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Study Away Fair Presents Global-Education Opportunities—Including a Caribbean Class With President Krise
Study Away Fair Presents Global-Education Opportunities—Including a Caribbean Class With President Krise
By Matthew Salzano ’18
PLU Marketing & Communications
TACOMA, Wash. (March 11, 2015)—Pacific Lutheran University students and faculty alike were excited by the opportunities showcased at the Wang Center for Global and Community Engaged Education’s Study Away Fair on March 11.
At the event in the Anderson University Center Regency Room, PLU faculty, staff and students hosted and toured tables featuring displays on upcoming travel opportunities, including a 2016 January-Term trip to the Caribbean hosted by PLU President Thomas W. Krise and Nancy Albers-Miller, Dean of the School of Business .
The course takes place over 22 days with stops including San Juan, Puerto Rico; Roseau, Dominica; and St. George’s, Grenada. Students can choose to study the marketing and business structures of the locations with Miller in a Business course (BUSA 308/489) or the literature and history of the Caribbean with Krise in an English Literature course (ENGL 216).
Their paths will cross each time they visit a new location—a total of 18 stops, Krise said. Students from the Business class will brief traveling Lutes about the markets they are about to enter, and English-minded students will explain history and culture.
While Krise has visited Lutes abroad throughout his tenure at PLU, this will be the first course he teaches abroad. Krise went to high school in the Virgin Islands, and one of his academic specialties is early Caribbean literature. He is excited to experience this with students and, in turn, connect with them on the trip.
“This will be great to be able to bring students to the place that I’ve been studying and living in for a long time,” he said.
Students attended the Study Away fair for a lot of different reasons. Many, like Samantha Lund ’17, came to check out a specific trip—she was interested in Hal DeLaRosby’s COMA 235/493 J-Term course in London.
Others were brought by classes.
“I’m here because my teacher cancelled class and made us come,” Kerri Selk ’16 said, “but I’m super excited. I’m looking at the Uruguay trip because I want to get back into Spanish.”
Some students had finished their Study Away experiences and were at the fair to encourage others to do the same. Aubrey Frimoth ’15 studied in Trinidad and Tobago in Spring 2014 and “woman-ed” (as opposed to “manned”) the display for Spring 2016.
She hopes future Lutes abroad can learn as much from Study Away as she did.
“It’s an eye-opening experience,” Frimoth said. “It really allows you to reflect on yourself and grow as a person.”