Traveling to learn

15 May 2022

Sitting in my office reading chair –– a floral wingback that didn’t quite have a place in my house –– I decide to continue the book I’m reading before resuming grading. Thankfully, I have acquired the skill of reading for pleasure despite a haunting to-do list staring at me from my desk.

In a couple of days we are leaving for our study abroad program, Global Leadership in Thailand, and a passage from Amartya Sen’s memoir Home in the World resonates. He talks about the history of Nalanda University in India, which held classes over 1500 years ago (before Oxford or Cambridge) and was an exemplar of global higher education. Some think Nalanda was primarily the result of trade along the Silk Road, but Sen offers this rebuttal:

“If trade gets people together (and it certainly does), then so does the pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment. Mathematics, science, engineering, music and the arts, along with religious and ethical commitments, have prompted people to seek them across regions, by land and sea, over millennia. The motivation behind these journeys was not the pursuit of commercial gain, but the search for ideas – including, but not limited to, religious ideas. The huge modern popularity of seeing global connections through the prism of trade, of which the Silk Route is a leading example, should not be allowed to eclipse the fact that reflective engagements have motivated the movement of people across countries and regions for just as long. Globalization is the result not only of seeking business, but also of talking to – and learning from – each other.”

I love that phrase “reflective engagements.” It summarizes my perspective nicely. This study abroad trip — and many of the global components of my career — are motivated and fueled by reflective engagement. Something happens in the mind and spirit when we joyfully engage with new ideas, people, and places. Our brains light up and our egos cool down. While COVID has seen a rise in digital engagement around the world (I have meetings in Southeast Asia weekly), I wonder at the impact of the pandemic on our collective ability to learn from the world around us.

Onward.