CIDE: Selected student profiles

Meet a few of our students and what they have to say about CIDE!

Yongling Zhang

Ph.D. student - CIDE

Yongling Zhang is a second year Ph.D. student in CIDE. Yongling is originally from Shanghai, China, where she grew up and got a B.A. in history from Fudan University. Her interest in comparative education started from foreign languages and culture. Yongling taught English for secondary school students on a part-time basis for four years while she was an undergraduate and she also enjoyed learning languages. She studied German as a second foreign language and in her junior year went to Austria in the first Chinese-Austrian-EU summer exchange program.

Yongling spent the first two years after her graduation in Liverpool, England. She studied at the University of Liverpool and graduated with a M.Ed. with distinction in December 2004. During the two years she lived in Merseyside, Yongling also engaged in a lot of activities related to education: she worked as a student advocate for Aim Higher program at the university and also served as a student teacher of history in a local school. Upon graduation Yongling worked for seven months as a volunteer with a national environmental charity in Cheshire and conducted Alternative Curriculum work with at-risk youth.

She came to Minnesota in fall 2005, and started working as a research assistant for Dr. Joan G. DeJaeghere, who is a co-adviser of hers (together with Dr. John J Cogan). Her current research interests include: civic and moral education in China, girls’ education and gender development, and volunteer teachers in rural areas. For her dissertation she plans to do a comparative study of the civic moral education at secondary level in Mainland China, Hong Kong and/or Taiwan. She is especially interested in the moral development of young people and is currently working on this through her minor coursework in political psychology.

Yongling continues her tradition of engaging in extra-curricular activities in Minnesota. She is the organizer of Global Discussion on Campus, a partnership program with Culture Corps at International Students & Scholar Services and Minnesota International Center. She also serves as president for Educational Policy and Administration Student Association (EPASA) for 2006-2007. More information of her can be found at Youngling's academic Web site.

Willington W Kamukama

Ph.D. candidate - CIDE

Willington Kamukama, a Ford Foundation Fellow, is an international student in the dissertation phase of the Ph.D. program in CIDE. He brings to the University vast experience in educational policy and administration, having worked as a national education secretary, a lecturer at a teachers’ college, and a principal of several high schools in his home country. He holds two masters degrees—a master of philosophy from the University of Birmingham, UK, and a master of educational administration and planning from Makerere University, Uganda.

Willington’s research evaluates how successful decentralization has been at the primary level of education, and how it can be applied to the secondary level of education in his country. He considers himself fortunate to work on this project advised by professors David Chapman and Michael Paige.

Willington has traveled to many countries, such as Hawaii (twice), Britain, Rome, and extensively within the East African region. His interests lie in organizational leadership and religion. He hopes to return to his home country and teach at the second largest state University in the country.

Lili Dong

Ph.D. candidate – CIDE

Lili is a CIDE Ph.D. candidate from China. She started her Ph.D. studies at the University of Minnesota in fall 2004. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature from Shanghai International Studies University, one of the top two foreign language institutions in China. She earned her master of science degree in educational learning and instruction from the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. During her master’s studies, she began to realize the importance of studying abroad and decided to further her studies in the field of international education and was delighted to become a member of the CIDE family at the University of Minnesota.

Lili has benefited immensely from faculty members, staff, and fellow students. She finds them to be extremely caring and supportive. She enjoys working with faculty and students on various educational projects. The university also offers graduate students a wealth of resources to get hands-on working experiences by hiring graduate assistants. Lili managed to maximize her learning experience through assistant position at different university offices, including the Department of Educational Policy and Administration, the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, the Office of Learning Excellence at the Carlson School of Management, as well as the China Center.

In addition, she also actively participates in activities promoting international education and intercultural understanding. She has served on the Small World Coffee Hour team for a year, organizing this bi-week event that provides an opportunity for international and U.S. students, scholars, faculty and staff to get to know more about each other and each other’s cultures. She has also served as a board member for the Board of Directors of the Chateau Student Housing Co-operation, house to over 300 international and U.S. students, for 19 months; as well as acting as the chair of the Education and Community Development Committee for one year, responsible for organizing events that bringing together the diverse community.

Her research interests are in international development assistance; international education collaboration and exchange programs; educational improvement and policy development, especially in the developing countries; and marginalized student population in China. Currently Lili is in China collecting her dissertation data on international students studying on Chinese campuses with the Chinese Government Scholarships, and learning more about the current situation of international education in China. She plans to graduate in fall 2007.

Holly Emert

Ph.D. candidate, CIDE

Holly Emert, a native of the southern U.S., comes to Minnesota with a wealth of both domestic and international teaching experience. She received a B.A. in French and international relations from the University of Arkansas after which she went on to teach foreign languages for several years both in the United States and abroad. She taught both French and Spanish for two years at the high school level outside of New Orleans, followed by a year teaching English in Zibo City, Shandong Province, in the People’s Republic of China. Back in the U.S., she continued to teach French during which time she took part in the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program for one year in France. These experiences propelled her to take the leap back to school to pursue a graduate degree in the field of intercultural and international education.

At the University of Minnesota, Holly completed the M.A. program in CIDE in 2002 and is currently at the dissertation writing stage of her doctoral studies, also in CIDE, with an expected completion date of spring 2007. She combines her studies with research and consulting opportunities that have emerged primarily through her experiences at the university. These include facilitating intercultural training and education sessions in university, K-12, corporate, and government contexts, as well as taking part in intercultural and international development related research.

Her education development work includes working as a member of a team on a World Bank project on secondary teacher and principal recruitment, training, and retention in sub-Saharan Africa as well as participating as one of a two-person team evaluating a UNICEF sponsored girls’ education initiative in Senegal, Ghana, and Botswana. Her intercultural research includes taking part in research on the recently developed Maximizing Study Abroad through Language and Culture Learning Strategies and Use guides. For her M.A. research paper, Pathways to Intercultural Training, she conducted a nationwide online survey with follow-up interviews reflecting her other major interest—how professionals enter and are prepared for positions as intercultural trainers. Holly also continues her involvement with the Fulbright Teacher Exchange program as its Midwest coordinator for an eight-state territory. For her dissertation, she conducted a 16-month longitudinal mixed methods study of the lived experience and impact of teaching abroad on the intercultural competence of U.S.-American and international Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program participants.

Holly chose to study at the University of Minnesota for its academic breadth and for the wealth of opportunities that are available at Minnesota as well as for the extensive knowledge in both intercultural and international development that EdPA faculty possess. She has fallen in love with the Twin Cities despite the cold winters (her solution to the cold was learning to ice skate!) and strongly feels that she could not have received the same professional opportunities elsewhere and in such a warm, caring environment that she currently enjoys at Minnesota.

Abliz Mahsutt

M.A. student - CIDE

Abliz Mahsutt is the first Uyghur student in the University of Minnesota. Uyghur is Turkic-based ethnic group which live in Xinjiang (western China) and Central Asia. They speak Uyghur which is a Turkic-based language spoken by people from Central Asia.

Abliz is in the second year of his master's program in comparative and international development education (CIDE) here at the University of Minnesota. His research interests lie in the area of bilingual education, and he is currently writing his Plan B paper on the impact of China two basics education policy and its strategy bilingual education on Uyghur education in Xinjiang, China.

He earned his B.A. degree in economic management at the China Agricultural University. He has experience working in the Chinese agricultural department, business firm, and college for 13 years. Since 2004, he has been part of the fellowship program of Ford Foundation, studying here under their sponsorship.

Abliz is fluent in Chinese. He can communicate with most of the Turkic based people in their language. He has experience working with variety of different ethnic groups. He worked for two years with a business partnership from the Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan.

Abliz has enjoyed his time at the University of Minnesota. He regards himself among the very first in his community who have obtained university education, overcoming poverty. He said he is probably among those very few who have benefited from education, and who have been able to work outside the boundaries of his society. He is proud that he has been able to do things that were known to be impossible to many around him. He is proud that he has been able to influence his brothers and his sisters, as well as the people around him in their choosing of what is right for them in life. He said all his pride comes from the power of education. He believes that his graduate education in the CIDE program has considerably broadened and deepened his understanding of education as the first priority for finding solutions to problems of the current world—from poverty to terrorism, crime to ethnic conflicts, and devastating epidemics to social inequalities.

Brynja E Gudjonsson

Ph.D. student - CIDE

Brynja E Gudjonsson is a bicultural Icelandic and American student. She was born in Reykjavik Iceland. She spent her young life traveling to Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Iceland, France and the U.S. As a result of her travels and intercultural experiences, she chose to pursue a Ph.D. in international education at the University of Minnesota. She has taught in Saudi Arabia and in the U.S.

Her interests vary as much as her international experience has. She is interested in immigrant educational issues, and women and girls rights to education. She completed her master’s in CIDE in 2003. However, she would say her consuming passion and greatest expertise is in HIV/AIDS education and what can be done to help those affected by the pandemic.

During her studies in CIDE, Brynja has interned at the Academy for Educational Development (AED) with the EQUIP2 program where she began her research on HIV/AIDS and teachers in sub-Saharan Africa. As well as working on numerous research consultancies developed through her work at AED.

She and her son have lived in Minneapolis for the past 14 years, excluding time in Iceland and Saudi Arabia living with family. Both Brynja and her son are avid travelers. In spite of her busy schedule Brynja has remained active in her neighborhood grass roots organizations as well as in her son’s school, hoping to create stronger community bonds in her life and with her neighbors.

Brynja chose the CIDE program for the diversity of courses it offered her as well as the opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary coursework that fuels and feeds her curiosity and continued development as a lifelong learner.

Diana Yefanova

Ph.D. student – CIDE

Diana Yefanova is a graduate of University of Wisconsin-Superior holding an M.A. in communications and B.A. in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) and German. She grew up in Penza, Russia, attending Penza State University until she was 21. During those years, she traveled in Russia, Ukraine, and northwestern Europe; worked an ESL tutor, youth camp counselor, interpreter, and freelance journalist; and served as a volunteer in collaboration with American-Russian experiential learning and educational programs such as FSA-FLEX (Future Leaders Exchange) and Project Harmony.

These rewarding experiences gave her a profound interest in intercultural education and international affairs, so she decided to study intercultural communications and conflict resolution in the U.S. in the spring of 2002—just in time for global politics to take on an urgent and deeply relevant quality. Learning the role of the United Nations (UN) and UN-related non-governmental organization (NGOs) through the Quaker UN Summer School and several experiences with local civic activism groups have only deepened her interest in development and international education.

In her master’s thesis, she explored the interrelations between language and identity in intercultural communication in higher education in the U.S. After graduation she worked as an  International Student Services specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Superior and as an intern with the Institute for Health Policy Analysis in Washington D.C. working on HIV/AIDS prevention and medical education programs in Russia and Georgia.

Her academic interests are development, youth leadership, and intercultural training. Personally, she loves music and literature, as well as travel and cooking international fare. She is very excited to be part of such a multidisciplinary and growing program as CIDE.

Kate McCleary

Ph.D. student - CIDE

Kate is a first year Ph. D. student in the CIDE program. A native of Pennsylvania, she earned her B.A. in Spanish and history from Muhlenberg College and her M. Ed. in educational leadership from Lehigh University. As a Fulbright researcher, Kate did socio-historical work in Madrid on the perception of women in Spain from 1939-1945 and on issues surrounding domestic violence.

Upon return to the U.S., Kate coordinated a gifted education program for 15 school districts at the secondary level in conjunction with providing on-going professional development opportunities for gifted education teachers. She was a member of the Penn. Department of Education Committee on Gifted Education, and ran a grant-sponsored summer program on environmental conservation for gifted and talented middle school students.

Most recently Kate was the study abroad adviser and exchange student coordinator at Lehigh University where she worked on broader access to semester study abroad experiences for targeted student populations, region specific pre-departure programming, diversification of overseas opportunities, and parallels between the engineering curriculum at her institution and abroad.

Kate is currently a teaching assistant for the Maximizing Study Abroad course and enjoys her continued work with students studying overseas. She volunteers with the Minneapolis Even Start Program where she is an English-language tutor. Kate is certified to administer and interpret the Intercultural Development Inventory.

Her current research interests are on citizenship, immigration, and access to/equity in education. The CIDE program offers the specialization in comparative and international development Education that Kate was looking for; as well as coursework in global youth policy and leadership. The collaborative working relationship between students, and students and faculty, has been an extremely positive part of Kate’s experience at the University of Minnesota thus far.

Tara Harvey

Ph.D student - CIDE

Tara Harvey, originally from Minnesota, began the CIDE Ph.D. program in fall 2006. Prior to attending the University of Minnesota, she earned an undergraduate degree in communication studies and Spanish at Northwestern University, during which time she spent a year abroad in Sevilla, Spain.

After earning a teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) certificate and working for a summer as a counselor at Concordia Language Villages Spanish immersion camp, she returned to Spain to pursue a masters in international Relations at the Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset in Madrid. At the same time, she also taught English as a foreign language to both adults and children.

Tara later worked as an international student adviser at Texas A&M University, then the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In Madison, she completed a master's degree in journalism and mass communication, focusing on international communication.

Tara currently works as a teaching assistant for EDPA3101—Maximizing Study Abroad, which is a new course designed by Michael Paige that is required of all University of Minnesota study abroad participants. Tara is particularly interested in issues of intercultural competence, training, and leadership. She busy learning how to balance her studies with the new demands she has after becoming a mother in her first semester of the Ph.D. program.

Swetal Sindhvad

Ph.D student – CIDE

Swetal Sindhvad is a third year Ph.D. student in the CIDE program currently preparing for the written preliminary exam and subsequent qualifying milestones before the dissertation phase. Her research interests include information and communications technology (ICT) as a mode for education reform in developing countries, girls’ education, and school health and nutrition policies. She holds a M.S.Ed. in literacy education from the University of Pennsylvania and an Ed.M. in educational technology from Teachers College, Columbia University. A second generation Indian American, Swetal grew up in New Jersey and came to the University of Minnesota in 2002 as associate program director for an online learning program developed at the Center for 4-H Youth Development. While exploring the dynamics of positive youth development programming in the U.S., she joined the CIDE program on a part-time basis.

Swetal’s interest in studying education systems and reform initiatives in developing countries stems from a continuous comparative analysis conducted by her and her parents of the education systems of India and the U.S. ever since she was in grade school. Compelled by the systemic and policy issues she has learned about through first hand accounts, Swetal is particularly interested in exploring education development issues in India and other Asian countries. Her international experiences include working at a primary school in Gujarat, India, to develop a literacy program for disadvantaged students, and working with the International Literacy Institute to develop a literacy training program available to teachers and school administrators in Asian and African countries. Swetal chose to pursue her doctorate studies in CIDE at the University of Minnesota for the highly regarded faculty that provide rich learning experiences—both inside and outside the classroom. She feels that the CIDE program is providing her the opportunity to engage in an intellectual challenge that she has long sought through her academic career.

Moosung Lee

Ph.D. candidate, CIDE

Recently, Moosung became a dad. These days, he often complains with a big smile—“Yoon (his son) takes so much time. He delays my study.” Fortunately his wife, also a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, devotes herself to both the little boy (Yoon) and the big boy (Moosung).

Moosung is in the third year of his doctoral program here at the U, funded by a Fulbright Scholarship. Before becoming a doctoral student, he spent seven years working as a public school teacher and graduate student. His teaching experience in primary schools in a poor urban area in Korea further developed his interest in educational issues facing socially marginalized groups, including educational rights, achievement gaps, educational reforms, and social-racial stratification.

As a graduate student at Oxford University and Seoul National University, he was able to take advantage of abundant opportunities to develop research skills such as critical discourse analysis and social network analysis. By virtue of these research skills, his master thesis was awarded distinction by Oxford. More importantly, his academic criticality has been also elaborated through valuable activities in NGOs such as Immigrant Workers’ House (Korea) and Korean Institute of Minnesota for Korean Adoptees (U.S.).

In addition to these academic studies and social engagements, he has made substantial progress since he studied at the University of Minnesota. He completed his first field research on the educational outcomes of NGO schools in Cambodia, funded by UNESCO in Paris. Recently, he also got several awards in and outside the University. Among them, he is very proud of winning the Seashore Graduate Fellowship endowed by Rodney Wallace Professor Karen Seashore Louis at the University.

Last but not least, his “happy hour” is around 10 to 11 a.m. almost every morning when he enjoys a cup of coffee in his office and tries to write “anything creative.” This favorite routine of his will be continuing until he completes his doctoral dissertation. So you can find Moosung in his office being creative with his coffee mug close by. Feel free to come by 269 Appleby Hall. He will be very happy to share not only his current thoughts, but also some coffee.

Jerika Robinson Johnstone

Ph.D. candidate, CIDE

Jerika Robinson Johnstone is an elementary school teacher committed to bringing the world inside of her classroom. Her commitment to the global child has driven her to explore different countries to teach and exchange strategies. She has taught all over the United States, in Central America as well as throughout Africa.

As an undergraduate while attending Spelman College, Jerika was granted the Aurelia D. Robinson Academic Award for Study Abroad in Harare, Zimbabwe. There she guided a 3rd grade class of forty-five students. She worked with teachers to activate multiple intelligences and modeled learner-centered teaching and learning strategies. Zimbabwe opened a door for Jerika, leading her to earn a master of arts while studying bilingual and bicultural education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2004, Jerika was awarded the Diversity of Views and Experiences Fellowship from the University of Minnesota. While pursuing her Ph.D. in comparative international development education, she spent two months initiating girls’ motivational clubs in Ghana, West Africa. In Ghana she designed and conducted primary level reading tests for Ghana Education Service and collected baseline data for EQUALL (Education Quality For All), a five-year USAID funded project.

This past summer, she participated in a study abroad seminar entitled Education in Developing Countries: Educational Policymaking in South Africa. While studying at the University of the Witwatersrand located in Johannesburg, South Africa, Jerika met with leading scholars, government officials, activists, and teachers to discuss educational policy and practice. Jerika will complete her doctoral research in Johannesburg this spring. Her case-study will look at pedagogy in desegregated classrooms.

Her experiences worldwide and her dedication to her own education as well as that of others, has positioned Jerika as a true educational leader. She has been selected to train novice and experienced teachers on cross-cultural strategies for holistic child development. Her experience among diverse student populations has shaped her teaching ideology. She has presented her work at a variety of conferences including the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), Society for Intercultural Education Training and Research (SIETAR), and the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA). Jerika is motivated to discover new ways to empower and motivate students while celebrating their personal culture as well as diverse cultures of the world.

Rhiannon Williams

Ph.D. candidate - CIDE

Rhiannon Williams is a third year Ph.D. student in comparative and international development at the University of Minnesota. She earned her B.S. degrees in molecular biology and psychology at the University of Illinois. In addition, she minored in French and studied abroad in Aix-en- Provence, France. Having had a passport since she was two weeks old, Rhiannon has never been able to stay in the country for very long, and so after graduating she set off for Australia. She worked and traveled in Australia for a year, then traveled in South-East Asia, and finally ended up teaching English in China before returning home to the U.S. These experiences, she explains, convinced her to completely switch areas of study and pursue her master’s in CIDE.

At the University of Minnesota, Rhiannon completed her master’s in CIDE and is now working on her Ph.D. in CIDE and her certificate in early childhood policy. Her main research interests are children’s rights, early childhood education (domestic and international), access to education (K-12), and internationalization of teacher education. Currently, Rhiannon is in the beginning stages of her dissertation writing. Her dissertation is looking at what “quality” looks like within early childhood education, from multiple stakeholders perspectives. For her dissertation research she will be collecting data and working with an organization in the Philippines.

Throughout her academic career at the University of Minnesota, Rhiannon has been involved in three ongoing projects: Study Abroad Curriculum Integration through the Learning Abroad Center, Learning Communities through the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning, and Quality in Early Childhood Family and Day Care Settings in Minnesota through the Institute for Child Development. Through her involvement in these projects, Rhiannon expresses with gratitude, the many hours those she has worked with on the projects have spent mentoring her and providing opportunities to research, collect and analyze data, present at conferences and discuss grow as a scholar.

Rhiannon came to the University of Minnesota four years ago and now, she says, she doesn’t want to leave. “Having completed my undergraduate degree at a large research institution, I had certain ideas of how faculty and students interacted” she explains. “When I went to orientation and my adviser, Professor Cogan, came up to me and introduced himself, explaining that he was my adviser and we should set up a time to discuss my courses, I was in shock!” Ever since that day, Rhiannon says, she has been immersed in an environment and surrounded by scholars who have enabled her to develop her research, writing, and critical thinking abilities.

Beth Dierker

M.A. student, CIDE

Beth Dierker is a first-year master’s student in CIDE at the University of Minnesota. She currently a graduate instructor in Spanish and is researching study abroad and its effects on language learning. Her interests include international educational exchange and cultural adjustment issues. In her CIDE studies, she plans to explore the study abroad experiences of students of diversity.

Beth holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Dakota (UND) in Communications, Spanish and Honors. During her undergraduate studies, she studied abroad in Spain and traveled throughout Europe. She later returned to Spain for an independent study on a recently revived medieval pilgrimage. Later work as an Education Abroad Advisor at UND afforded her the opportunity to lead a summer undergraduate course to Spain. Her experience working with international students and study abroad students has fostered her interest in cultural adjustment and diversity issues.

Minneapolis is a new and exciting home for Beth and she enjoys exploring all the city and the University have to offer. She finds the many intersections of departmental research and collaboration across disciplines on leading publications and projects especially interesting and hopes to become involved in the many initiatives within the CIDE department.

Kyoung-Ah Nam

Ph.D. student - CIDE

Kyoung-Ah Nam is a Ph.D. student in CIDE. She holds an M.A. in international communication and journalism from University of Oregon, and B.A. in sociology from South Korea, where she is originally from. Her current research focus includes language and culture, cross-cultural communication, communication interaction between high-context and low-context cultures, and intercultural training and coaching in multinational corporations and international organizations.

Before joining a CIDE Ph.D. program, she worked with multinational corporations and international organizations such as Ogilvy & Mather, MindShare, Samsung, United Nations, and UNESCO for more than seven years. She also enjoyed working as a special correspondent for Radio Free Asia for three years.

She has been working as a teaching and research assistant in communication, intercultural education, and Korean language instructor both at the University of Oregon and the University of Minnesota. The Office of International Education and Exchange at the University of Oregon selected her for the International Student Advisory Committee from 1996-1999. She has facilitated cross-cultural communication workshop for U.S.-American students and their language partner program, and has been consulting cross-cultural training and guidelines for International Teaching Assistant and Head T.A. Training workshops at the University of Minnesota.

Kyoung-Ah chooses to study in CIDE program at the University of Minnesota for its strength of intercultural communication and education: she worked in revisions of Maximizing Study Abroad with Professor Michael Paige, Professor Andrew Cohen, and Dr. Barbara Kappler. While certified as an Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) trainer, she enjoyed the internship at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in Oregon.

Kyoung-Ah loves travel. She has worked and lived in the United States, South Korea, and Thailand, and traveled more than 26 countries in Europe, Asia, and North America. She also enjoys Korean calligraphy, piano, swing dancing, yoga, tennis, racquet ball, golf, ice-skating, ski, and jazz music.

Garth Willis

Ph.D. student - CIDE

Garth is from St. Paul and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.A. in political science and later an M.A. in international education from Boston University. Before coming to the CIDE program Garth spent most of the decade from 1995 – 2005 living in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan While there, when not climbing mountains, Garth was a teacher at a university, administered International Exchange programs and set up Internet centers in schools in rural areas.

Garth also started his own non-profit, the Alpine Fund, (www.alpinefund.org) that works with at-risk youth through education and mountain adventures. Garth is currently starting to think more seriously about his thesis topic, which will be in the area of youth and mountains: a comparative perspective from around the world.

Yi Cao

Ph.D. student - CIDE

Yi is in the first year of her doctoral study at the CIDE program. Originally from China, Yi has long been intrigued by sociocultural learning, intercultural communication and competency, the Chinese higher education system, as well as internationalization in organization. In particular, there are two lines of research interests developed from Yi’s previous and ongoing areas of study. The first one focuses on intercultural competency and development across different ethnicities and races. Currently, Yi is involved in a project associated with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Youth Development. Most recent work includes critical literature review of the developmental assets for positive youth development and program design of intercultural competence for local practitioners and educators. She is very keen on her present research since it combines her previous program of inquiry and current program of study. Graduated from an accredited school counseling program, Yi hopes to tackle educational infrastructure change from both microscopic level (individual) and macroscopic level (institution as a whole).

A second strand of Yi’s research interest lies in Chinese higher education sector, specifically, four-year private institutions in partnership with public universities. She would like to further investigate students’ choice and faculty’s job satisfaction in the private education sector. In addition, issues concerning organizational sustainability, such as curriculum regulation and faculty training and qualification are also potential research endeavors for her.

Yi really appreciates the opportunity to be a member of the CIDE family. She not only finds the University to be very friendly and culturally sensitive to international students, but also truly enjoys interacting with faculty members and her program cohort. The faculty members are very supportive of students’ academic pursuits. Upon the initiation of the program, students are already encouraged to embark on thinking their long-term academic and career goals. Moreover, the courses are very thought-provoking. Yi believes she will fully take advantage of all the resources during her doctoral study here and subsequently become an agent of change in education.

Debbie Snead

M.A. student CIDE

Miss Snead has been working with the NGO SIL and Wycliffe Bible Translators as a literacy consultant in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Involved primarily with training Congolese on how to prepare for, create, and sustain a literacy program in the local language, she became aware of how much cultural differences between her culture and the local culture were affecting learning. For this reason she applied to the Graduate School's CIDE M.A. program at the University of Minnesota where she had obtained her B.A. in linguistics two decades earlier. Culture had always been of interest to her due to the wide-flung travel experiences she acquired as a military man's daughter. When finished with the CIDE program, she plans to return to Africa to apply to the literacy training programs there, her deeper understanding of education through cultural perspectives and development theories which the CIDE program opened to her.

In the past, she was frequently requested to write about the lessons in training across cultures that she had been learning through her experiences, yet hadn't been able to address that request until she learned more about writing papers in the CIDE program. One of her future goals will be to report on her discoveries in future training efforts.

Landon K. Pirius

alumni, M.A. CIDE
Ph.D. student CIDE

Landon K. Pirius completed his master’s degree in comparative and international development education in May 2003. His Plan B paper investigated the possibility of using online courses for delivering intercultural training. The results of this study showed that some components of intercultural training could be covered using online courses, but that most of the personal interactions still needed to be face-to-face.

Landon began the CIDE doctoral program in September of 2003 and has since completed all of his classes, his written and oral exams, and his prospectus meeting. He is currently collecting data for his dissertation. The dissertation focuses on massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and their potential for delivering intercultural training in a virtual environment. Landon and his research assistant are actively engaged in World of Warcraft looking for examples of subjective culture, experiential learning, and communities of practice. The premise is that if these components exist, MMOG virtual worlds could be a potential location for intercultural training.

A gamer for 25 years, Landon believes that learning should be fun and that MMOGs represent an opportunity to engage people in learning without losing their attention. As an advocate of online education and technology, Landon believes that education and training should be available to all; not just to those within close proximity to a learning institution or with enough money to access education and training. Landon’s career and graduate education has focused on improving access through technology and making learning fun and engaging.

Throughout his entire graduate program, Landon has worked full time. As the director of Enrollment & Online Services for Inver Hills Community College, Landon is actively involved in shifting traditional, campus-based student services online. Prior to this position, Landon was the associate registrar at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He also worked at Walden University, an online graduate institution, for nearly five years in a variety of student service roles.

 December 2006