We Are the World: Teaching perspective at NKU’s College of Informatics via study abroad

Chris Strobel has been inspiring area students and filmmakers for years, but often not in the way college professors usually do.

Strobel creates programs at Northern Kentucky University’s College of Informatics that help students develop broader perspectives and bring them closer to understanding their role as world citizens. It’s the traditional teacher/pupil relationship flipped sideways about 8,600 miles.
 
Last summer 11 NKU students boarded a plane at CVG airport bound for Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The trip itself took nearly 24 hours, the beginning of a 16-day adventure that would teach them more about the world and themselves than they experience during a typical semester-long class.
 
The students, led by Strobel and Sara Drabik — associate professors in the Electronic Media and Broadcasting (EMB) department at NKU, part of the College of Informatics — were on assignment to capture mini-documentaries about topics of their choice: a study of how locals dealt with an invasive species of wide-mouth bass; pop culture fandom across countries and socio-economics; race, poverty and the roots of jazz in traditional South African music; and others.

Read the full Soapbox story here.