Earlier this semester, Laura Alexeichik, assistant professor of sport, recreation, and wellness, spent three weeks in the Middle East working on a research project through Connecting Cultures. Alexeichik spent her time in Oman, located in the Arabian Peninsula, and bordering Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and United Arab Emirates.
Alexeichik graduated with her Ph.D. two years ago from Indiana University. Her dissertation focused on research she did with Connecting Cultures in Oman. Her trip to Oman this year was an opportunity to continue research looking at the impacts of participation within a culturally focused experiential learning experience.
According to their official website, Connecting Cultures is a unique educational program that gathers students from countries in Europe and the Arab world to promote intentional, face to face dialogue in short journeys through the desert of Oman. “This program brings youth that are 18-25 years old from all over Europe and the Arab world,” Alexeichik stated. “There are twenty participants: ten from Europe and ten from the Arab world.” She continued, “Connecting Cultures brings them together for a five day desert expedition that focuses on intentional discourse and dialogue towards building respect and mutual understanding.”
The environmentthe participants endure creates a level playing field. “They’re in the desert,” Alexeichik explained. “They’re hiking. They have no cell phones. They’re going to the bathroom outside. They are sleeping in tents or under the stars and they come to realize how powerful the environment is while having these conversations. You’re exposed.” She added, “Everyone is tired, hungry, or covered in sand and it neutralizes the participants by creating an uncomfortable environment for everyone. It allows them to have these real and raw conversations.”
The purpose of this program is to expose the stereotypes and assumptions these young people have by bringing them through an intentional curriculum. “One of the major parts of the curriculum is having conversations about what people value,” Alexeichik said. “They come to find that the values of people from the Arab world and from Europe are the same, that we hold the same values and we’re not so different.”
Although Alexeichik was not a participant or a facilitator, as an outsider she was still able to interact with the participants as she completed her research. Her research provides her with a unique perspective that can impact the influence she has in the Houghton community as a professor. Assistant professor of recreation and equestrian studies, Andrea Boon, anticipates the continued impact Alexeichik’s research will have on students. “We are excited about the depth of knowledge and experience Dr. Laura Alexeichik brings to the Sport, Recreation and Wellness department,” she said. “Her continued research and intercultural connections opens doors to cross cultural student engagement and encourages continued growth of our student’s worldviews.”
Cross-cultural engagement is necessary for breaking down stereotypes and assumptions, but it often doesn’t come without a cost. “We often have to come to grips with our own ways of thinking about others and be willing to expand our views and opinions about others,” Alexeichik shared. “If we limit the ways in which we think about people different from us we become a part of the problem, rather than the solution.”