Westmont in Northern Europe Program Review Summary

Site Visit Team Members1:Dr. John Blondell, Professor of Theatre ArtsDr. William Wright, Associate Provost For Planning and ResearchDr. Cynthia Toms, Director of Global Education

Off Campus Programs Committee Members:Dr. Gregg Afman, Professor of KinesiologyMichelle Hardley, RegistrarDr. Han Kim, Assistant Professor of MusicDr. Marianne Robins, Professor of HistoryBarbara Pointer, Assistant Director of Global EducationDr. Cynthia Toms, Director of Global Education

Westmont in Northern Europe Study Abroad Program Overview:

The Westmont in Northern Europe (WNE) semester-long study abroad program was envisioned and constructed through the efforts of Dr. Larsen Hoeckley and Dr. Hoeckley. With a vision to explore issues of conflict and peacemaking and to deepen student encounters in relevant places and cultures related to this theme, the program was launched in Fall 2014. This review occurs during the second running of this three-year pilot program.

Dr. Hoeckley and Dr. Larsen Hoeckley are veterans of seven semester-abroad programs in Europe and the UK. Dr. Larsen Hoeckley teaches English, and specializes in Victorian literature and women writers. The influx of global voices, especially female voices, into literature in English in the 19th and 20th Centuries has led her to an increasing interest in global literature. Dr. Hoeckley directs the Gaede Institute for the Liberal Arts at Westmont and teaches philosophy. He has interests in philosophy of science and philosophy of religion, but more recently has turned his attention to exploring the possibility of just warfare in both secular and Christian thought.The Fall 2015 curriculum includes the following courses:

1 A residence/student life representative, Tim Wilson, was originally scheduled to attend the site visit. However, due to a last minute illness, the Office of Global Education delegated Dr. William Wright to fill the position. Dr. William Wright has experience with institute accreditation, registrar’s office, as well as historical memory of off campus program development at Westmont College. He was able to step into the vacated role within 26 hours and proved a valuable asset.

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Studies in World Literature (4 units, Dr. Larsen Hoeckley) Philosophical Reflections on Conflict and Peacemaking in Modern Europe (4

units, Dr. Hoeckley) Encountering the Cultures of England, Ireland and Germany (2 units, Dr. Larsen

Hoeckley & Dr. Hoeckley) German Language (4 units, German Language School) Exploring Wellness (1 unit PE)

These courses fulfill six General Education requirements: Thinking Globally; Reading Imaginative Literature; Philosophical Reflections on Reality, Knowledge and Value; Foreign Language; Communicating Cross-Culturally; Physical Education (one semester).

The Westmont in Northern Europe Program also utilizes the global learning cycle:

Introduction to Northern Europe: 1-unit seminar (Spring 2015) Retry Seminar: 1-unit (Spring 2016)

In order to explore the theme of peace and reconciliation, the WNE program utilizes two extended-stay locations:

Rostrevor, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has a long history of conflict, but peace has come in the last two decades, and reconciliation, though slow, is underway. The program aims to discover the beauty, the painful history and the emerging hope of this region. Rostrevor offers access to a Benedictine monastery and quiet space for final reflection and re-entry preparation.

Berlin, Germany has become one of Europe's most vibrant and dynamic cities and is unmatched addressing the themes of conflict and peacemaking. From its complete destruction at the close of WWII, through its rebuilding as a divided city symbolizing the cold-war conflict, Berlin offers social, political, and religious constructs to enliven the theme of peace and reconciliation.

 In the midst of these extended stays, students also travel to other locations to broaden their learning:

First World War battlegrounds in Belgium Desden and Bratislava in Central Europe Dublin, Belfast Irish coast in Ireland Slovakia

Students are also given the opportunity to pursue independent travel through a four-day weekend excursion.

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Westmont in Northern Europe “Exploring Christ’s Call to be Peacemakers”

Site Team Visit Summary

In and through a variety of teaching methods, practices, and opportunities, the Westmont in Northern Europe program displays excellent, and in some cases exemplary, teaching and instruction for Westmont students. WNE teaching includes, but is not limited to, traditional classroom teaching through mini-lecture, conversation, and discussion; intensive German language instruction at Berlin’s German Language School; experiential learning on the streets and sites of the cities visited; visits by individuals that provide informational, provocative, or otherwise compelling personal knowledge and experience of the cultural and/or historical context of the locations and locales; cultural and artistic experiences such as theatrical and musical performances; and hikes and bike rides through significant European locations. The combination of teaching methods, and the thorough, intentional structuring of these methods, lead to a robust, multi-dimensional, various, and rich teaching climate. Perhaps most importantly, however, the program displays, at every turn, and in numerous ways, the theme of peace making and reconciliation, taught from a rich and deep Christian perspective.

WNE is built around the broad theme of conflict and reconciliation. The intent was to establish a multi-year program theme that would provide faculty from different departments the opportunity to teach courses within their disciplinary expertise but that also informed the program theme. In 2014 and 2015 course offerings have include an introductory philosophy class (Dr. Hoeckley) and a world literature class (Dr. Larsen Hoeckley). In both classes, readings and lectures informed the conflict and reconciliation dialogue. It is easy to consider how faculty from the social sciences and humanities could participate in the program and adjust courses to the setting and theme. Having a program that allows faculty to teach more within their discipline is seen as a significant human resource benefit. Also, by having a constant theme than crosses over years, changes in faculty means that some aspects of the program do not have to be created every year. Future faculty will benefit from the logistics and contacts made in prior years, reducing the burden to faculty staffing the program for the first time.

Faculty often experience the demands of teaching all classes on a program. Another feature of WNE is that local expertise is used to provide some instruction. Language instruction is recognized as an essential part of the curriculum, since developing even rudimentary skills in the local language enhances opportunities for cross-cultural exchange. The extended stay in Berlin allows students to enroll in a language institute and receive academic credit for German, thereby students receive credit for coursework that WNE faculty did not teach.

The review team experienced many of the teaching methods listed above during its four-day residency in Berlin. During the time the team was there, it encountered an East German Christian woman who discussed and described her experience in the former GDR: professors Hoeckley and Larsen Hoeckley developed significant perspectives relative to empiricism and the poetry of Evan Boland, respectively; students described the

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learning environment and experience of the trip; a Kristallnacht service at a Berlin Lutheran church; and locales such as Holocaust and Berlin Wall Memorials, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Tiergarten, among others. It is the perspective of the review team that the teaching appears sophisticated, personal, encouraging, and decidedly faith-based. Students appear deeply satisfied with what they are learning, the amount they are learning, and how they are learning it. The program provides significant responsibility to students for their own learning, and this particular group of students seems to have grabbed that opportunity, and run with it. Conversations with students displayed their abilities to reflect, synthesize, and integrate difficult, challenging, and often provocative material and subject matter.

In short, the review team commends the WNE program, and its two leaders, for their thoughtful, visionary approach to program purpose and idea, and the development of teaching that realizes that vision in compelling and in some cases profound ways. The teaching component of this program is indeed impressive, and the WNE team should be congratulated and applauded.

Academic Instruction and Course Delivery

It is absolutely clear that all aspects of the teaching are infused with the central goal of peace making and reconciliation, which is revealed throughout in tangible ways. The vision of the program is inspired by reconciliation, and the teaching and instruction bears out that vision time and again. Some examples include: visit to a Kristallnacht worship service, which provided classroom opportunity for exploration and reflection the next day; interaction with the program’s sites themselves, the conflicts that resulted there, and the ensuing work of reconciliation as an ongoing process; students’ reflections about how faith and peacemaking make their ways to conscious behaviors and decision making about students’ faith; and the exploration of poetry (in the case in question, that of Irish poet Eavan Boland) as both subject and vehicle of violence and reconciliation. This is impressive: form follows function beautifully in this program, and the students benefit from a program that delivers what it promises.

During one class session we observed, students heard of the life experiences from a German woman (born in 1946). Telling her story and the story of her parents, WNE students learned about life in Nazi Germany, life in communist East Germany and finally, what it has meant to live through German unification. She was a soft-spoken woman with a simple story but students listened intently as they learned from a first-hand participant of a period in history they only know from books.

The review team visited the German Language School, and explored and investigated the German language instruction encountered by Westmont students. GLS officials acknowledged that the program is a rigorous one, not only because of the difficult and deeply analytical nature of the German language, but also because WNE students concentrate four weeks of German learning into three. Students are obviously challenged by the material, and perhaps initially confused by the immediate immersion into a total

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German-speaking classroom. They are, however, eventually satisfied, and perhaps even surprised, by the amount of German they learn during their time at GLS. The German Language director reports that students successfully complete A.1 language learning program during their course of study (See Appendix 1).

Students do, on occasion, have some suggestions to increase and improve their student learning. This is to be expected, since there is – of course – no perfect program. Suggestions encountered include: develop a quicker feedback loop relevant to student papers and other projects; solve some confusion relative to the technology used to upload student work; entertain the possibility of scheduling student homestays after students have achieved some rudimentary language training. Perhaps more substantively, the review team suggests the exploration of continuing language training past the intensive three-week course. Is it possible to include further training – perhaps 2-3 times per week – in the remaining weeks that students are in residency in Berlin, as a way to keep language learning throughout the Berlin residency?

Student Learning Outcomes and Assessment

The review team reviewed all program course syllabi and found an appropriate number of reading, writing and participatory assignments, clearly stated learning outcomes, and evidence that a variety of methods were being employed to assess student learning.

ENG 044: Violence and Peacemaking in World Literature. Learning Outcomes: Students will (1) develop an awareness of the vast literary offerings available to readers of international literature, by reading a selection of literature about war and peacemaking; (2) acquire basic skills that help foster understanding and enjoyment of literature from other cultures by participating in discussion, evaluating internet resources, and, of course, reading closely; (3) be able to use the term “imagined communities” with clarity and insight for written work and in discussion as a means of understanding the connection between literature and the study of violence and peacemaking; (4) further develop as a writer.Student evaluation methods included: (1) Two essays (5-7 pages each), each analyzing one of the texts; (2) written responses to discussion questions presented in class; (3) class participation; (4) quizzes and a final exam.

GER 001: Elementary German I. Learning Outcome: Students will successfully complete Level A1.1 of the Common European Framework of References, which includes developing elementary conversational skills and an understanding of basic German language structure and grammar.Student evaluation methods included: (1) speaking in class and (2) weekly exams.

IS 120: Encountering the Cultures of England, Ireland and Germany. Learning Outcomes: Students will (1) gain understanding of British, German, Slovakian, and Irish cultures, especially the conflicts that have shaped cultures in the past century

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and the peacemaking efforts to bring reconciliation to those cultures; (2) discover the place of Christian communities in these cultures, both historical and in the present, and their role in conflict and peacemaking; (3) practice combining written reflection with learning experientially, so that they can take this skill into future life situations.Student evaluation methods included: (1) reflective essays of reading assignments; (2) reflective essays on required group site visits and self-directed site visits; (3) worship reflection paper; (4) “my one big idea from Westmont in Northern Europe” essay.

PEA 094: Exploring Wellness. Learning Outcome: Students will development and successfully implement an appropriate fitness outcome based on the training principles of frequency, intensity and duration.Student evaluation method: documented independent activity of walking, running, hiking, cycling, or other approved activities.

PHIL 007: Philosophical Perspectives: Conflict and Peace . Learning Outcome: Students will be able to articulate major philosophical ideas and describe their bearing on the Christian liberal arts.Student evaluation methods included: (1) class discussion of reading assignments; (2) contributions to online discussion; (3) essay on Ethics and War; and (4) midterm and final exams over reading and lecture material.

Overall, the review team commends the WNE program, and its leaders, for creating a nimble, layered, culturally aware, spirit-infused program of impressive richness. The relationship between culture and curriculum is thoroughly reasoned, well structured, and enacts the relationship in daily, profound ways.

Learning Context as it Relates to Curriculum

As is implicit from above, it is difficult to disentangle the context and curriculum components of the WNE program, and this is one of the reasons that the program is a successful one. This particular year, the program spent time in London, Belgium, Slovakia, Berlin, and Northern Ireland, with the bulk of the time spent in Berlin. Sites are selected relative to the peacemaking and reconciliation theme, as well as to faculty experience and expertise. There are numerous “texts” used in this program, including the various literary texts used to explore, describe, and elucidate the experience of violence and the hoped-for restitution of wholeness, but also the sites used to engage those themes and experiences. In this case, sites themselves become valuable, even obligatory, texts for student engagement, contemplation, reflection, and learning.

Though all students might not have been initially aware of the program’s Peacemaking and Reconciliation theme, students are by now deeply aware of its significance and implications. Many students commented upon the current refugee crisis as a contemporary example of the implications of the theme, and noticed how this theme was actively engaged in each of the worship services encountered while in Berlin. This

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suggested questions about a range of responses relative to being an American and a Christian, and the possible avenues of reconciliation available to students. Other students commented upon the bicycle trip through WWI sites in Belgium, in relation to their reading of All Quiet on the Western Front, and the connections made between the literary and the physical, and how context and content become fully intertwined and layered. Still other students reflected upon the trip’s beginning in London, and exploration of the nature of Empire, and then what was presumed to be the appropriate bookend for that experience, when the trip finished in Northern Ireland.

Homestay experiences in Berlin provide a significant learning context for students. Students described a variety of experiences with their homestays. Some described relatively deep, intentional, and fully developed homestay experiences, where students now identify their homestay families as important relationships in their lives. Others described a more hands-off approach on the part of homestay families: one student described that homestay families would prepare meals for the students, but would eat separately from them. Another homestay family described hesitancy to provide homestays to American students, but by the time the homestay was completed, described a complete turnaround of attitude about American young people. This seems an important testament to the character of Westmont students, and underscores an interesting fact: our students themselves are engaged in an interesting kind of peacemaking, when they change peoples’ minds about the nature and character of American people. The review team finds this compelling: it is possible to create a program that uses sites like a buffet meal, where students graze and take in all they can about the culture. The approach of WNE, however, creates opportunities for student participation and contribution to the cultures in which they find themselves, and can thereby – even in small but very meaningful ways – participate in cultural change and renewal.

The Context/Curriculum piece of the program appears dynamic, successful, and meaningful. A few probing questions that emerge, however, include the following. Is there enough reading of German language authors? Might another play or two, and accompanying performances, be added to the curriculum? Are students seeking out the rich possibilities of Berlin, including art and culture? Are contemporary issues and problems balanced with a historical perspective, relative to modern Berlin, in regards to the influence of modern socio-political influences of refugees, immigration, racial reconciliation, etc.? A final question relative to Context and Curriculum might be this: considering the focused, intentional theme of peacemaking in the program, should the program entertain a name change, and call it something to the effect of, the Peace and Reconciliation Program in Northern Europe?

These questions are not so much leading questions or direction suggestions, but rather as opportunities for the WNE leaders to reflect upon the already rich possibilities the program offers students.

Overall Student Experience

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It was quite noticeable and verified by multiple student contacts that there is great satisfaction with the program. In short, students are happy and are not tired, which makes the learning process easier and more effective.

Interesting, this is despite several students noting they would have preferred not having Berlin be the focal site of the program. Nonetheless, student comments were extremely positive. This section is a bit challenging to write. A strong sense of community exists with the Fall 2015 WNE group. The obvious question is whether this is a function of the particular mix of students or whether the program itself fosters and encourages community formation. The answer is probably both are true.

Community

There are program design elements deliberately intended to facilitate community. These include:

• Limiting the number of students in order to provide significant faculty-student and student-student interactions.

• Apartment style living with rotating roommate assignments.• Group assignments throughout the semester where students work together on

projects and explore the city in small groups.• Daily early morning group prayer (optional)• Sunday evening student led Vespers (required?)• Sunday morning church attendance as a group (required)• It appeared that the holistic program theme, thoroughly integrated with the

curriculum and travel, contributed to a focused, shared experience and community dialogue.

Students have time to be alone and reflective. It was interesting that several students commented on the need for private space. Students are confronted with hard questions and human failure in history. Several students referred to Berlin as a “dark” city. Time alone was an acknowledgement that there was much they were processing together in community but there was also need to process ideas alone. Having time alone was always expressed as a positive.

Leadership

Professors Hoeckley and Larsen Hoeckley were described in positive terms. Students noted they were always available when needed, but perhaps more significantly, the professors were described as being accessible. In 2014 and 2015 their Berlin apartment was in the same building that housed students. Since WNE uses every apartment in the building, availability may become an issue in the future. Currently, they are exploring accepting several more students for Fall 2016. If the program size increases, Dr. Hoeckley and Dr. Larsen Hoeckley will likely need to locate outside of the students’ apartment building. They will want to give careful consideration to how distance may

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disrupt the positive student perception that professor proximity in living conditions is preferable.

Student Personal Growth

WNE requires students to develop independence and confidence at tasks that are likely new to many of them. Students learn to navigate around a large urban sprawling city using a multi-tiered system of mass transit (subways, busses, trolleys). The review team learned that some students daily commuted as much as one-hour each direction from their home-stay residence to classes. Students also traveled from the U.S. to Europe, some of them alone, at the beginning of the program.

Community Life Expectations

Since concerns of alcohol abuse have been at times associated with off-campus programs, the review team initiated several conversations regarding student conduct and alcohol use. Professors Hoeckley and Larsen Hoeckley had presented college policies to students at the beginning of the program. They believed the policy was being observed and that there were not students engaged in excessive alcohol consumption. Students uniformly agreed that alcohol use was not a problem on the program. Interestingly, one group of three students went so far as to suggest that students themselves would be comfortable confronting and supporting a fellow student if alcohol became a problem. Students appear to be developing a healthy sense of what it means to be responsible for others living in community.

Health and Safety

Health and safety of students is a larger concept and concern than mere prevention of injury. In this case, Dr. Hoeckley and Larsen Hoeckley demonstrated authentic and appropriate level of care for student well being. Their availability, though maintaining healthy boundaries, allowed students access to them as faculty and student life attendants, but also allowed students the agency and responsibility of self-care.

One story emerged about a student who lost her passport. Upon recommendation and advice regarding how to recover it, the students demonstrated a high level of self-sufficiency and successfully recovered her own passport as a result of her own efforts. This level of support and challenge is a careful balance that was demonstrated among multiple scenarios. It is also the foundation for healthy students mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The program faculty are to be commended for striking this balance of support and challenge.

While there is some utility to being in two countries that speak English, and all three that have universal healthcare, the WNE program would benefit from a more thorough health and safety plan. Although the current semester has avoided major concerns (which may point to faculty vetting and proper preparation, as well as the slower-paced schedule of

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the program), developing a list of local doctors and health care providers, as well as a plan of exit for natural disaster would be beneficial. Additionally, the review team recommends basic safety training for students that includes declaration of a common meeting point (in the case of a natural disaster) as well as ensuring cell phone access for students during their homestay experiences. Additional considerations include:

• 24/7 emergency contact numbers for students/staff in the event of an emergency• Communication solutions for students that are restricted to Wi-Fi access while

abroad• Country specific SIM cards might be a solution• Check in standards for students in the event of an emergency like what happened

in Paris• Side trip tracking• Traveler location tracking• Traveling alone standards and recommendations

The review recommends that program faculty develop this plan in conjunction with the director of global education and the Office of Risk Management before the Fall 2017 semester.

Resource Stewardship (human and monetary)

From the inception, resource stewardship was a focal point for decisions that were made regarding curriculum, program, and location. The intent was to create a semester-length program in Europe that was more affordable than other Westmont European programs and that placed more reasonable demands on faculty leaders, compared to what was often reported by faculty leading the long-standing Europe Semester program. These objectives have been substantially achieved.

Cost

Similar to all Westmont programs, WNE student tuition and fee charges are required to fund all program expenses, faculty salaries and benefit expenses, students’ financial aid, and make a small contribution to institutional costs of administering global education programs. These objectives have been met in 2014 and 2015, while at the same time students have been charged less to attend the program than other Westmont England and European programs. Cost savings compared to other programs have been achieved by reducing the amount of travel during the program, selecting program cities that are more affordable and using apartments (with kitchens) and home-stays for room and board. These program features achieve significant savings and are not seen as negatives by program participants.

Since all programs have fixed costs (mostly associated with staffing) that are distributed among the participants, a simple method to reduce charges per student is to increase the number of students on the program. What is most remarkable about the low WNE

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student charges is that it has been accomplished while keeping student enrollment in the low to mid 20s.

Future challenge

As new faculty leadership is recruited, the curriculum and program features described above will make WNE an attractive option for faculty to consider. (Faculty with children may also see the benefits of a program that is more stationary.) However, there is at least one issue that may present future challenge in keeping student charges low. WNE has definitely benefited (financially) by having two faculty from different disciplines who are also married and without children on the program. The program has had two PhDs but the fixed cost of one housing unit. Conversations are just beginning for 2017 staffing. It is difficult to see how the current model of two program faculty will be replicated in the future without significant additional program expense. The balance between providing quality instruction at a low price may be more difficulty in the future.

Stewardship of Faculty Time

This final comment applies broadly to all Westmont programs. The challenge of providing program leaders monetary “instruments” has been recognized for some time. Traditional credit, debit, and cash (from ATM withdrawals) have been the primary tools for meeting the on-the-ground money needs for years. There have been recognized shortcomings with each of these and as result, the college has been experimenting using “P-cards” this fall. To the casual observer this would just look like another credit or debit card. However, there is significantly more work required to complete the accounting transaction. With WNE, program leaders and the global education office have shared the processing time burden. The college needs to work at improving the ease of using P-cards. If processing time can’t be reduced, additional staffing in the global education office should be considered or the college should explore new options for financial transactions.

Community Engagement and Cultural Competence Building

Community and cultural engagement is introduced through multiple methods including the opportunity to encounter evangelical Christians from other cultures, Christians from outside the evangelical tradition, and people of other faiths. The program also encourages learning through, “Every activity and every encounter--from museum visits to shopping for groceries.” These objectives are currently being pursued through language learning, homestay experiences, visiting churches each week, individual and group explorations of relevant cultural sites, and encounters with local speakers and activists.

Cultural Engagement. The homestay piece is indeed an interesting, and complex, piece of the WNE program. It was described to the review team by teachers at GLS that Berlin is not necessarily a “family-oriented city,” which creates certain challenges to creating meaningful homestay experiences for Westmont students. Though the issue is complex,

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and homestays will perhaps never be across-the-boards successes, the overwhelming sentiment suggests that the homestay experience is challenging, at times confusing and uncomfortable, but ultimately deeply meaningful and worthwhile.

Are students engaging modern German culture? Yes, but perhaps not to the degree that would be ideal. Home-stays contribute to achieving this goal and certainly many students described rich exchanges with host families…others not so much. Although German language studies are a required part of the curriculum, most students begin with no background in the language. In the absence of stronger language skills, deep cultural exchange may be limited. Professors Hoeckley and Larsen Hoeckley are cognizant of these issues and are open to considering program modifications that might enhance engagement. Topics discussed included extending the length of home-stays (currently three weeks), initiating German instruction prior to beginning home-stays, and spreading formal German instruction over additional weeks of the program.

Another idea for future exploration would be to have students participate in some form of community service, working with German nationals on some project. The Professors Hoeckley and Larsen-Hoeckley have established good contacts in the Berlin Christian community that may be of use in establishing greater engagement in the community.

A Final Word on the Program Structure

In comparison with a fully embedded program or a multi-city study tour, this program strikes a positive balance between community engagement and varied contexts that illuminate learning objectives. Along these lines, there are decided benefits and trade-offs for a study abroad program with traveling faculty. For example, campus faculty traveling with students have the benefit of mentorship with students for the full global learning cycle, while local faculty embedded in communities are often able to access some aspects of the country context more easily as a result of language proficiency and the ability to maintain regular contact with people and places that serves as important learning touchstones. In this ilk, there is often not a “better” or “worse” model, but rather a differentiation between intended learning outcomes and the type of student that selects each program. For the WNE program, excellent teaching, a coherent theme of peace and reconciliation that well-utilizes the context of Berlin and Northern Europe, language learning, and homestay experiences as well as the benefit of engaged faculty mentorship throughout the year-long global learning cycle, has created an exemplary program that meets and at times, exceeds, the goals and mission of a Westmont College’s global education.

The review team recommends approval for the current program as it stands with Dr. Hoeckley and Dr. Larsen Hoeckely. Our committee appreciates the importance of maintaining the current context and community contacts that highlights the theme of peace and reconciliation. Consequently, if another faculty member leads the program as is, then no additional approval would be needed. If another faculty member wanted to make slight changes and offer the major components of this program (i.e., theme of peace

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and reconciliation, utilizing the same contexts) with small changes to the curriculum (i.e., either GE or course offering), then it would only need to be approved by the Academic Senate, in conjunction with the academic review committee, as a slight variation of the Westmont In Northern Europe Program.  However, if there are considerable changes to curriculum, theme, courses, GE’s, or context, then this review committee suggests that another pilot semester should be proposed. Unlike the Europe semester, we do not see a need to keep the same GE offerings each year. The benefit of having GE’s set out for the Europe Semester is that students can plan their schedule accordingly and can count on specific GE requirements being filled. Consequently, this means that juniors and seniors often enroll in the Europe semester knowing that the GE's will be filled. The Westmont in northern Europe semester is currently targeting sophomores, so determining the GE's a semester or even a year before is adequate. 

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WNE Review Objectives

The following questions, developed in conjunction with Dr. Hoeckley and Dr. Larsen Hoeckley, guided our inquiry:

1. Can we help students engage more deeply with our host culture/s? (How are students engaging with host culture? professors Hoeckley and Larsen Hoeckley to provide bullet points of program opportunities for cultural engagement.)

2. Can we do more learning with less complexity?3. Can we give students the best we have to offer by teaching in our fields rather

than stretching ourselves into something we’re not at the expense of their learning?

4. Can we create a curricular structure that other faculty could step into more easily?5. Can we move students’ discovery of a love for learning to an earlier point in their

college experience? Are sophomores going? What is the implication and impact for students, study abroad and campus experience?

6. Can we create a more personal learning community by taking fewer students?7. Can we be more cost effective, lessening the financial burden that off-campus

programs can be for the college and making the experience available to more students?

8. Can we involve Westmont faculty in the program without requiring the massive commitment and upheaval that leading an off-campus program can involve?

9. What is the trajectory of student spiritual development - in particular, in their exploration and discovery of different forms of Christian faith? How is that affecting their spiritual life after the program?

10. How is the context of the site you’ve chosen facilitating the holistic maturation of students into adult life?

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Program Faculty Reflections:

1. What specific ways have the orientation course helped students to better engage the OCP experience? Likewise, how does the re-entry course help students apply and continue their learning?

OrientationIntroduction to geographyMap quiz showIntroduction to historyMajor themes in 20th European history… in 20 minutes!Taste of the academic experienceMini lecture and discussion of Tenebrae—literatureMini lecture and discussion of The Mission—philosophyExpectation of specific challenges and tools for facing those challengesOrienting oneself to a city and using maps and public transit to navigateIntroductory experience with German and use of a two German Language learning toolsOvercoming social anxiety that can dominate first weeks of the programTeam navigation projectSeeing Christ in others project

Reentry

My One Big Idea presentation extends a major learning of the semester away into their first semester back. Students learn to talk about their experience in terms of their learning and growth, and in specific and succinct ways that can connect to the interests of those who didn’t take part.

A segment of each week’s class is devoted to exploring how ideas, issues or questions from our time away are appearing in students’ current courses or other activities in order to foster the expectation that there will be linkages between the off-campus learning and on-campus learning.

2. What do you see as the primary strengths of the program and where do you see areas for future improvement? The program has two primary strengths:

A. Extended stays in locations where Westmont students want to study abroad (and the opportunity those extended stays provide for complicating and deepening students’ understanding of those cultures). Longer stays also create a rhythm of daily life that fosters possibilities for more traditional learning practices, like writing, reading, and having small group discussion.

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B. Close ties between curriculum and local culture and sites. Our coordinating themes of “violence and peacemaking” help students to draw on the resources the Germany and Northern Ireland in the late 19th- and 20th-Century have to offer, both in terms of war and of reconciliation. The philosophy and literature courses draw on those resources as heavily as IS-120 does. Other faculty could design GE courses that could draw on these resources equally well, and still teach in their own fields.

3. Now that the program has a foothold in the local community and you have lived for a time in the region, what do you perceive as the most effective ways of ensuring students’ immersion in the culture? Feel free to mention specific local organizations and partners that would help create the immersion opportunities for students.

By far, the deepest opportunity the program offers for cultural immersion is the 3-week homestay that GLS organizes for our students with Berlin families. That stay is rarely entirely comfortable for students, so it gets some mixed reviews, but the experience is clearly valuable for all of them in helping move them toward intercultural communication. We take time to set up the challenges of that visit and to debrief it in the weeks following. Last year we had several other contributors to this effort:In Birmingham we stayed with a Quaker community and took advantage of their faculty to learn about Quaker approaches to peacemaking. We’re unable to return there this year or next, but expect to return there should WNE become a permanent program In Coventry we are connecting with the Community of the Cross of Nails, a reconciliation organization established in the wake of WWII to foster reconciliation between Christians in England and Germany and now operating worldwide. CCN has several member churches in Berlin which we visit both for worship and discussion.

Our contact in Berlin, Jane Holslag, was a long-time PCUSA missionary in Eastern Europe, serving first in East Germany and Poland, then as dean of LCC University in Lithuania. Jane arranges visits with Christians from the former East Germany who experienced the Peaceful Revolution and German reunification first hand. This year she will also arrange a visit with those working with refugees fleeing the Syrian crisis. Jane has now introduced us to Bianca Dumerling in the Church Community for Berlin, a local network of churches. Bianca will continue to be a contact for us in Berlin after Jane returns to the US late in 2016. In Slovakia our contact, Juraj Majo, is a professor of human geography. In addition to arranging site visits in Bratislava as he did last year, this year he will arrange visits to historic locations in the Slovakian countryside. In addition to his

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scholarly knowledge of people groups and their interactions throughout the region, Juraj is himself a practicing Lutheran with rich insight into Protestant/Catholic relations in Central Europe.In Northern Ireland we stay in cottages owned and run by the Baxter family. They are a rich mine of opportunities to connect with and understand the local culture and its history. The daughter, Didi arranges hikes through the local mountains and forests. The father, Liam, arranges music nights and visits to local historical sights. The Baxters were deeply impacted by the Troubles, and though they don’t make that very public, that background enriches our time in Northern Ireland. Our nearest neighbors in Northern Ireland are the Benedictine brothers of the Monastery of the Holy Cross. The community was established roughy 15 years ago with the explicit mission of praying for and contributing to Catholic/Protestant reconciliation in Northern Ireland. We worship with the brothers regularly and our primary contact there, Brother Theirry helps us understand the religious dimensions of the ongoing tensions between Catholics and Protestants and offers a vision of the Christian faith that can help overcome those tensions. Duncan Morrow is a professor of politics at the University of Ulster in Belfast, a practicing protestant Christian and long-time reconciliation worker. He gives students an overview of the dynamics of the historical conflict between Irish and British/Catholic and Protestant. He also leads us on visits to sites in Belfast associated with the Troubles and helps debrief those visits.The Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland is a long-time Christian reconciliation effort in Northern Ireland. We spend a weekend with them engaging in hands-on workshops to help us understand the challenges associated with post-conflict reconciliation.

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Appendix 1Program and Progression A1.1

Westmont College The Common European Framework of References

Netzwerk Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Kurs- und Arbeitsbuch A1.1, Klett Verlag

During the A1.1 course students train to be able to:- present themselves (name, address, profession, family situation)- understand and give main information about their job, hobbies, personal interests,

living situation, family- understand and ask for the time, for places, for directions- go shopping, buy everyday life things- order in restaurants, cafes and bars- speak about meals, eating preferences, conversational talk during meal- orientate themselves in a city, ask for way and take public transport- understand and give e main information about touristic sights- talk about daily business and their day- write postcards, informal invitation-cards- find main information about events, concerts, etc. in magazines/websites

Structure/Grammar elements:- sentence structure/verbposition: declarative sentence, question, demand- conjugation of regular and irregular verbs in simple present - conjugation of the verbs “haben”/”sein”(to have / to be) in simple past- conjugation and use of auxiliary verbs - conjugation and use of separable verbs- use of definite and indefinite and negation articles- use of pronouns and possessive articles- declination of article in Akkusativ and Dativ (after prepositions)- use of prepositions for indications of time- use of prepositions for indications of place and direction- declination of articles in Akkusativ (as “Kasus” in object function)- objects in “Akkusativ”

You found more information about the descriptors for A1 (including A1.1 and A1.2) in the Common European Framework for References in language teachinghttp://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/elp/elp-reg/Source/Key_reference/Overview_CEFRscales_EN.pdf

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