Northwest College faculty members Milo Asay, Amy McKinney and Anthony Polvere have been awarded Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language (UISFL) grants through the International and Foreign Language program at the U.S. Department of Education. The multi-year grant provides academic travel opportunities during the 2022-23 academic year.
Each recipient will receive $6,000 to be used to support the design of new courses, or the re-design of existing courses to include demonstrable, measurable Global Studies Learning Outcomes. The courses developed through the program provide NWC with an opportunity to design and implement a Global Studies Certificate that students could obtain after taking a designated number of classes that qualify as “Global Studies” courses.
Asay, an Assistant Professor in the Humanities Department, plans to visit France while researching the importance of “place” and culture in relation to authors who wrote there. He will spend additional time at EM Strasbourg Business School, researching the pedagogy used to teach courses in three different languages. With his work overlapping literature and business during the trip, Asay will be able to integrate his research into many facets of education at NWC, including the new BAS degree.
“When teaching and studying literature, students need to understand the author and the influences in the writers’ lives that created the story,” said Asay. “I like to give a background of the authors, and a visit to France will give me personal knowledge of the culture that influenced the writers I plan to teach in my literature courses.”
McKinney, who is Associate Professor of History, is planning a trip to Japan to increase her expertise in the cultural customs of East Asia. Her goal is to expand the current one-semester class on the history of East Asia to a two-semester sequence, allowing for more in-depth analysis of themes such as philosophy, politics, religion, gender, family life and social customs. While in Japan, McKinney will visit the Prefectural University of Kumamoto, which houses the Department of Japanese Language and Literature.
“The grant will allow me to enhance global learning in my courses,” McKinney said. “Global learning helps students develop their sense of identity, community, ethics and perspective, and their understanding that they live in an increasingly interconnected and multicultural world. Studying the diversity of human experiences helps us appreciate culture, ideas and traditions that are not our own.”
Polvere is Associate Professor of Photography and will be traveling to England where he will study the process of creating early photographs known as salt prints. He hopes to learn the skill himself and be able to teach students the same alternative process while connecting it to modern-day photographic techniques. Polvere plans to spend time as well at Bath Spa University, located near Lacock Abbey where the earliest salt print images were created.
“There has been talk in our department about adding this original, or first process, to our curriculum in an effort to make history come alive for our students,” said Polvere. “Even though we are a commercial photography program, we feel our students need to understand the roots of all the concepts of modern digital photography.”
The UISFL grant is jointly managed by the Northwest College Office of Intercultural Programs, and the Office of International Studies at Montana State University Billings, which maintains partnerships with 20 overseas universities. NWC and MSUB are two of only 32 schools nationwide to receive this funding.
This is the second year in a row the UISFL grant has been available to NWC faculty members. Last year, Associate Professor of Art Elaine DeBuhr, Assistant Professor of Music Tristan Eggener, and Associate Professor of Anthropology Greg Smith all traveled to Japan or South Korea to conduct research that would assist them in strengthening their curriculum.