Global Education, Global Impact

In classrooms across the Moravian College campus, students learn about the world and its mosaic of cultures through every academic lens: history, political science, modern languages, literature, art, music, economics, science, and the rest. But a lived experience has an unparalleled impact simply because it is lived. It shatters preconceptions, and it opens windows onto the world and into ourselves.

For many years, Moravian College has offered students opportunities to engage internationally. Today we are taking the initiative to develop a more robust, concerted effort to connect our students with an international experience by bringing more students from countries around the world to our campus and making study abroad accessible to all undergraduates.

Global experience teaches us that though people come from different backgrounds—different countries, traditions, religions—we are all the same. That realization also shows us our connection to every man, woman, and child on the planet. It is what poet John Donne writes in his “Meditation XVII” from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind ... ”

It is with this understanding that Moravian College alumni, faculty, and students engage with communities at home and around the world to deliver legal aid, provide health care, support social justice, prevent the degradation of the environment, teach, alleviate poverty, and much, much more.

Where Nations Gather to Discuss Climate Change

Every year since 2009, Diane Husic, dean of the College of Natural and Health Sciences, and Hilde Binford, associate professor of music, lead a delegation of Moravian College students to the United Nations climate change conference (formally the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

Moravian College is one of only six private liberal arts colleges accredited to serve as civil society observers, putting our students in a rather exclusive group of undergraduates. “The large universities take graduate and law-school students,” says Husic. “It is very unusual to encounter undergraduates from these institutions.”

In November 2015, despite terrorist attacks that killed more than 100 citizens in Paris, the site of the 21st conference, then-juniors Matthew Bosch, Paige Malewki, Laura McBride, Audrey McSain, and Stephen Stoddard remained intent on attending the historic meeting at which all 188 countries in attendance signed an agreement to rein in climate change. In December, Husic and Binford will take a new delegation of students to the 24th conference in Katowice, Poland. Read their blog here.

The Peace Corps Prep Program

More than 40 Moravian College alumni have served in the Peace Corps since the program’s founding in 1961. To date, Moravian College is one of only 107 colleges and universities in the nation to have partnered with the Peace Corps in offering Peace Corps Prep (PCP), a certificate program for undergraduates that prepares students for work as Peace Corps Volunteers. PCP follows a set of course guidelines that overlap significantly with requirements for most majors, and the commitment is equivalent to that for a minor. Though it does not guarantee acceptance, receiving a certificate gives students a competitive edge when applying for a volunteer position.

Moravian opened PCP to students in the fall of 2015, and Niki Maffettone ’17 and Lauren White ’17 were the first students to complete the program. Maffettone is currently serving in Ukraine. Read more about her experience here.

Music in the Czech Republic

Every summer, Neil Wetzel, associate professor and chair of the Moravian College Music Department, takes students to the Czech Republic for a two-week period that includes the Karel Velebny Summer Jazz Workshop. And every year, students return with unbridled enthusiasm for their experience. Sophomore Sarah Penna, a music education major from Hampden, Massachusetts, who is studying piano and plans to add voice as a second concentration, is one of those students.

I had never traveled out of the country before, so in anticipation I felt excited and terrified. All my concerns, however, quickly dissipated. During our stay in Prague, we explored a different area of the city every day. In Frydlant, we studied jazz with people from all over the world and of all different ages and backgrounds. Those familiar with the town showed us around and told us stories about their lives and their experiences with jazz, and at the end of the day, everyone would gather at the Jazz Cafe to eat, drink, and play music. The ease with which everyone connected through conversation and music amazed me.

This opportunity to be independent opened me up in a way I didn’t expect. I lived completely in the moment every day and let the experience wash over me. I came home with a huge appreciation for the people of the Czech Republic, so many new friends, and a feeling of having been a part of something incredible!

Habitat for Humanity Goes International

During winter break of the 2016-17 academic year, Moravian College’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity took on its first overseas project in Guatemala, where students built smokeless stoves for families in the village of San Juan. This past winter, 14 students traveled to Guatemala again—to San Lucas Tolimán, where they built latrines and constructed the foundation of a house.

Biology major Alexia Fabey ’19, of Bethlehem, was one of those students and will be leading the Habitat for Humanity contingent this year. Here, she reflects on her Guatemalan experience:

It still makes me so emotional to talk about it. My biggest takeaway is the way I look at life now. We interacted with so many people who had absolutely nothing, and yet they were the kindest, most giving people I’ve ever met. They taught me how to love the little things and always be grateful for what life has to offer. I’ve completely fallen in love with service because of this trip. It was the kind of service that awakens your soul and makes you want more. I’ve learned that each new day offers another chance to change someone’s life.