development Award (FIDA), which allowed her to again learn in a foreign country — Bilbao, Spain — for summer 2016. 

Johnson said she enjoyed the experience so much she decided to apply for a visiting professorship through the University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC) — a position she was awarded that next summer in Torino, Italy.

“I’ve always been passionate about studying abroad, and I think it’s a really important experience for students,” she said. “It’s so important to be able to work cross-culturally with other people and understand cultural differences. … It’s just experience you can’t learn what you learn there any other way. It’s just amazing when you see another culture and live in it.”

This upcoming summer, Johnson is set to travel to Chiang Mai, Thailand, teaching international organizational behavior. She recently received an additional USAC professorship, which will allow her to travel to Heredia, Costa Rica, next year.

Through teaching abroad, Johnson said she can better teach her courses at UI because she can provide students with more international aspects and examples — one of the primary reasons why she continues to apply for these opportunities. A sentiment echoed by her colleague, Dan Eveleth.

Eveleth, who also works in the UI College of Business and Economics, received a FIDA through the International Programs Office, as well. He and his wife, Lori Baker-Eveleth — a UI professor of management information systems — spent a summer learning in Torino, Italy. 

After, the couple decided to return to Torino, but this time as instructors. Eveleth, who also studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark, while attending Washington State University for his bachelor’s degree, said they joined forces and taught a class together.

“One thing about being a professor in these places and a student is you just have a home base. So, you unpack your stuff and you live someplace, then you go out to other places. It’s a different feeling from just being a tourist and traveling around,” Eveleth said. “It also teaches you empathy. You go abroad and then you realize things like, ‘Oh, now, I see things through other people’s lives, and the world really is different.’”

He plans to return to Italy in summer 2020 to teach in Verona. 

Like Johnson and Eveleth, Rachel Halverson not only received a visiting professorship with USAC next year, but studied abroad during her undergrad, as well as in high school.  

Halverson, chair of the UI Modern Languages and Cultures Department, spent time in Ireland as a teenager. Her time across the pond inspired her to learn a language, which led to her eventual career as a professor.  

“Study abroad, for me, was the turning point in my life,” said Halverson, who teaches German. “I just feel very strongly that education abroad is very important. It does not mean that you’re going to want to spend the rest of your life living in a different country. But if you really want to understand how your own country works, it is a fabulous way to do that — to see new places, new ideas, things that make you simply look at the world in a different way.”

Originally from North Dakota, Halverson said studying abroad wasn’t common for her family. However, she would end up doing it more than once.

While enrolled at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, Halverson said she traveled to Erlangen, Germany — the first of many experiences in that country.

“I felt very strongly that learning languages and helping other people learn languages was a way to make the world a better place. … We need things that take us — and I include myself in this — out of our world, out of our comfort zone, and make us see things in a very different light. I think that’s what languages and study abroad can do,” Halverson said. “It makes us better global citizens.”

She will teach in Luneburg, Germany, for USAC — an opportunity Halverson said was appealing because the program takes care of the bulk of the necessary logistics, allowing professors to really concentrate on their course and interacting with students. Her course will focus on nature and sustainability. 

“I really loved being in Germany, and I wanted a job that would allow me to go back — this job has allowed me do just that,” she said. 

Leontina Hormel also wanted a job that would allow her to travel internationally, learning more about foreign countries and their economic development.

The UI Department of Sociology and Anthropology professor said she spent time in Soviet Russia as an undergraduate and later conducted survey work there. Although fluent in Russian, Hormel hopes to continue expanding her linguistic repertoire.  

“I’m very happy I know Russian and I’ve done a lot with it, but I’ve been really trying to think creatively how in the midst of doing all the other work I do as a professor to make time to be in a structured environment where Spanish language is spoken, where I have an opportunity for emersion and also to use that experience to figure out how to enliven and enrich what I already teach,” Hormel said. “(Studying or teaching abroad) helps you attach what you see to the words you use. So, language is a different way of seeing, but when you can actually see how theses cultures communicate it in day-to-day life on top of that, there’s no way you can do that.”

Her solution? A visiting USAC professorship in Havana, Cuba.

Having previously taught for the organization in Alicante, Spain, three years ago, Hormel said she was able to provide her students with real world examples, bettering her UI courses — a reason why she applied again similar to Johnson. 

Eventually, each professors’ next step will be to recruit UI students to travel with them to these foreign places.

Johnson said she believes having university instructors at overseas institutions can encourage students to then apply for study abroad opportunities there.

“One of the core purpose of the visiting professorship program is when those faculty come back, they’ve obviously had this amazing experience teaching and living in another country and they are going to translate that enthusiasm and excitement to the students,” Bob Neuenschwander said. “Students who study abroad and faculty who take part in these visiting professorships — and also the FIDA program — they say, “This is one of the best things I’ve done professionally in my career at the University of Idaho.’ It truly is transformative.”

Neuenschwander, director of International Grants and Initiatives with the UI International Programs Office, specifically assists professors who want to apply for these opportunities.

On these applications, Neuenschwander said professors indicate their top program locations and potential course ideas, tying the class as much as possible to that specific region or country. Each USAC site also has a specific theme, he said, such as an emphasis on humanities or social sciences.

Faculty interested in applying for USAC visiting professorships should contact Neuenschwander. For 2021 to 2022, the application deadline is Dec. 2.

“What they gain from this experience will ultimately help them internationalize UI and raise its status as a leader in global education in the state of Idaho and nationally,” he said. “We are a really globally orientated institution, and in this day and age, when everything is really globally connected, that’s a real selling point.”

Olivia Heersink can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @heersinkolivia