Southwestern Magazine | Spring 2019

WHETHERWE ARE students, alumni, faculty, or staff, when we travel throughout this or other countries, the world becomes our classroom through which we can amplify our learning and scholarship aswell as enhance those core aspects of ourselves that make us who we are and make us better: our practices of effective thinking, our emotional intelligence, and our capacities to be solution focused. Our adventures abroad—how we prepare for them, what we learn, and how we thrive in the face of inevitable challenges—inspire the theme of this issue of Southwestern . Over the past six years, I’ve seen in our students how travel enhances their individual growth and respect for other cultures. After short- or long-term trips away, students return to campus with greater maturity and self-confidence. They also show an increased understanding that as citi- zens of the world, we might not all be the same: We do not have the same cultural experiences, the same individual histories, or the same backgrounds. And especially among students who confront barriers of communication and language while exploring foreign countries, I see themreturnwith an appreciation that culture is context. They become evenmore empathetic to those in this countrywhomight be strugglingwith similar challenges. I have been very fortunate that my work as an educator and scholar has taken me around the world—perhaps not yet to Juneau, Buenos Aires, orMoscow, which remain onmy travel bucket list, but to beautiful and welcoming locales in the Mediterranean, Asia, and theMiddle East. I could tell you about a fateful encounter with a large box of baklava during a five-hour layover in the Frankfurt Airport, about discovering a small community within an urban block in Kyoto that seemed to transport visitors back in time, or about marveling at the excesses of the Gold Souk in Dubai. O F F I C E O F T H E P R E S I D E N T What We Carry (on) outhwestern University is deeply committed to enriching the personal and intellectual growth and fostering the global citizenship of our undergraduates. Approximately one-third of our students expand their perspectives through study away or study abroad, and many of our graduates go on to travel and work around the globe. S 6 SOUTHWESTERN