Campus Currents

Passport to Education

“The year is so vivid,” says Louisa Fandrich, senior French and business major. “I was 21 and lived in France. I have friends from all over the world now.”

Fandrich spent the 2001-02 school year at Salève Adventist University in Collonges, France. She is just one of dozens of Walla Walla College students each year who choose to study abroad through a program called Adventist Colleges Abroad (ACA).

Adventist Colleges Abroad, a consortium of Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities in North America, allows undergraduate students to attend an approved foreign institution for language study credits, with opportunities for full immersion into another culture.

For Fandrich, “immersion” meant taking extra classes in the afternoons (film and theater), tutoring eighth graders in English, and babysitting for a French-speaking family she met. Along the way she learned the language and gained a greater appreciation for the French.

Students who study languages abroad receive a richer cultural understanding of the language and have more opportunities to speak the language in a practical setting.

According to Lynn Belles, a Spanish major who spent four quarters as a student at Sagunto Adventist College in Spain, students participate in ACA programs for one of two reasons: either to take a year out of the traditional program for new experiences and opportunities to travel, or they go to really learn the language. Belles went to learn Spanish and considers the year a stunning success.

“You cannot go to Spain thinking that just being there will teach you,” says Belles. “I worked really, really hard. Understanding comes almost by default, but speaking takes effort.”

Belles also returned to Sagunto as a task force worker for the ACA office in 2002 and enjoyed watching new students learn and grow over the year. “Language is so exciting,” says Belles. “There’s always a point where everything just clicks, and the students are much more excited, eager, and confident from then on.”

The first few months are typically a bit overwhelming, as students are exposed to the language in a thoroughness they’ve never experienced before.

“The first couple of months I had no idea what was going on [in my classes],” says Fandrich.

Fandrich realized how much she was learning, however, when her mother, who doesn’t speak any French, came to visit later in the school year. “By then I was able to play tour guide,” says Fandrich. “I was confident by the end that I could get by anywhere in France.”

This confidence continued after Fandrich returned to the United States. “I’ve walked the streets of Prague!” she says. “I’m not afraid to pull out a map, ask directions, and just go places.”

Each year as many as 40 WWC students participate in ACA during the school year, and up to 20 students go for a summer program.

“ACA takes care of our students,” says Jean-Paul Grimaud, chair of the WWC Modern Languages Department. “It makes the option of studying abroad much easier. We have a worldwide church. This is definitely a tool we should take advantage of.”

Walla Walla College offers language majors in French and Spanish, with
courses primarily focused on communication and literature. Students in the ACA programs are still considered to be in attendance at their parent school and are eligible for the same financial aid and church subsidy benefits.

Adventist Colleges Abroad, which currently offers programs for nine foreign languages in ten different countries, recently won an award from the Council on International Educational Exchange for program efficiency and the ability to solve problems students may encounter. W

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