International students are bringing their expertise and culture to older Minnesotans through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI).
OLLI offers more than 300 noncredit courses to adult learners each year on subjects ranging from art and literature to science and sports. In 2014, OLLI decided to provide even more value to its participants by adding courses with an international focus.
OLLI partnered with Culture Corps, a program from International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) that enables students to share their unique global perspectives and insights across campus. At OLLI, Culture Corps students get to teach classes that highlight not only their expertise, but their culture.
International students have been able to teach more than 70 courses to Minnesota seniors, including Peoples and Cultures of Mexico, Cultural Debates in Modern Egypt, Global Climate Change Adaptation, and even Thai cooking.
These courses are well loved by OLLI’s adult learners.
“These Voices from Around the World classes have long been favorites of mine, and this semester did not disappoint!” one participant wrote in a class review. “I think the OLLI connection with Culture Corps is one of the most valuable.”
The courses also benefit the students who teach them. It can be difficult for international graduate students to get jobs as teaching assistants or faculty adjuncts because they don’t have any experience teaching in the U.S. OLLI gives them experience not only in teaching but also in developing their own courses.
“Teaching at OLLI has been one of the most interesting things I’ve done at the University of Minnesota,” said Nfamara K. Dampha, a PhD candidate from Gambia. “It’s prepared me to be a better instructor.”
Debunking Myths About Africa
Feelings of isolation as a new African graduate student led Antony Maikuri to the Culture Corps program. He created the “Diverse Voices of Africa” class at OLLI, giving him a chance to talk about his home country of Kenya.
“It quickly stopped being like a class and became more of a conversation,” Antony said. “People would say, ‘I saw this on CNN. What can you tell me about it?’”
Nfamara, who is now co-teaching the class with Antony, explained that the media often only show the negative side of Africa — starvation, war, natural disasters.
“The idea of the class is to look at both the positive and the negative sides,” Nfamara said. “There’s so many positive things happening people won’t hear about in the U.S.”
The OLLI members have been curious to know about the real Africa, beyond what they saw on TV. They started asking about African countries that Antony didn’t feel like he could really talk about with any authority, so he started inviting his friends to come in and speak.
Now, the class covers one country each week, featuring a guest speaker from that country. Since starting in 2016, the class has covered about half of the 54 countries in Africa.
Antony and Nfamara often start the class by showing pictures and having the participants guess where they were taken. When the photo is a beautiful, modern city, they don’t guess anywhere in Africa. But if it’s a poor area, maybe with some small, run-down homes, they think it is in Africa.
“We want to ensure that the misconceptions and perceptions people have are met with reality from African students themselves,” Antony said.
Participants won’t be shamed for what they might have thought before, though.
“This is a space for people to ask questions,” Antony said. “There is no judgment.”
And there is no shortage of questions for the African students.
“The OLLI members don’t care so much about the data,” Nfamara said. “They like hearing the stories — what are some of the challenges, what are some of the opportunities, tell us more about the food.”
Antony has been surprised by the impact of the class.
“It’s changing participants’ thinking and how they engage with other people,” he said.
Recognized for Internationalization Efforts
Antony and Nfamara received the Josef Mestenhauser Student Award for Campus Internationalization in recognition of their efforts to bring African perspectives to campus and the greater community.
“Antony and Nfamara have, with one course alone, created a new physical space for other international African students that did not exist before,” said Taki Andrianakos, program manager at OLLI, in nominating the two for the award.
Both Antony and Nfamara have contributed to internationalization on campus beyond OLLI.
Antony served as the first graduate facilitator of the International Student Advisory Board and helped introduce new international students to the University through Global Gopher Events. He has conducted research with the Global Programs and Strategy Alliance, OneVillage Partners, and the International Center for Policy and Conflict, and spent five months in Kenya and Uganda working with the American Refugee Committee. He is also working to design a program to connect international graduate students with the larger University community.
Nfamara supported the curriculum development of the Master of Human Rights program at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and helped promote the program to diverse students from all around the world. In addition, he is an International Student Ambassador for his Ph.D. program in Natural Resources Science and Management.
Both have big plans for their futures. Antony plans to work for an international development organization in Africa. His dissertation examines evaluation in international development and highlights diverse African voices through theory, indigenous knowledge, and practice.
Antony wants to ensure that African voices are included in academic evaluation literature moving forward. He believes that both African and Western knowledge can be braided together to elevate African evaluation capacity and develop strategies to make sure that African voices are centered to create more effective and efficient development programming.
Before coming to Minnesota, Nfamara was the director of administration for Gambia's National Disaster Management Agency. He was also named a distinguished fellow under President Obama's Young African Leaders program. He now works on the Natural Capital Project under the Institute on the Environment.
Nfamara already runs a nonprofit in his native Gambia on environmental and climate issues. He’s also working to establish the Institute on Climate Change and Environment Africa (ICE Africa). Nfamara and other organizers are hosting a conference in Gambia in August, 2020 for young scholars to meet and discuss climate and environmental issues.
“I want to see African researchers working together to tackle the issues facing Africa,” he said.
