An Interview with Dr. Sheryl Fontaine, AIFS Overseas School Accomplice

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AIFS Overseas’s college companions are the center of our Custom-made School-Led packages. Studying from them and with them makes us all stronger as educators and advocates. Our long-standing associate, Dr. Sheryl Fontaine from California State College, Fullerton, lately shared her private historical past and perception on main research overseas packages with AIFS Overseas.

What are your first formative experiences in research overseas and with AIFS Overseas?

My first connection was once I studied in Rouen, France throughout my very own junior yr in school, then later I led a three-week Paris Winter Session that was supported by AIFS Overseas. For 2 consecutive Januarys, I traveled to Paris with a gaggle of CSUF undergrads, a few of whom had by no means been on an airplane, most of whom had by no means been to Paris, and lots of of whom had by no means seen snow. Whereas in Paris, college students wrote artistic non-fiction in my course, “Writing By means of Paris.” The course built-in journal reflections and essay writing with class instruction, readings about Paris neighborhoods, and strolling excursions by means of these neighborhoods.

AIFS helped me to convey collectively these various items of my first course overseas. I ought to say that Sarah Plumley, my help group in Paris, made this occur. Sarah served as the scholar help skilled (so useful for the scholar who thought this was a month to go clubbing with French household and buddies), cultural help (invaluable given my rusty information of French and Parisian tradition and historical past), and educational help (when the mental experiences exterior the classroom that I needed college students to have weren’t the sorts discovered within the Frommer’s information).

You latterly crafted a course that may very well be taught in London for a semester. Why London as a vacation spot? 

I used to be desperate to recast the artistic writing course I’d taught in Paris, this time as “Writing by means of London,” the place we’d use artistic non-fiction about London—a various, wealthy, and sophisticated city area—as a way for writing about and reflecting on cultural and ethnic identities, positioning themselves in relation to the ethnic and cultural diversities they bring about from house and the one(s) college students would discover in London.

The angle offered by 10 years in college management and the anticipation of quite a few international management adjustments, Spring ’24 was additionally the precise time to design and pilot a course, “Management and Public Service.” This course invitations college students to discover management within the context of private id, emotional dynamics, organizational constructions, native and nationwide neighborhood and tradition, gender, and emergent constructions. College students replicate on how their very own experiences and information and their consciousness of historical past and cultural context make a distinction of their understanding of management and in their very own management growth.

Rethinking Examine Overseas and Cultural Humility

Many of the literature I’ve discovered on research overseas packages and cultural humility is concentrated on programs within the well being professions that happen within the international south or indigenous communities. Main research overseas in London would problem me to design a program that will promote college students’ (and my very own) self-exploration and self-critique in relation to and respect for the beliefs, customs, and values of our host metropolis and nation, each of which proceed to face implications of a colonial previous colliding with a culturally various current. Educating in London would give me a chance to combine these ideas into the pedagogy and assignments of my programs whereas respecting the varied identities of scholars: Southern Californians who attend a public, HSI, ANNAPISI college.

What have you ever found in your position as college chief, following your personal expertise(s) overseas?

On reflection, among the many many issues that I realized, one was the significance of the time I had taken through the fall semester in California to plan for the spring semester in London. I created curricula uniquely designed for research overseas; mirrored time and again on the connection between the readings, assignments, audio system, excursions, and London; and took a brief reconnaissance journey to go to with the AIFS Overseas London group. On the time, I assumed that by being tremendous ready, all the pieces would run with out a hitch as soon as the semester started. However it seems that I used to be being tremendous ready for the fact of the hitches that will occur: audio system cancel, tube strikes threaten, excursions are too pricey, and efficiency dates change. My weeks of preparation had armed me with a deep understanding of the gist of my programs and the connections I needed to protect between the category work and town and other people of London. And with that, I used to be in a position to have knowledgeable and useful conversations with the AIFS Overseas educational coordinators, Sara Grey and Joe Videan, about extra-curricular additions and replacements. We tailored and adopted my programs with the advantage of their cultural information and the readability of intentions I’d established for my programs.

Are you able to share a very impactful expertise whereas educating overseas?

Sara Grey, AIFS Overseas Educational Coordinator, had organized for my “Management and Public Service” class to go to Blessed Sacrament Main College and meet with the pinnacle trainer and her assistant. In our AIFS Overseas classroom on the morning earlier than the go to, I requested college students to have interaction in grounded self-reflection. After discussing the chapters in our textual content on institutional management constructions, college students shared recollections from their senior yr in highschool that had occurred through the COVID pandemic. What had their educational and private experiences been? How had their academics and college directors responded on this second of disaster? Later that afternoon, sitting in chairs barely too small for his or her grownup our bodies and with notebooks open on their laps, the scholars listened in alarmed silence as the pinnacle academics of Blessed Sacrament described what had occurred to their faculty throughout and since COVID—declining enrollments and dramatic cultural adjustments within the neighborhood, extreme funds cuts, efforts to steadiness academics’ private well being and with that of the scholars, and, most importantly, the pending Council determination both to shut the college or transfer it into a personal belief. Somewhat than sitting in awkward, uninformed silence, the scholars answered our hosts’ questions and requested their very own, their voices resonating with the reflections and recollections that they had shared with each other that morning in school. Very near the tip of the semester, we learn the Council’s heartbreaking determination to shut the college.

What are you most enthusiastic about as you proceed this work?

Alternative at House

I’m excited that our school Examine Overseas Committee has began a mentoring program the place college who’ve designed and led research overseas packages can be found to mentor inexperienced however college. It isn’t stunning that many college who lead research overseas packages are both former research overseas college students or practiced vacationers, and sometimes carried on lives of educational, monetary, or cultural privilege. To efficiently improve the cultural and ethnic variety of the scholars who take part in research overseas and the areas to which we journey, we should improve the range of the school who lead the packages. A mentorship program just like the one in HSS could make it safer, extra snug, and simpler for curious colleagues who don’t know how research overseas works, tips on how to design a research overseas class, or what help is offered to the research overseas college and college students.

Alternative in London

Getting up to now in my understanding of research overseas has taken a number of dialog and plenty of do-overs. By the point I returned house in Could ‘24, I used to be simply figuring it out. I’m excited that in January 2026, I’ll have an opportunity to attempt once more once I journey to London with one other group of CSUF college students and have one other alternative to show “Writing By means of London” and “Management and Public Service.” I hope that Sara and Joe have penciled into their schedules our Monday afternoon recap and replanning conversations, that Charlie and Nick are prepared for my morning pop-ins to learn how the scholars are faring exterior of sophistication, and that Tracy, Kristy, and Sarah received’t be too bothered by my many emails with the topic line: “What do you consider this concept?” I’m excited to return to London figuring out that I’ll have the great fortune and pleasure of being a short lived member on a group of educators whose appreciation for the life altering advantages of research overseas is the same as—or maybe even larger than—my very own.

Dr. Fontaine spent 10 years serving as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) at California State College, Fullerton earlier than returning to school life as Professor of English. Inside her discipline of analysis, Composition and Rhetoric, Dr. Fontaine teaches educational and artistic writing, writing and tutoring pedagogy, and Writing Research. She has additionally written in regards to the nature of rising disciplines, writing program and educational program administration, shared governance, and, most lately, reflections and suggestions drawn from having served as a school dean by means of the pandemic.