Professors Karla and Travis Jensen can take a gardener’s share of credit for tending the growth of learning opportunities for Nebraska Wesleyan University students over many years.
The couple spent a 2008 sabbatical in Germany and Austria with a simple goal: Visit every German-speaking International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) university in both countries; introduce themselves (and NWU); and see what happens.
“While every stop was memorable, the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt captured our hearts,” said Professor of Communication Studies Karla Jensen. “We formed an immediate, profound connection with the faculty, staff, and students in this charming Bavarian town—a bond that has brought us back time and time again.”
That relationship laid the groundwork for a direct student exchange program between the two universities. And Nebraska Wesleyan awarded its White Award for Internationalization to the Jensens in 2010 for this outreach.
It takes courage for students to make the decision to study in a foreign place where the primary language is not your own. But when students feel safe enough to make that leap, Karla said, the benefits can be great. She pointed to “Prairie Wolves like Corinne Peterson, who participated in the exchange and subsequently earned a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to Germany.”
The Jensens traveled to Eichstätt again this summer, this time to lead a seminar for PhD students on creating safe spaces in education. The seminar culminated in an e-book they coedited on the topic: Room 2 Grow: Safe Spaces in (Language) Education.
“[S]afe spaces are not soft spaces,” they wrote in its introduction. “They are not comfortable bubbles, conflict-free zones, or places where challenge disappears. Quite the opposite: a truly safe space is one in which challenge becomes possible…. Safe spaces do not remove the risk of learning; they remove unnecessary humiliation from the risk of learning.”