Fruitful Work in Thailand, Winter 2023-2024
13 February 2024
This winter, I had the privilege to travel to Thailand with family for an assortment of professional and personal activities that were wonderfully fruitful — literally and figuratively.
While our time was action-packed, I want to highlight my experience leading my study abroad program and my time guest lecturing at Chulalongkorn University. This was the third year I served as Program Director for the Global Leadership in Thailand study abroad program at Louisiana State University (LSU) along with my colleague Dr. Eddie Gibbons. It was our smallest group with only seven students, but the small size of our group turned out to be an absolute blessing as we bonded throughout the course and had deep conversations about global leadership, Thai history and culture, and professional development. Our schedule was full with a variety of cultural site visits and organization visits in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
Even before the program officially began, I took one of the students on a visit to the National Institute for Development Administration (NIDA) where they have an incredible Graduate School of Human Resource Development. I am so grateful for Dr. Dawisa “Oui” Sritanyarat who is a top-notch HRD scholar and recently published this superb article on serious leisure in the workplace. And, by the way, the Academy of HRD conference in Asia will be held at NIDA in 2025!
Another special highlight was an intimate discussion about global leadership development in the home of former President of Payap University, Dr. Rux Prompalit. His 91-year-old mother also shared special handmade gifts with all of us.
An equally rewarding part of my trip was my time at Chulalongkorn University where I have served as a Special Lecturer in the Department of Educational System Management Leadership for the last three years. On my first day, some of the faculty took me out to eat at a Northern restaurant (because they know I love Northern food). Since most of them are from Central Thailand, I even had the chance to teach them a few Northern Thai words. It’s so nice to build on budding friendships.
They gave me a beautiful office to work from, which allowed me to keep up with work back home and prepare my lectures. I was thoroughly impressed with this cohort of PhD students, and I am so grateful to my good friend and co-author, Dr. Sukanya Chaemchoy, for the opportunity to engage with these students. I am exploring the possibility of doing my future sabbatical here, which would allow me to build on these relationships and support this fantastic program.
Speaking of co-authors at Chulalongkorn, I had the opportunity to meet up with several others with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working on a variety of projects. This included Dr. Somwung Pitiyanuwat who I had never met until this trip but with whom I wrote a book chapter on higher education in Thailand a couple of years ago. Aj. Somwung is the former Dean of the Faculty (College) of Education at Chulalongkorn, and we had a great conversation together along with Dr. Dhirapat “Earth” Kulophas. Earth and I have been working with Bangkok school leaders on a study about learning and development needs of Thai teachers. Earth and I Zoom regularly when I’m back in the States, and he’s become a good friend.
I wanted to give Earth a meaningful gift, so I gave him a copy of Howard Gardner’s latest book The Synthesizing Mind, which is a professional memoir of sorts based on his academic career. You may know Gardner from his work on Multiple Intelligences. He was also at the Harvard Graduate School of Education when I was there. After we took this picture, I sent it to Gardner and he wrote back a nice note of well wishes to both Earth and me.
I also got to meet up with my friend and co-author Pimsiri “Pim” Aroonsri who teaches human resource development in the Faculty of Political Science at Chula. We had a celebratory dessert because we recently published a cool study on workplace learning of Thai gig workers and have another journal article accepted with minor revisions.
Last but not least, I had a great meal and conversation with my friend Amp. I got to know Amp almost 10 years ago when I reviewed her book on higher education in Thailand. Amp did her PhD in international education at Teachers College, Columbia University and has done a lot of cool work recently on TV promoting education throughout Thailand. We always laugh a lot and I am so glad to see her doing well.
Since I started my post talking about literal and figurative fruit, here is some of the literal fruit we enjoyed at the beginning of our trip from Visama Lodges in Mae Cham, Chiang Rai. Visama is a new resort near the Friends of Thai Daughters (FTD) Sunflower Farm where the girls are able to gain work experience in business and hospitality. Check out FTD and Visama if you haven’t already!
Onward.
Oliver S. Crocco 
Great summary of a fun and productive trip, Ozzie. We were so happy to celebrate the holidays with you, Khai, Aden, Alice and your family!
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