Molly Ivey ’20 and Kylee Dickinson ’19 couldn’t be on the water training with their teammates in the fall, but discovering the indoor rowing machine at a gym in Oslo, Norway, was a start.

Despite the solid strategy, Ivey still missed working out alongside her teammates. “It’s hard knowing that you’re not doing the exact same workout,” she said. “I’m really nervous that I’m going to be out of shape.”

Being so far away, she also missed the opportunities for team bonding and camaraderie.

“Team dynamic, that’s what I miss the most,” she said at the time, adding that she especially missed the early mornings watching the sunrise over American Lake.

“It’s hard being away from that,” she said, sitting on the bed in her Oslo apartment. “The 5:30 start is death, but it’s worth it on a gorgeous day when Mount Rainier is out.”

Still, the workouts aren’t a replacement for the real thing, she said. “Our coach would check in on us and make sure we went to the gym so many times a week,” Floyd said. She admits that while Stenberg helps with accountability, she isn’t as strict with it as head coach Lorrie Wood.

Despite the many challenges being away from their teams, Floyd and Ivey stressed that their study away experiences were worth the sacrifices.

Ivey said her global studies major requires her to experience the world beyond campus. “That’s why I chose PLU in the first place, to study away,” she said. “I didn’t come to PLU to row.”

Her time at Bjørknes gave her new vantage points to examine academic topics, she said. “It’s a different perspective on international politics than you get in the U.S.,” she said. “We’re looking at certain issues from an outside perspective. That’s the most interesting.”

For Floyd, the Telemark program was the perfect marriage of all her interests. Growing up, her mother — who is half Norwegian and half Swedish — shared a lot of Norwegian traditions with her. She wanted to study in Norway to reconnect with those roots, and her biology-environmental studies double major lined up well with the curriculum. “It just worked out so well with everything,” she said of the program.

The cherry on top was the small town with lots of outdoor recreation opportunities. “You can walk around in a half hour,” she said of Bø, a village of nearly 6,000 people. “It’s gorgeous here. I’m not a big city person.”

Additionally, Floyd’s coach was very supportive of her desire to travel abroad: “She’s really supportive of global education.”

Three Norwegian international students studying at PLU say similar support on the Parkland campus helped with their transition. Unlike Ivey and Floyd, their study-away experience collided with their student-athlete experience as members of the men’s soccer team, which earned co-champion status in the Northwest Conference this year.

“He’s taking good care of us,” Filip Askildt ’20 said of head coach John Yorke.

Askildt and his roommate, Axel Arentz ’20, grew up together in Drammen, Norway, just outside Oslo. Ola Kvindesland ’20 is from Stavanger, a coastal city about 320 miles from the hometown of his Norwegian teammates.

All three shared similar experiences upon arriving at PLU. Among them is their difficulty with the word “soccer” — used to describe a sport they know as football.

“I make that mistake a lot,” Askildt said, laughing.

“It’s football,” Arentz quipped. “That’s what we’ve used.”

Even the Americans at the international school Kvindesland attended called it football.

Jokes aside, the three international students acknowledged the cultural differences created challenges in the beginning.

Upon arriving at PLU, all of them said they noticed the American players prioritized competition over fun. Prioritizing the latter is a key value in the Norwegian sporting world.

“Building fun around the team, that’s important,” Arentz said. “People are very serious here. It’s more fun to play when it’s not so serious.”

Askildt agreed, adding that the training also was more intense than he was used to. He suspects it may be one reason he injured his hip flexor and quad, which kept him out for the season.

Still, despite the cultural differences, all three players say the close relationships they built with their teammates helped ease homesickness and culture shock.

“The guys have taken us in with open arms,” Askildt said. “All the teammates are good friends.”

They use the differences as an opportunity to introduce the Americans to some Norwegian culture, such as teaching them Norwegian words — including some meant for exhibiting frustration on the field, one of them reluctantly admitted, without offending English-speaking referees or bystanders.

“It’s been a good experience for the Norwegians and Americans to intermix,” Kvindesland said. “It’s a clash of cultures.”

The most fun — and likely the loudest — result of the clash has morphed into a new routine. The team blasts the Russian electronic dance song “Our Feet Are Dancing Themselves” before every practice and game, sometimes multiple times, to pump up the players. They adopted the tune from their new European friends.

“It was really catchy to everyone,” Askildt said with a smile. “It became a tradition.”

Homesickness still comes up sometimes, despite their best efforts. Askildt stressed that soccer is a big reason he’s content at PLU.

“Every time I play soccer or am around the team,” he said, “I forget about home.”

Kvindesland agrees. He said it’s an indicator that, despite the differences between the Americans and the Norwegians, “we probably aren’t as different as we think.”

During one of the fall lectures, Barkman spoke up with confidence.

Instructor Cathrine Talleraas, a guest lecturer from the world-leading Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), asked students to pull from their personal experiences with immigration issues as they relate to the economy. PLU students offered examples such as the debate around immigrants’ participation in free and reduced lunch programs in the United States, as well as the prevalence of Hispanic workers in farming communities in Eastern Washington.

“Lots of times, migrants are the only ones willing to do that work,” Barkman said. Talleraas immediately tied the example back to the negative impacts Brexit has had on the labor force in the United Kingdom.

The interaction epitomizes the goal of the program at Bjørknes: to put local practitioners in front of the students and draw connections across borders.

“Everything feels so relevant,” Corinne Donohue-Mercie ’20 said of the curriculum.

Next up, the students headed to an informal brown-bag seminar ― a theoretical debate between faculty members.

Students lounged on orange couches, some snacking on their lunches, as their professors pitted optimism against pessimism. Following a spirited debate, with some humor sprinkled throughout, moderator and professor Hilde Restad announced to the room: “Who wants to tell them they’re wrong?”

“It challenges students to bring up big issues in short format,” said Claudia Berguson, associate professor of Norwegian and Nordic studies at PLU, who observed the gathering.

The seminar was another example of the teaching style emphasized at Bjørknes ― faculty immersed in a learning exchange with the students in a casual environment.

Another professor, Henrik Syse, is a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. “He’s one of the few who actually decides who gets the peace prize,” Dale-Åkerlund said.

But Syse’s esteemed status doesn’t mean he is super serious.

“He’s really goofy,” Barkman said of Syse, who taught “Ethics of War and Peace” in the fall. “He’ll quote Monty Python in class. It’s a cool experience to be learning about these heavy issues and developing who you are while also being under the guidance of these really established people.”

Dale-Åkerlund says the approach prepares students for a higher level of learning.

“We really challenge our students intellectually and academically with contemporary issues related to topics that they study,” he said. “I think we have a lot to offer the students here.”

Outside the classroom, students are exposed to valuable experiences they can’t get anywhere else ― including attending the exclusive televised interview with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate at Oslo City Hall.

“We encourage our students to really use Oslo for what it is,” Dale-Åkerlund said, adding that the multicultural society offers learning experiences every time students venture out into the city. “They really get to know Oslo.”

That begins with a so-called “crash-course” introduction when they first arrive. Students are paired with buddies who show them the ins and outs of the city, its transportation, culture and language. It lasts three to four days, and is heavy on excursions.

“The first week was a lot of just getting lost and finding our way back,” Barkman said. “I love Oslo public transportation. It’s so easy to navigate.”

Nick Brundage ’19 said that ease extended to flights across Europe. “It’s so easy (to travel), since we have so much free time,” he said of the workload at Bjørknes.

Still, he admits the downtime also offered challenges. While classwork throughout the semester is minimal, finals work weighs more heavily on grades. “It’s one big test and one big paper,” he said. “You’re not doing work in the classroom.”

While the distribution of work is different, the study away program is rigorous.

“We have high demands,” Dale-Åkerlund said. “We really want students to get the best out of the semester with us.”

The program isn’t just targeted to international relations or communication students. The curriculum pulls from many different academic disciplines.

“We are all over the humanities and the social sciences, basically,” said Restad, who taught “Terrorism and Counterterrorism” in the fall. The other classes students chose from last semester included “Introduction to Migration” and “International Political Thought.”

On a more basic level, the program envelops students in what quickly becomes a second home in Oslo.

“They are always looking out for us,” Brundage said. “They really care.”

And that care, Restad says, is one of the many ways Bjørknes is an ideal fit for Lutes.

“There’s a kinship, I think.”

Stenberg said the trip ― an invigorating introduction to the alpine ecology program ― informed their studies throughout the semester that followed.

“We got that initial knowledge right off the bat. For the rest of the semester, in lectures, we can reflect back onto that field experience,” she said in October, midway through the program. “You can tell that the professors are passionate about their place.”

Both Lutes are double majoring in biology and environmental studies, and the alpine ecology program is the perfect marriage of the two, they said.

It’s made up of three courses: “Alpine ecology,” “Alpine Biodiversity” and “Sustainable Tourism.” In addition to the fieldwork, the students worked in labs, sometimes alongside graduate students conducting research on various alpine species. The hands-on work is ideal for active students, Floyd noted.

“It’s not like you’re bundled up in a classroom all the time,” she said. “I don’t like sitting at a desk for long periods of time. It’s nice to get out and apply things right away.”

Although the classes are taught in English, their classmates come from around the world. “I’m working with people from Norway, France, and Spain,” Floyd said. “It’s invaluable to come together with people from different places and gain new perspectives.”

The newfound international friendships included Sunday-night dinners, for which everyone made a dish from back home. They also got together to play various sports, including the Norwegian staple handball.

“It’s competitive, but still really fun,” Floyd said.

Stephanie Reinhardt, a German professor at the Bø campus, is responsible for alpine ecology and other courses. She says the location is perfect for applying the curriculum they teach.

Norway is known for having massive alpine areas, or areas above the forest limit. “Those areas are more and more exposed to environmental impacts and human impacts,” she said.

That’s because as climate change advances, species in alpine regions can’t migrate to escape the effects.

“For the alpine species, there’s no more space for them to move upward,” Reinhardt said. “That’s the main goal of this program, to provide students insights into those challenges that alpine areas are facing.”

And the environment mirrors that of the Pacific Northwest, meaning students can often apply what they learn in Norway back home.

“I just love Norwegian morals,” she said. “They really value the outdoors, they really value education and healthy living. They are also environmentally friendly.”

The campus in Bø also accommodates students looking at other disciplines.

Kelsey Larson ’11 studied English writing and Norwegian at PLU. She says the experience in Telemark improved her language skills and her global perspective, aiding her post-graduate success, including a stint at The Norwegian-American newspaper.

“It was intimidating, but I learned a lot,” she said. “I never would have become as advanced if I hadn’t lived there. You just don’t get the same experience taking classes in the states.”

Sitting around a table in late October at the scenic Vestfold campus of University College of Southeast Norway, all Norwegians present wore fitness trackers. The weather outside was getting colder by the day, and snow was in the forecast. Still, exercise was part of the daily routine, inside and outside the classroom.

“It’s so grounded in our bodies,” said Trine Thoresen, leader in the university’s Department of Outdoors, Sports and Physical Education. “Most Norwegians embody health promotion.”

Thoresen says that if Norwegians aren’t active, they don’t feel great. Luckily, the area offers plenty of recreation: access to woods, sailing, kayaking, a national park, the fjord and more.

In fact, getting outside is how students begin their studies in the exercise and health management program there, the newest addition to the Norway Gateway study away options offered through the Wang Center for Global Education.

“We start this course by going to the island and staying in a tent,” said Hilde Grønningsæter, another faculty member in the department. “It’s sort of an orientation.”

PLU doesn’t have students enrolled in the program ― yet. The goal is to get them there. It’s perfect for students who are physically fit and serious about movement or exercise studies, such as kinesiology, physical therapy, physical education, sports medicine, rehabilitation or nursing.

“Physical activity is the center of the study,” Grønningsæter said. “It’s the tool.”

The application deadline for PLU students interested in studying at the Vestfold campus is May 1.

Karen McConnell, associate dean of kinesiology at PLU, says the program allows students to learn from another perspective, alongside others from around the world, in a country that does a better job at health promotion.

“They are more fitness minded and health promotion is built into the culture,” McConnell said, noting that the country’s approach is very prevention-oriented. “It’s a way of life.”

The program consists of two courses, which have a dual focus: project planning centered on health promotion and practicum placement. Students work a minimum of 30 hours for about two weeks at the local prison, rehabilitation centers, schools or others sites that expose them to practical experience with various target groups. Many of them work beyond the minimum.

Thoresen says it helps students learn how to practically apply the theoretical knowledge they gain, preparing them to apply their degree after graduation. “It has a strong practical approach,” she said of the program. “The jobs aren’t always that obvious.”

Site placements happen after introduction to the curriculum, in the middle of the semester. Participants write reports following their placements as part of their exam.

Norway has an incredibly strong labor market act, which regulates the relationship between employers and employees. It’s one of the many ways health promotion is institutionalized in Norwegian society, and it’s one of the foundations of the curriculum for students in the program at Vestfold ― especially their practicum placements.

“It’s important to discuss this,” Grønningsæter said. “We have a focus on what they are going to do afterward.”

Outside the classroom, students have plenty of opportunities to practice what they preach. Vestfold is small and easy to navigate, with beautiful scenery that entices visitors to explore on foot.

“You don’t need a car,” Thoresen said. “It’s easy to get around.”

McConnell said at least five PLU students are interested in the program so far. She said many of them came to the university specifically because this study away opportunity was in the works.

McConnell believes they aren’t alone.

“A lot of students are interested in outdoor recreation,” she said. “We don’t have anything parallel to that program here.”

“They all say that the dialogue skills they learned, in particular, have been beneficial to them in all their involvement on campus and in the community,” said Simic-Muller, an assistant professor of mathematics at PLU.

Each year since the program was established in 2011, two students have been selected as Peace Scholars to deepen their understanding and application of peacebuilding. The scholars travel to Norway, known as a hub for humanitarian and peace organizations. During their time abroad, they participate in an intensive, weeklong workshop at the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue in Lillehammer. Then, they attend the Oslo International Summer School for a six-week peace studies course. They also visit a number of Norwegian peace organizations, including the Nobel Peace Prize Institute. They engage with students from all over the world in what is regarded as a life-changing experience, Simic-Muller said.

“The program really has to take place in Norway, because it is affiliated with the Nobel Peace Prize,” she said.

Because of that tie, the Peace Scholars’ networking doesn’t end in Norway. They also travel to Minneapolis in September for the Nobel Peace Prize Forum Augsburg, an annual event that welcomes Nobel laureates and other important national and international figures pivotal to the peacebuilding community.

In the fall, Beiermann and Rush were privileged to participate in high-level dialogues prior to the event. Among their many activities, the scholars facilitated a session with Mark Mulder, assistant professor of business at PLU, about the role of water in promoting peace.

“I had the opportunity to network with diplomats, elected officials, scholars, activists and people from essentially every walk of life,” Beiermann said. “I had the ability to talk with a lot of big players in the global struggle for peace and be taken seriously.”

Rush said her time abroad is hard to put into words. “Those were some of the best weeks of my life,” she said. “It was such an incredible and unique experience.”

But their peacebuilding wasn’t limited to the Midwest and Scandinavia. Rush and Beiermann brought home the skills they learned and immediately put them to use. The pair is helping plan a series of events this spring featuring John Noltner. The American photographer and peace activist will come to campus the week of March 11, visiting classes and bringing students into an interactive photography project centered on peace.

“It will expose the PLU community to what peacebuilding looks like on a personal basis,” Rush said.

Rush says PLU’s mission intersects with many core values in Norway, so the Peace Scholars program is a perfect fit for Lutes.

“There is this sense of duty, responsibility, social engagement that I really see are reflected in students at PLU, serving here and beyond,” she said.

Beiermann said those values connect people from all walks of life, from around the world. He’s grateful to have met them.

“Countries are no longer these arbitrary spaces on a globe,” he said. “They now have faces and people connected to them.”

Applications for the program are accepted each year until February; participants are selected in the spring based on their motivation and purpose, depth of understanding and intellectual curiosity of peace, as well as openness to new ideas and perspectives.

“We are looking for students who want to learn about peace and how to be agents of peace in the world,” Simic-Muller said. “There is no one trait that guarantees that a student will be selected. We are looking for a variety of perspectives and interests.”

One of Rush’s goals as a returning Peace Scholars participant is to help with that e ort, by mentoring new scholars.

Beiermann’s idea of an ideal candidate for the program is a simple one: “A successful peace scholar is a person who is willing to learn and take on other perspectives.”

“I was a Coast Guard reservist,” he recalled of his deployment to Kuwait in 2003. “In the desert.”

Heavey — who was elected president of the Sons of Norway in Tacoma just before he left — couldn’t believe he was on the ground at the age of 52 aiding the Iraq invasion, the beginning of an armed conflict that eventually claimed tens of thousands of lives.

“In war there are some pretty tense times, but there’s a lot of time that isn’t,” Heavey said. “So it gives you time for reflection.”

In that time of reflection, Heavey asked himself what modern Norway would have to say to the Norwegians of Tacoma he was then tasked with leading, as well as what Norway would say to the world in the face of immense violence.

“The conclusion you come to is that Norway is the superpower for peace,” he said. “When peace is breaking out in the world, there are Norwegians involved. I left there with the idea that the Norwegians in Tacoma ought to do something about peace.”

That was the catalyst for the Greater Tacoma Peace Prize, an annual award that recognizes local peacemakers from the Tacoma-Pierce County region. Laureates are honored during a ceremony at Pacific Lutheran University each year. They are nominated by their peers and selected by the Greater Tacoma Peace Prize committee, which includes Heavey and a handful of other Lutes.

This year’s laureate focuses her work on clean water and sanitation projects in rural Bolivia. Pennye Nixon is founder and director of operations for Etta Projects, an organization created in memory of her daughter, who died when she was 16 in a bus crash in Bolivia just three months into her Rotary International exchange program.

Nixon believes that quality health care and sanitation create peaceful conditions, in which stable communities can progress and grow. “Peace is the opportunity to be kind, show compassion and act to advance equality,” she said.

Lisa Ottoson ’87, a committee member of the organization, says her alma mater’s cultural connection is grounded in history; the university was founded by Norwegian immigrant the Rev. Bjug Harstad. Beyond that, she stressed, is the institution’s mission, which focuses heavily on sustainability, care, equity and social justice — all core values in Norwegian society.

“That’s all been a part of PLU,” she said.

Ruud agreed, adding that PLU’s commitment to service mirrors the commitment of people in Norway, who are taught from birth that giving back is their standard way of life.

“The whole idea of educating for lives of service,” Ruud said. “It’s just part of Norway’s character.”

Lisa Ottoson ’87, a committee member of the organization, says her alma mater’s cultural connection is grounded in history; the university was founded by Norwegian immigrant the Rev. Bjug Harstad. Beyond that, she stressed, is the institution’s mission, which focuses heavily on sustainability, care, equity and social justice — all core values in Norwegian society.

“That’s all been a part of PLU,” she said.

Langemyr is working to build a security think tank to connect military researchers, humanitarian organizations, politicians, journalists and many other stakeholders interested in peace work and security issues. She stressed that peace is about building bridges, and the only way to do that is with intentional, constructive dialogue: as a tool for understanding, not necessarily for pursuit of agreement.

“I think the notion of what peace is will be different from person to person,” she said. “For me it has to do a lot with discourse. It has a lot to do with creating space, where people can fight their prejudices, fight their enemies and have decent, well-intended and sober conversations about important issues and important matters.”

Heavey says peace is multifaceted — from civil rights leaders to the local PTA advocating for a non-confrontational disciplinary system in elementary schools.

“Whether you’re a rich man who is able to use his influence in dollars, or a poor person who goes out and speaks truth to power,” he said, “you’re bringing peace to your community.”

Ottoson said traveling there is a key component of the prize, to build laureates’ networks. Still, the visibility back home surrounding their work is most inspiring.

Preceding a standing ovation during the fall ceremony honoring her, Nixon ended her acceptance speech with a quote from Pericles: “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”

Nixon says the Greater Tacoma Peace Prize wasn’t for her, it was for everyone at Etta Projects. And for the world.

Ottoson said that shows her community how powerful the prize is, here and beyond.

“Its existence is even more important in today’s world than it was in 2005 when it started,” she said of the prize. “It should be held up more significantly.”

Norway is home to an increasingly diverse population, much like other parts of the world where borders are less defined amid globalization and ever-changing technology.

And like other Western societies welcoming new people — and with them, new ideas — Norway is experiencing some growing pains. “Oslo is a multicultural city,” said Kvitne, who studied physical education at PLU. “This school reflects that.”

And the school is responding to it. Kvitne says Haugerud educates roughly 450 kids, many who either speak Norwegian as a second language or no Norwegian at all. Students from Turkey, Bosnia, Serbia and beyond share classrooms and subject matter. The teachers adapt their lesson plans to meet students where they’re at, to fit their individual needs.

Administrators foster a safe and inclusive environment, Kvitne said. “We work very hard at it,” she said. “That’s most important to us. You can’t be good in math or English if you aren’t happy here.”

The goodwill shows in the students. During a visit in the fall, there were lots of hugs to go around from smiling kids. Everyone, teachers included, went by first names. Kvitne suspects that’s a result of the school’s continuity; students stick with the same teacher throughout their entire time at Haugerud.

For students who don’t speak Norwegian — the primary language teachers speak in class — there is an intensive transition period, heavy on language learning. That’s especially true for newcomers, either immigrants or refugees, for which roughly 30 spots are kept open each school year.

“They need to learn Norwegian fast,” Kvitne said.

And they do. During the fall visit, many of the kids worked in small groups and one-on-one with teachers, asking questions and joking in Norwegian. If any problems arise, the school’s focus on individual care and engaged administration aims to alleviate them.

“I try to be in the classroom every day,” Kvitne said.

Those values and the school’s emphasis on care, Kvitne said, started with her education at PLU. As a former soccer player, she looked to her coach, Professor Colleen Hacker, for inspiration. Hacker taught her to focus on being her best self always, something Kvitne passes on to her students.

“That’s always something I try to live by,” she said. “These are values I learned at PLU.”

Dozens of sheets of paper, a collection of discomfort, dangle from the ceiling: a photograph of a woman in a hijab with the words “immigrants smell bad” written on it hang alongside pictures of right-wing extremists, people of color, poor people.

“They express themselves and learn this is about them,” Claudia Berguson, an associate professor at PLU, said as she thumbed through the somber art display. “It’s simple, but deep.”

Magga says dealing with similar speech back home in Tromsø ultimately changed the way she looks at her identity even now, years after several older classmates hit her and called her names for being different.

It happened in 2011 during a contentious election, fueled by a polarizing debate around recognition of Sámi people. That year, the city council was considering a new designation for Tromsø that would have recognized it as a bilingual township, said Troy Storfjell, an associate professor at PLU who identifies as Sámi. The change, at its core, was aimed at reconciling the institutional efforts made throughout Norway’s history to undermine the language and culture of the Sámi, the only indigenous group in the country.

“I shut it out for a very long time,” Magga said. Last year, for her final paper her senior year of high school, she reflected on that fight and another, internal one — learning and maintaining her Sámi language.

Magga is the only member of her family who speaks Sámi fluently; her mother picked up bits and pieces from her great-grandmother, despite her grandfather being forced into a boarding school and conditioned to shun his heritage.

Despite panging insecurity, Magga eventually gained the courage to speak the language more often, thanks in part to a close friend who spoke it with her constantly for years in and outside the classroom.

Magga and Søerensen both acknowledge that they experience microaggressions related to their Sámi background, about “how Sámi they really are” or “why they can’t get over the past.” But those obstacles don’t stop them from educating, both in Norway and at PLU.

“It’s important for people to understand what really happened,” said Søerensen, who noted that there are parallels between the experience of her people and that of Native Americans. “People are still affected by what happened many years ago.”

Magga says the tale of 14-year-old Junior resonated with her, and she was troubled by the dismissive feedback from her classmates. She says it’s important to speak her truth, even when she’s thousands of miles from Tromsø.

“The farther I go from home, the more I claim it and talk about it,” Magga said of her indigenous roots. “I have this feeling I have to do something. It’s kind of my responsibility.”