Does the idea of getting away and touring a new country with Northwestern College students and faculty excite you? Are you looking for a more experiential way of earning your cross-cultural credits? Then consider signing up for one of NW’s four Summer Study Abroad trips in 2022. The locations for summer 2022 are the Czech Republic, Greece, England and a joint trip to Poland and Germany.
The Greece trip will be led by Dr. John Vonder Bruegge and is open to students who are part of the NW Honors Program. The group will be gone from Monday, May 16 through Monday, June 6. Their first week will be spent in Athens and the second week in the Peloponnese using the coastal town of Nafplio as a home base, rounding out the third week visiting Delphi and Meteora.
One interesting feature of the trip is the accompaniment of the class The Greek Legacy used as preparation for sightseeing on the trip.
“It’s a lot of work, but when we get to Greece, it means I’ve got a bunch of tour guides who know their sites extremely well, and they wind up leading us on a site tour even though they’ve never actually been there before,” Vonder Bruegge said. “One of my favorite things about the trip is watching the reactions of students when they see their site for the first time with their own eyes. It’s like watching a kid in a candy store.”
Kyle Oschner and Leslie Stover will be leading the trip to the Czech Republic from May 16 to June 7 and will be spending most of their time in Prague and Olomouc with various excursions from these bases. The main topic of study is physical culture. However, the primary emphasis is not just competitive sports and games, but physical activities that promote an ideology of body and mind, cultural values, unity and harmony.
“I truly believe that the best learning experiences are the ones in which you are intimately involved,” Oschner said. “There’s something profound and different when you have the opportunity to engage all five senses with significant touch points and moments of vulnerability. The learning is more deeply embedded into our thinking processes. You not only learn from it, you are transformed by it.”
Dr. Rebecca Koerselman and Dr. Chris Nonhof will be leading the trip to Germany and Poland from May 25 to June 15. The focus of the trip will be touring Holocaust sites in both countries.
“Learning about the Holocaust in the classroom setting is significant, but touring the actual sites and discussing public history through museums, sites, shrines and the role of memory creates a different and valuable understanding of the Holocaust and how it has been remembered,” Koerselman said.
Not only will students be able to visit these historic sites, they will also have the opportunity to travel around Europe with peers for a price that wouldn’t be feasible on a solo trip.
Dr. Bob Hubbard and Ethan Koerner will be leading the trip to England from May 21 to June 12. The first part of the trip includes visits to historic sites such as abbeys, castles and the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Most of the time is spent in London visiting museums during the day and going to musicals in the evenings.
“London is one of the most diverse and most culturally influential cities in the world, and this trip will provide students to engage with culture and the arts on a global scale, as well as the rich history of a city that has been in existence for almost two millenia,” Koerner said.
Applications are due February 1, 2022 and can be found on my.nwciowa.edu along with more details and associated costs.
