Prompt:

• 5-7 bullet words or phrases about their feelings or thoughts when they first heard about this study abroad experience.

  • Exciting Opportunity

  • How will I choose between these two trips

  • I know absolutely nothing about Ukraine or Poland – so that seems like the right choice

  • I’ve already been to Germany, so I need to explore somewhere new

  • How am I going to pay for this – I’ll figure something out because I have to go

  • I’m so glad these trips are being combined

  • My mother is going to freak out

• 5-7 feelings or thoughts after first class or first readings

  • Excitement

  • Worry that I don’t know about the countries

  • Awe at how gracefully Germany worked with the refugee community

  • Confused about the definition of civic engagement – and then clarity from class

  • Impressed by my classmates

• 5-7 feelings or thoughts right now about what you have learned so far

  • Excitement

  • Awed by the passion of my classmates and teachers

  • Inspired

  • Feeling like I have found the right path, and am making the right choices

  • Humbled by the knowledge and actions of others

  • Hungry and eager

• 5-7 feelings or thoughts about what you still want to learn before we travel

  • I need to watch the rest of the Ukraine documentary

  • I need to read do more research on each place we’ll be visiting

  • I need to think critically about how I will process these experiences

  • I need to work on some language skills for each language

  • I want to be emotionally prepared

 

Wrap it up with a summary paragraph that reflects your feelings, thoughts, and learning:

 

This course really has changed my path, and I mean that in both a personal and professional context. I have more understanding about civic engagement is, and what that really looks like in the community, and how important it is. I have a name to put to the intention I have always held by working in higher education, and a place to put my empathetic nature, which has sometimes felt like a burden without an outlet. Beyond that, I want to reiterate how excited I am for this experience. I would have gone whether it was founded on social justice and revolution or not – but that fact that it is tied to these themes makes it so much more important and meaningful. I also am so humbled by my teachers and classmates. The passion that they have expressed, and the deep critical thinking that they are capable of regarding these topics is inspiring. I am so fortunate to have this opportunity with my study abroad family. Although I want to do a bunch more research before we go, I really want to focus on being present in the experience, and learning how to use the our critical reflection to affect change here at home.

Prompt: Find a song where the lyrics describe what you feel about the civic engagement, study abroad, or the course. Identify the song and write the lyrics that speak most directly to you. React to those lyrics in your one page journal entry. Why does the song relate to the course, civic engagement or study abroad? What part of the lyrics are most relevant and why? What does the song make you think or feel?

 

What started as a brief reflective journal entry assignment, quickly turned into hours down the rabbit hole.

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I am a music person. Everything I do in life relates itself to music. Some people think visually, some numerically, some spatially, but me, I think musically. I come by it honestly, music has always been the most important form of art to everyone in my family. My brother has studied for decades to be the incredible classically trained pianist that he is today, and although my father and I may not have that level of dedication to a single instrument, together we have an encyclopedic knowledge of more genres of music than I can even express. My mother, too, is a music lover, although perhaps not as much as the three of us. A few years ago, I was reflecting on my relationships over times with friends or lovers, and what I came to was that if a person had given me music – that person held true meaning in my life. The same goes for movies – maybe the movie was terrible, but if I come away with a new artist, it was worth it. When I first started seeing my now husband, I found that he, too, answered questions in song, and shared the same obnoxious tick for singing song lyrics mid-conversation if a phrase came up that reminded him of a tune. To a non-music person, we undoubtedly make the most annoying couple ever to have a conversation with!

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Alas, I digress. The assignment at hand is to reflect on a song that evokes feelings related to studying abroad, or being civically and communally engaged. This, although should seem easy for me, was incredibly difficult. I think that the idea of narrowing it down to one song is too overwhelming. Hence the rabbit hole. Instead, I’ve curated a playlist of almost 40 songs, that will inevitably continue to grow now that I have these topics in mind.

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I will say that upon first reading the prompt, my mind immediately went to politics and the government. There were a myriad of songs that flooded into my mind as a jumbled mess of musical chaos. The cacophony of protest songs, war songs, songs of inequality, and fighting for equal rights was loud, but in the din, I was able to identify a few that stood out.

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The first identifiable song was one that has stuck with me since I was a kid, a favorite of my parents’, and although I could recite the lyrics by age 10, it was only in college that I truly started to appreciate its meaning – Jackson Browne’s Lives in the Balance. It’s a story of war and how these wars that our government’s fight over money and oil and power are affecting the real lives of our real people and youth. It’s about how the systemic spread of lies are meant to enforce social control, while reinforcing only the interests of the few megalomaniacal characters that are in control. I tried in earnest to pick just one line that stood out, but it is the story as a whole that is most powerful. The title itself, says so much.

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Thematically, many of the other songs that came to mind were similar. I am not such a pessimist or cynical person to believe that that is all there is however. While I identify with many of the darker songs en theme, such as This is America by Childish Gambino, Goodbye Blue Sky by Pink Floyd, Electioneering by Radiohead, PohLease by Kamau, or War by OutKast, it is the songs that spread a message of togetherness and positivity that are the most meaningful. Andra Day’s recent Rise Up is a perfect example of this absolutely beautiful concept. This song moves me to tears every single time. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. If I watch the video while listening, I’m sobbing by the end. This song preaches rising up and standing together in the face of adversity. I will rise for you, and you will rise for me, and together we will move mountains. We will affect change. “All we need is hope, and for that, we have each other.” For me, the power of this song is in the phrase “we’ll do it a thousand times again”, which is saying, hey, it’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to happen overnight, but damned if we don’t keep up the fight. Revolution by Diplo also touches on this theme with, “Fallen people listen up! It's never too late to change our luck. So, don't let them steal your light, don't let them break your stride. There is light on the other side, and you'll see all the raindrops falling behind. It's a revolution.”

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Since the theme of community and civic engagement fell so squarely into this kind of governmental and political realm, I found it difficult to think of songs that shared the theme of traveling or studying abroad. Interestingly though, since I was young, I’ve been an avid mix-tape maker. This continues to this very day, and even resulted in a 2-disc set called The Vanderwerken Vows that my husband and I created as the “thank you gift” for friends and family that attended our wedding. I say interestingly because I have actually have two full series of mix-tapes that relate directly to travelling and having adventures. I could go on and on about travel songs, but many are specific to travelling with a loved one, or travelling to a specific place. One of my favorites is Vagabond by Handsome and Gretyl which is about a couple who vow to go on adventures always. Shirking the societal norms of settling down in one place, they travel the world and call every place that they are together home. “No matter where we go, I am home where I'm with you. Always go on adventures with me. To mountain holy splendor. On seas with fallen treasure. To hills that hold the heather. As long as we're together.”

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Days to Come by Bonobo says, “Move away from your western guns, travel towards eastern suns” which speaks to the need to get back in touch with nature to replenish the soul. Other tunes like Feels Like Home by The HIM talks about how it doesn’t matter where you are, as long as you are happy, you are home – pack your bags and leave, and explore the world. Follow the Sun by Xavier Rudd, similar to Days to Come poetically reminds us that there is beauty all around us, and that by seeking it out, we can reset ourselves and be happier together. “When you feel life coming down on you, like a heavy weight, when you feel this crazy society, adding to the strain, take a stroll to the nearest waters, and remember your place, many moons have risen and fallen long, long before you came. Tomorrow is a new day for everyone.”

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I also very much associate the idea of travelling not just with adventure or resetting, but with not being stuck in one place. This ties into studying abroad in that you cannot know the world by staying in one place. You have to get out of your hometown and see how others live not just in your state or country, but from all around the globe. Songs like Sleep on the Floor by the Lumineers or Chicago by Sufjan Stevens are great examples of this notion. Had Sleep on the Floor been out when I was young and planning my get away, it would have been my anthem. “Pack yourself a toothbrush dear. Pack yourself a favorite blouse. Take a withdrawal slip. Take all of your savings out. 'Cause if we don't leave this town, we might never make it out.” Chicago, though, was out when I was young and planning that get away. It was one of my favorite tunes from the early 2000s as I was leaving New York for my new adventure to Los Angeles. In it Sufjan sings about selling all his clothes to the state, driving to Chicago, falling in love with the place, making mistakes, learning from them, driving then to New York in a van with friend, and finding what happiness means to him, and if, in fact, happiness is a place.

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So many of these songs have multilayered meanings, and while none speak to the exact topics of the prompt, I feel as though this strange conglomeration of songs represents my thoughts about the trip as a whole. Music has that power – to take a thought and put that thought to a beat, in an arrangement of sounds that move, motivate, and connect. Lyrics become transcendent beyond simple words. Music brings people together, and helps to expand our minds and experiences. Music to me, is community. It embodies being engaged in something, and some artists like Yasin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) use it to say “Shine your light on the world.” Even when you may want to hide or be left alone, that is not going to solve anything. Get involved, travel the world, go out and talk to your neighbors, serve and help. Do the best you can with what it is you have.

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I want to learn from my travels all around the country, and the world. To experience more than what could be experienced from within the small bubble of my upbringing. It is critical for me to adventure and explore to feel like I am moving in a direction of being a more educated and worldly citizen. Without doing so, how can I ever hope to understand the bigger picture? How can I work towards fixing broken systems, and affecting real change if I don’t do hands on research? People may argue that travel is not a necessity to understanding their own community, but it is what works for me. Experiential learning. Hands-on. And in that, meeting more people, becoming a part of more communities, listening to their music, engaging into their culture, and hopefully, helping to make changes for the better, both big and small, everywhere I go.

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Check out my playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iJA8IVNOsbPDMCWMrGe4s

 

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Prompt: How have you lived your civic responsibility in relation to the discussions and readings in class to date? How might you expand your civic involvement in the next year? Five years?

 

I think that one of the most important things that I have come away with is that there are so many forms of being civically engaged. While I feel as thought I for a late start at being an actively engaged student, I know that I have done more in life than I give myself credit for on a regular basis. I think that Tevin’s idea of “activist guilt” (or maybe it was activist fatigue?) ot that feeling of not ever being able to do enough is a real thing. Right now as I look back on my life, I think mostly of the one-off times that I have volunteered, or voted, or had conversations with people on tough topics.

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In the immediate sense, I am taking action by learning more about what it means to be civically engaged. In this class, having the discussion that we do, I am trying to get actively involved in what it means to be actively involved. It may be a little redundant, but without an understanding of the concept, I cannot grow. Since the beginning of my time here at Buff State, I have attempted to really be present and take advantage of opportunities that would engage me with community and be a part of the greater whole. I had lived in Buffalo for 6 months prior to starting school, and I hadn’t been to a single place downtown. I hadn’t interacted with anyone other than my coworkers – at a job that I went to, and then went directly home. That wasn’t engagement, or growing, or experiencing a new place or culture, it was routine, and narrow. When I went into the process of starting school I vowed to myself and my spouse to really take advantage of being a student. That meant going to happy hours, and conferences, and being a part of the community. I feel that I have done a reasonably good job of that from where I started.

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I took advantage of going on an Alternative Break service trip to Puerto Rico, which is something that I have always “wished I could do” but never actually made the effort to make happen before. My spouse comes from a service and volunteer background, and I always felt that I was never doing as much as he has in his life. I decided to stand up to myself and take charge by getting involved. It was around the same time that I also saw that this study abroad trip was going to be happening. It seemed so far away and unrealistic at the time, but I’m happy to say that I stuck with the idea of going. My decision to do the AB trip, and to focus on social justice and student led revolution propelled me onto a path that I would have never considered. With these two choices came the opportunity to work as an intern at the Civic & Community Engagement office, and after being in class, and a few weeks of the internship, I now have the overwhelmingly awesome opportunity to also serve as a grad assistant for the office as well. The trajectory of how my time in the HESAA program is going way outside of how I ever could have imagined it.

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One of my assignments for HEA 624 Internship this past week was to find and analyze two job postings for positions that we would be interested in applying to once I graduate with my M.S. in HESAA. As I was searching, I went to all the familiar and comfortable keywords for positions that I would have applied to in my life before this program. I searched for registrar, study abroad, veterans, library, administrative assistant, etc., and out of 7 positions I ended up with two that were nearly identical for Associate Registrar openings. As I started to write my analysis it dawned on me that this was ridiculous. After I completed the first position’s analysis, I went back to the drawing board and searched for things outside of the box. I searched for service-learning, community, civic, engagement, alternative break, and leadership. What I came up with was a position that spoke more directly to my soul than what I had previously written about. Sure, I love the data, and records, and puzzles, and policies that Registrar jobs are comprised of, but what about getting my students to be good citizens, and taking actives roles in their communities? Isn’t that the mission that I have been working towards this entire time? What about actually working with students instead of hiding all of the time behind a desk? What about making people happy instead of constantly having screaming students and parents tell you that your office royally screwed over their student, and now you have to mediate and mitigate conflict?

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I’ve done all of that registrar work, and I love it, I do. But when I speak to my students, I want to know what they love to do, and how they want to serve their communities. I had a conversation once with a guy I met at a NAVPA conference a few year back, when I was 4 or 5 years into my work as a School Certifying Official for Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits. Somewhere around hour 4 of the conversation, he asked me “Why, as a pacifist, and a person who doesn’t believe in the military or war, would you be in this profession?” It was a great question, and one that no one had ever asked me. What I told him was that I respect how many of these student veterans come back from serving their country - some by going to war, which I may not agree with, but that is not for me to put on others – and they go back to school to get degrees in fields that ultimately will support their goals to continue serving others. Countless numbers of my students were in degrees like Fire Protection Technology, or Social Work, or Engineering, or Environmental Science, and 9 out of 10 of my students would tell me about their dreams of learning a trade to keep serving their communities. Although one form of their service was over, they wanted to translate their experiences in leadership, or communications, or technology that they had learned in the military to life as a civilian. I, wanted to serve those who had served, and wanted to continue to keep serving. I thought that this kind of serving was all that I was capable of – and while it is important work, and I am proud of that work, I think that there is so much more that I can offer.

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This ties itself directly into my what I hope to accomplish in my next five years. I want to keep expanding my understanding of how to get involved and make an impact and affect change. Where I may have pigeonholed myself before, I would like to open myself up to new opportunities to positions that I never realized existed. I want to take advantage of learning opportunities like study abroads, and alternative breaks, and I want to put myself out there in to my own community here in Buffalo more. I want to fuel the fire and enthusiasm of students to also get involved and serve alongside their communities. I want to learn how to create and promote those opportunities to enrich students’ lives, and the lives of those around them. I think that I am on the right path to accomplishing this goal.  

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Prompt: Read the quote and respond to questions below

 

"Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift. But it's really just a piece of parchment. It has no power on its own. We, the people, give it power - with our participation, and the choices we make. Whether or not we stand up for our freedoms. Whether or not we respect and enforce the rule of law. America is no fragile thing. But the gains of our long journey to freedom are not assured."

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"It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we've been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours. Because for all our outward differences, we all share the same proud title: Citizen."

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"Ultimately, that's what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there's an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try to talk with one in real life. If something needs fixing, lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you're disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Persevere."

-          President Barack Obama Farewell address. Jan 10, 2017

 

o   WHAT? What does this quote mean to you?

I think the quote sums up a lot of what people needed to hear after the Presidential Election November 2016. I know that many people in my circles were utterly devastated and had no idea what the hell was going on with America for “letting this happen”. What President Obama is saying is that we take our civil liberties for granted. He’s saying that being apathetic to the system that you don’t like, is a recipe for disappointment. I think that how he talks about the Constitution is really poignant, and it something that we need to remember can be changed, just like any other change that has been made to our government with enough votes. Being an armchair politician is not going to impact change. Arguing with strangers on the internet is not going to fix the fact that we are living with systemic racism and oppression. While we may each take action in different ways, and may not all be equipped to run for office, he’s saying that in order for our democracy to work, we need to act as if we are a part of it, and that we actually care about the outcomes.

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o   SO WHAT? Why does it matter? Why is this important?

It matters so much! I have had countless conversations over the past year surrounding the near dystopic landscape that this presidency has and continues to try and create. But, I have also had conversations about incredible women, and powerful minority leaders rising up to take on the injustices that our people and our civil rights are being faced with in the wake of Trump’s reign. Although I am clearly looking at this from a liberal perspective, and the issues may be different for a more conservative constituent, the facts remains that if someone is preaching job creation, economics, and gun rights from their place at the head of the Thanksgiving table, but doing nothing about it to take action, then they are in the same place as the people who found themselves shocked and horrified when Trump won the election. Thankfully for people with liberal interests, this has been a wake-up call to action.

To take this outside of politics, the same goes for anything that is happening in our communities. If someone is worried about the crime rate rising in their neighborhood, they don’t have to just up and move, and certainly complaining is not going to save their neighbor from getting robbed. What will work is getting people of that neighborhood together to form a watch, working together to look out for one another and being present to brainstorm how best to resolve the conflict.

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o   NOW WHAT? What will you do with this information? What can you learn from this to affect you in the future?

It’s exhausting to always be involved, and it’s exhausting to go out and collaborate and do the hard work, but it’s also absolutely necessary if I want to see a change in my community or in my own life. I think that keeping in mind President Obama’s words as a personal mantra is really important. If I find myself complaining, I will do what I can to change what is not working. I think about this in the landscape of higher ed, and how difficult it can be. I am a situation at work where I’ve decided to leave rather than try to stay and fix things. I think that knowing what battles to pick is also something that I need to keep in mind, and to focus on working really hard on what I can help to change. I came back to school for a hundred reasons, but having that Master’s along with my experience is really going to help me in the future when I am applying for higher level positions that have just slightly more say in how the system is run. I had a terrible experience as an undergraduate student, but I believe in education – in a sense, this is my form of “grabbing a clipboard, getting some signatures, and running for office” so that I can hopefully ensure that one or two or 1000 students have a better experience than I had. I will keep looking for opportunities in the community that I live in to fight the injustices that I see, and when my laces break from use, I’ll know that I’m out doing the work, and I’ll go out and buy some more.

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“

There is no significant division between us and other people, because our basic natures are the same. If we wish to ensure everyone's peace and happiness, we need to cultivate a healthy respect for the diversity of our peoples and cultures, founded on an understanding of this fundamental sameness of all human beings.

 

-Dalai Lama

 

”

 

Introduction

               

While I am not one who subscribes to religious doctrine, I often find my spiritual-self drawn towards the words of the Dalai Lama, and the teachings of Buddhism. As I grow and travel the world, the sentiments of understanding and sameness are ones that I keep close to my heart. In times of mental unrest, it is principles such as these that get me through to seeing the clarity of living life together on this planet. Although I have travelled the country quite extensively in the past few years, it had been a great deal longer since I had travelled outside of the United States as I entered my study abroad experience this summer with the HESAA program to Ukraine, Poland, and Germany. Considering myself to be a very open individual who gains massive amounts of enjoyment, and fulfillment from getting outside of my borders, and my comfort zone, I felt that I was ready for what this trip had to teach me. Though, as I stepped onto the plane to our first destination, it was not with the haughtiness of the well-travelled, but the humility of an ever-learning student of life.

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                Leading up to this trip, life, as is its wont, threw me a great many monkey-wrenches to my path. As it turns out, being a graduate student is a very difficult lifestyle to acclimate to, and fitting in all of my ordinary responsibilities in addition to school has been a constant tribulation. Though I had attended all of the mandatory meetings for class, I was entering into a trip with my peers, many of whom I had had very little social contact with outside of the classroom. It is a strange thing indeed to enter into such an adventure with near strangers, and one that gave me an incredible amount of anxiety both heading into the trip, and throughout. As I look back on other group trips that I have taken, this feeling is not unique to this study abroad, but it is something that felt much heavier on this occasion. Perhaps it is where I am in life, perhaps it was the heaviness of the topics that we were focusing on, or the heaviness of our own political situation in the United States, but I entered into this knowing that I would be uncomfortable at best. As the sayings go, however, discomfort is the greatest catalyst for growth.

 

Lodging

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                I have tried to think back to before the trip in an attempt to remember which situation – hostel stay or home stay – gave me the most anxiety, but I honestly cannot remember which it was, and in that, it feels fair to say both generated equal amounts. While I faced certain personal challenges with each type of lodging, we were afforded very unique benefits at each of the locations throughout Ukraine, Poland, and Germany.

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Staying in Kyiv, we were at the heart of the largest city in Ukraine. Our hostel was well equipped and positioned and I feel that our greatest benefit was how easily we could walk and get around to other parts of the city. We were also able to use multiple forms of public transportation to explore, but we were very fortunate to have Kyiv-Mohyla, multiple shops and restaurants, and also culturally significant locations right outside our doorway. This was especially important when we walked the path of Euromaidan. Being so close to where everything took place, held a significance to it that staying elsewhere in the city would not have. The hostel also had space for us to sit and eat in small groups and digest what we had learned and seen on each of our excursions. Having this space, I think allowed for people to form bonds and friendships within our group.

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Similarly, our lodging in Poland was incredibly well positioned. We were just around the corner from the main square in Kraków, and just steps away from Jagiellonian University, cultural heritage sites, shops, and eateries. The unique benefit to this particular set-up was that it was not a hostel where we were spread out, but rather an apartment where we were all able to come together easily as a group. There was plenty of room for personal space, but also a large table in the common area where we were able to process as a group, without having to be in a public space like at the hostel. I think that we were able to feel a little less like tourists. The hostel in Ukraine was in an area that not many Ukrainian people can afford to live, and although it was close to everything in the city, set us a part a little bit from the average person living there. In Poland, the apartment, although run like a hotel, gave us the benefit of living in an area where perhaps a student of Jagiellonian might rent a flat with a classmate. Also, it was much more of a discrete location that did not stand out as a tourist hub.

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The best lodging situation however, I felt was in Germany with my host family. This surprised me as I had expected to feel awkward and nervous the entire time, but, I ended up with the absolute perfect host family for who I am as a person. I cannot say enough great things about my time with Heike, Volker, and Linus Eckey. We got along famously, and all of the anxiety that I had been carrying up to this point about needing to make conversation or trying to fit with my potential family melted away. My conversations and explorations with the Eckey family will remain some of the most positive and impactful memories from this trip. I think that the unlike staying together in a hostel or apartment, the home stay gave me the opportunity to have deep dives into conversations with Germans about their daily lives, their views on their country and the world, and it gave me the opportunity to “live as a German lives” for the time that I was with them. I feel that it also gave the group the benefit of having different experiences to then come back to together as a group to share at a later time. We had the benefit of assimilation and self-reliance in Germany that we were not able to create in either of the other two countries. We were forced to get ourselves from Point A to Point B, and interact with local people constantly. This helps to bring perspective in a way that living in the isolation of a hostel or apartment does not.

 

Cultural Education

 

                I spoke at length about many of my challenges on this trip in my journals, but I want to pay mindful attention to the positive and impactful moments and lessons as well, here. My initial reflection paper submitted for our INE 590 class at the beginning of spring semester talked about how I, rather shamefully, knew almost nothing about the histories and cultural climates and landscapes of the countries that we were preparing to visit. In each country, I feel as though I came away with a fair amount of cultural understanding based not only of their histories, but also the demonstrations of their present-day actions. Although I feel that I have barely scraped even the tip of the iceberg in educating myself to these foreign countries, I am thoroughly grateful for the opportunities that we had in-country to assist in that education.

 

In Ukraine, spending time at Kyiv-Mohyla (as part of our formal itinerary) was probably the most memorable and beneficial for me, personally. Our conversations with Dariya, the students, and Serhiy were educational, engaging, and eye-opening. With respect to my quote from the Dalai Lama about the sameness and equality of all human beings, I certainly saw how drastically cultural can play into how differently we act and present ourselves within our human sameness. I have been working with students for a long time, and although I am still young and a student myself, I have seen a shift in the past 15 years in the American student away from taking responsibility and action. Not all students - because I fully understand that this is a gross over-simplification - but my opinion is that many American students are coming into college with an unprecedented level of entitlement that unfortunately does not often feel like progress. What I saw in Ukraine felt pointedly different. Our sample of students was very targeted – smart and motivated young graduate students attending an elite and historic university – but bearing this in mind, what I saw was representative of a hopeful population willing to work really hard and fight for the rights that they believe all people should have. We take so much for granted at home, and I think that this really hit me when one of the students at Kyiv-Mohyla talked about how the European Union is like this whimsical magical place where you can go to belong, and be afforded luxuries and rights and equality. In the same breath, she stated that this is a better option than being absorbed into Russia, and that being an independent and confident Ukraine felt like it was not an option at all. The EU, was the lesser of two evils. A strong united Ukraine, again, was not an option at all. That really got me as this would never be the sentiment at home in the US.

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As we talked with these students, Dariya, and Serhiy further, more and more of the character of Ukraine shone forth. It was in the willingness of a powerful politician sitting casually in jeans on a summer morning with a random group of students from Western New York and speaking openly and honestly about corruption in his country. It was in the somehow innate desire to be so civically engaged and knowledgeable to of the systems of inequity hold in their country, that they willingly and openly discuss revolting against the government for not having their people’s best interests at heart. It was in the blunt way that trauma was discussed as everyday happenstance. It was in the silent strength of their forward, no-nonsense manner of existing and speaking. In their austerity in the face of our wastefulness. In comparing Americans to Ukrainians, there is no right and wrong. There never is. There is only a different way of approaching life. Revolutions like the ones had by Ukraine would simply not be possible here in the States due to the shear differences in size and population. Similarly, we do not face the same threats, we have not had the same histories, and we do not share a similar homogeneity. I do not romanticize the character differences in our two peoples to say that Americans should act more like Ukrainians, but simply that many of the characteristics I witnessed in these resilient people were commendable, and educational. I think that each of us on this trip saw things that we could incorporate into ourselves to more be more intentional about our own resilience, and aware of our own privileges.

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On the second leg of our trip, I feel that unfortunately due to our short amount of time in Poland, and limited exposure to its people, I cannot give honest feedback on cultural differences between them, us, and the other people and cultures of the countries that we visited. That being said, the most educational experience for me during this time was not through our formal itinerary, but rather our extra-curricular excursion to Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. We are taught about what the Holocaust is in high school, and of course we have all read and discussed this beyond our formal schooling, but nothing could have ever prepared me for the impact of visiting Auschwitz. I will attach a social media post to this essay which sums up my feelings from that portion of the trip. What I took away from this visit in the context of the rest of our trip, is that upon returning to Kraków, I was exponentially more aware of the hustle bustle of a busy, beautiful, successful metropolis. One that I felt instantly connected to the day that we initially drove in from the lush countryside. So connected in fact that while I was there over the next few days I felt that I could stay forever and bask in its architecture, its arts, its rhythm. I was hyper aware of this after Auschwitz because it is mindboggling and awe-inspiring to me that a country, and a people, could bounce back from such a devastating history. Not an ancient history, not even history from 100 years ago, but one that people alive today bore witness to. How tenacious and strong a country must be to overcome those odds. Which, incidentally, I do believe is a shared quality of character with Ukraine.    

To go directly from Poland to Germany was a fascinating experience. Similar to Ukraine, what I found in Germany was that the people did not shy away from the hard conversations. During my conversations with my host family, and also in some of our extracurricular activities, such as visiting the old prison next to Auslandsgesellschaft, I found that people were extraordinarily willing to discuss politics, history, and culture in a straightforward and matter-of-fact way that is not common at home in the US. Like in Ukraine, I felt that the people I interacted with in Germany were no-nonsense, but in neither country did this come off as brusque. At home, when people choose not to use euphemisms, hedging, or an indirect and complimentary style of communication, they are categorized as rude. Taken in context of gender, “rude” quickly turns much more derogatory when describing a woman who communicates in a direct manner. However, in Ukraine and Germany, this specific quality is the norm, and one that I came to appreciate, especially from an educational standpoint. The information that we received throughout our time in Germany was not “whitewashed” like the history lessons that we get back home. Also, like Ukraine, the students that we interacted with in Germany were very in-tune with their current political landscapes, as well as with their country’s histories. This again is a critical difference between our cultures. I think that there will always be some people and students here that have a natural curiosity about world politics and US government, but the difference between our culture and that of Ukraine and Germany is that these people at home are the exception to the average disinterested or apathetic populous.

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Because of the differences in how natural and innate it seemed for the people that we met with in Ukraine and Germany to be active and engaged in politics and activism, it is difficult to compare this with the US. What we think of as being civically engaged here is often viewed through the lens of community partnership, volunteerism, lobbying, and campaigning for our preferred politicians. I think that we take action differently, and on average I think our culture is to know a lot less about a lot less in regards to the world’s political climate than people do in either Germany or Ukraine. Everyone that I spoke with in either country had up-to-date knowledge of the US political climate and a fair understanding of our history, structures, and systems. I found myself wondering how many students in the US know who the German Chancellor is, or even what Chancellor means, and if any student could tell me when Ukraine gained its independence. On the contrary, I did not hear much from any of the students we spoke with about volunteerism, or a sense of helping others. These are big differences that I think would be interesting to explore in more focused research.

 

Diversity

 

                In Germany, we focused exclusively on the refugee population, which very much entailed conversations about diversity with both social and political implications. However, in the other two countries that we visited, this was not a focal point for our discussions regarding their social, political, or educational systems. What ended up being much more of a conversation in all three countries was a focus on racial and ethnic diversity both in-group, and at home in comparison to in-country. In Ukraine, we found a dramatic contrast in racial and ethnic diversity to what we are accustomed to in the US, specifically in Buffalo. While in Buffalo, our students have an expectation of seeing themselves reflected in any given sample of the student population. However, it was very apparent with just one day in the city of Kyiv that the homogeneity of racially and ethnically white people was very prevalent. This prompted many discussions about the lack of diversity and how it made our students feel. I think that the argument can be made that the lack of this specific kind of diversity can affect one’s worldview, and a lack of education on this type of diversity can affect social mores and perceptions when it comes to knowing how to respond to foreigners. However, this is speculation, and not a conversation I personally had while I was in Ukraine with people from Ukraine.

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                In Poland, I again feel that we did not have sufficient contact with the local population, or time enough to have deeper lever conversations with the staff at Jagiellonian University to assess how diversity or the lack thereof affects Student Affairs professionals, or their systems. What I did see in Kraków, which was also represented by the presentation given to us by Admissions, was that there were many international students and people of all types of diversity, which was very apparent after having been in Kyiv. I do not feel that I can give any further insight on this topic from what I experienced during our trip.

                Germany, unlike our first two countries, is where the topic of diversity took flight. To clarify, we focused primarily on diversity at it relates to citizenship, and did not formally discuss many other types of diversity. During all of the presentations that we attended at each university, we were able to gain valuable insights into how Germany incorporated hundreds of thousands of refugees into the country, and more specifically into their educational system. We spent hours learning about the programs that were created to serve the refugee population and how the inclusion of these new Germans has changed the landscape of higher education.

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The most impressive and impactful lesson I took away from speaking with the higher ed professionals at all three of the universities that we visited, was the need for adaptability. Each of the offices that we spoke to were able to - on the fly - create programs to help teach language and life skills to prepare refugees for life in Germany. This adaptability was seen in multiple ways, and I feel that one of the most powerful ways was in taking action first, and figuring out the systems of bureaucracy later. Most people in higher ed at home that I have encountered, are afraid to take action without following protocol - but in the event of massive changes to the countries population, and having identified the need for new and innovative programming, our German peers jumped to action in a way that I found courageous, inspiring, and commendable. What was very interesting to me was that it was not centralized to one university or college, but rather, we saw this jump to action across all of the universities that we visited. One of the more memorable things from our discussions, too, was that it went beyond just the International Office, but spread across many academic and administrative offices. At two of the universities, Köln and Bochum, we were told about free legal services being made available to refugees through their Law departments. I thought that this was a great example of the university community coming together to adapt to a unique need, and one which we here at home could learn from.

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Outside of the education systems in Germany, we also saw a similar sense of adaptability and jumping into action. We were able speak with Mirza, a community advocate, who showed us around the Nordstadt part of town where many of the new immigrants to Germany landed a few years back when the refugee numbers saw their most dramatic rise. Mirza talked with us about how many community centers and people all around Dortmund and Germany sprang into action overnight to help settle and relocate refugees. These were not systems that were already in place, but rather proof of an adaptable community ready and willing to upheave their normal lives to support the comfortable transition for those in dire need. While I know that we at home are capable of these same feats, our own political situation is reluctant to allow for such hospitality and humanism. I think that we all stand to learn from the helpfulness and hopefulness of our allies.

 

Closing Thoughts

 

                Daily on this trip, I found myself in deep introspection about the state of higher education in America. Vacillating from pride to disappointment, and back again throughout all of the conversations had both in-group and with our peers from Ukraine, Poland, and Germany. I think that one thing we are doing well with at home is recognizing the need for services that range for the individual student to meet them where they are at. This is represented by our many styles of teaching, our fleshed-out Student Affairs profession, our many degrees geared towards training higher education professionals, by studying theory, making classrooms and content accessible, and creating programming for many types of diversity – not just racial but for all identities. I feel that we are leading the way on capturing the spirit of educating the whole individual. However, one thing that we are doing not so well at though, is making education affordable and accessible to the masses. This was very apparent in both Germany and Ukraine, and while it does not directly relate to being a higher education professional, it certainly relates to our social, political, and educational systems and how oppressive they can be to huge swaths of the population. Instead of having a free education system like in Germany and Ukraine, where students come out with a degree and are financially able to succeed, we send our students into lifelong debt in return for receiving an education. Although this is not something that I directly will be able to change as I work in higher education administration, I will indirectly continue to attempt to make these changes on a political level. I think that our governmental systems have a lot to learn when it comes to making education a right, not a privilege.

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                That deep introspection also included deciding whether or not I am in the right profession. In the end, that answer is yes. While I may have some second guessing as to where my place is in this landscape, I know for certain that I want to be there to help people succeed as students. The work that Germany and Ukraine are doing at the collegiate level is inspiring. Universities and colleges in those two countries, are the agents of positive change. Changes to the government, changes to the lives of their people, and changes to the lives of those coming in with their own hopes and dreams of a fresh start. I want to be sure that we here in the US are heading in that same direction. Helping those to find a path to help change the world for the better. Student Affairs may not be where I personally can best serve my public, but higher ed, as a whole, is.

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This study abroad was a provocative experience that has helped me to contemplate how best to harness my energies and move forward with dedication and motivation and be “the change that I want to see in the world”. Although we are different countries with different issues and challenges to face, we are all human, and we are all the same underneath all of our differences. I want to see my fellow humans lead happy and civically active and productive lives. I want to be sure that I am fulfilling my role within my community, and my skillset is finely tuned towards higher ed and its many facets for making this dream a reality. My goal in achieving this all is to be as adaptable as the Germans to change, as resilient as the Polish people, and as revolutionary as the Ukrainian people to promote those changes. Despite many challenges that I faced personally on this trip, I feel that I have come out with a greater appreciation for what I do as a professional, and an understanding of the true impact that we together are able to create.

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Appendix

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It may look like just another building, but this is one of many blocks in Auschwitz where 1.3 million Jewish, Polish, Romani people, and others suspected of treason were imprisoned - 1.1 million of whom were savagely killed during the Holocaust. This was the one and only photo that I could bear to take, and it was as soon as we walked onto the grounds. As difficult as it was to walk through those gates, I needed this one photo. I don't have words as to why, but it felt overwhelmingly important. 

As I was reading my book this morning sitting at the airport as the academic portion of my trip comes to an end, I came upon a devastating depiction of prejudice that one of the Jewish characters endured, and crying, I realized how I truly have not even begun to process my visit.

I can still hear the screams described by our guide, see the writhing, smell the walls that crept in around me throughout those chambers, feel the beds that I rested my hands upon and sobbed. 
I cannot unsee the horrors of human hair turned into textiles. I cannot unsee every shoe left behind, every name on every suitcase, every intake photo that hung on the wall prior to the even more demoralizing tattoo system went into effect. I cannot unhear the gunshots in that post-judgement courtyard. Unsee the blood-spattered wall. Unhear the screeching children and mothers when they realized what was happening as they were "processed" or sent directly to their deaths. Unsee the husbands’ faces when they were forced to lie to their wives and say everything would be okay.
 

I was only at Auschwitz and Birkenau for 3 hours, but every moment felt like a million years and I struggled to breathe through every step.
 

Many people have asked me why I wanted to go to this place of death and sorrow, but I cannot put my reasons into words. 
 

My empathic being took in every single emotion from every corner of our journey through the grounds, and it would take me a lifetime to explain how that felt and feels still.
 

But, I wanted to share this as a part of my processing.

Let us be reminded of these unfathomable horrors so that we can actively fight against their repetition.

               

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