AACC Community 0405 - Anne Arundel Community College

ONE WORLD
Students Expand Their
By Susan S.C. Gross
David L.
Tengwall has
been leading
travel-study
courses at
Anne Arundel Community
College for 28 years. Joyce A.
Ezrow was a co-leader of her
first travel-study trip abroad
last summer. But the benefits
to students are so profound
that both the veteran and the
new trip leader can visibly
see the participants’ growth as
the course progresses.
“Diversity is without a
doubt the major benefit –
seeing and experiencing new
cultures and people,” said
Tengwall, Ph.D., professor and
department chair of history,
honors, philosophy and political
science. He has led study
trips to many countries in
Europe, but for the past 14
years, his main course has
been “Medieval and
Renaissance England,” which
he offers during AACC’s
two-week Winter Term.
“Students come back
from two weeks in London
with a new sense of the
world, realizing, perhaps for
the first time, that there is life
outside of Anne Arundel
County,” he said.
Ezrow echoed that sentiment,
saying that for many of
the students in the “European
Common Market - Travel
Studies” course, the trip to
Europe was their first time
on an airplane, as well as their
first trip abroad.
“Their horizons have
been expanded and many
expressed an interest in going
back to see and do more in
Europe,” said Ezrow, an
AACC associate professor of
business management.
One of the main objectives
of that course was to
expose students to how business
is conducted in countries
that, while independent, are
also working together on
common issues. Students
attended lectures on both the
European Union and the
European Council, as well as
visited marketplaces in each
country to see the differences
in how they operate.
“For many of them, this
was their one and only
exposure to how business is
done in foreign countries,”
Ezrow said.
AACC is about to offer
them another one. Bill P.
Yuan, assistant professor of
business management, was the
lead instructor on that
COMMUNITY of Alumni & Friends Anne Arundel Community College • Winter 2008 • 8