Fair-Trade Learning
![Cameroongroup cgseimpact24](/images/CameroonGroup_CGSEImpact24.jpg")
Cameroon program, alumna supporter effect 'outsized' impacts
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
As a Dickinson student, Amy Nauiokas ’94 ventured to West Africa to help set up a study-abroad program in Cameroon. As an alumna and Dickinson trustee, she established the Amy Nauiokas '94 Cameroon Program Fund in 2010 to support the , by then renowned as one of the oldest and longest continually running West African study-abroad programs in the nation.
Throughout the following years, Nauiokas’ generosity has been essential to the college’s work to keep vibrant and impactful West African programming an integral part of global education at Dickinson. As the college’s Cameroon program launches a new chapter this year, the Nauiokas Fund continues to help expand Dickinsonians’ understanding of, and experiences in, this area of the world.
Growing the program
From the start, the Amy Nauiokas ’94 Cameroon Fund has provided for tuition, room, board, faculty exchanges, academic excursions, internships, special coursework and even emergency needs in Cameroon. This includes unexpected expenses, such as the purchase of a new generator for the Dickinson Center in Yaoundé.
In 2017, thanks to Nauiokas’ generosity and that of Dan and Betty Richardson Churchill ’58, three faculty members and three administrators additionally traveled to Cameroon to exchange ideas with Cameroonian faculty about coursework, projects and programs that would help Dickinson students best prepare for and process their experiences abroad. Each participating faculty member also went on to design or revise a course or program on an aspect of Cameroonian culture, society or history.
And when the college encountered a series of sizable challenges a quarter century after the Cameroon program’s founding, the Nauiokas Fund empowered the college to respond effectively.
Weathering regional tensions
The challenges began with intensifying insecurity in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions. In the interest of student safety, Dickinson suspended the Cameroon program in 2018, with plans to restart as soon as possible. In the meantime, student learning about this part of the world continued. With help from the Nauiokas Fund, 22 students took part in a 2019 Mosaic program focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, co-taught by Dickinson professors and a visiting faculty member from Rwanda. The fund also supported a student exchange with Dickinson’s partner institution from the Catholic University of Central Africa.
Nauiokas funding also provided for a nearly semesterlong on-campus residency by a prominent Cameroonian artist, Max Lyonga. While at Dickinson in spring 2019, Lyonga spoke from experience about the ongoing crisis in his home country, both through special events at Dickinson as well as in the local community and through informal conversations. The following year, when continuing tensions made it unsafe for Lyonga to return to his hometown, Buea, he and his family took up temporary residence in Dickinson’s center in Yaoundé. They returned to Buea in summer 2020, grateful for the college’s humanitarian support.
This effort was essential to maintaining the close relationships that have made the Dickinson in Cameroon program so successful over the years, notes Samantha Brandauer ’95, associate provost & executive director of the Center for Global Study & Engagement (CGSE).
“We refer to this as an example of Dickinson’s commitment to fair-trade learning—we care not only about what our students can learn but also about creating just and fair relationships with local communities,” Brandauer says. “Because the Nauiokas Fund is pretty wide open to supporting Cameroon programming, it enables us to do both, and to be nimble and responsive as challenges arise.”
Persisting through a pandemic
Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.
Even more flexibility was needed in 2020, as a global pandemic paralyzed study-abroad efforts across the board and dashed plans to restart the Cameroon program. Again, Dickinson maintained relationships and limited operations in Cameroon while supporting learning about Sub-Saharan Africa on campus.
The college developed globally integrated courses, drawing on the work of Dickinson experts on campus and at Dickinson study-abroad centers around the world. Two of these courses, Intro to Francophone Studies and African Government and Politics, connected students to staff and faculty at our program in Cameroon.
The Nauiokas Fund additionally supported efforts to bring longtime Dickinson in Cameroon director Teku Teku to campus in 2022 to work with faculty and staff on restarting the Cameroon program through a partnership with the School for International Training (SIT).
Like Dickinson, SIT has a long and strong track record in creating exceptional study-abroad experiences in Africa, focusing on learning about global sustainability, intercultural understanding, diversity, equity and inclusion. While Dickinson brings strong ties to Central African Catholic University in Yaoundé to the mix, SIT contributes strength in recruiting students from colleges and universities from all over the U.S. and deep expertise in experiential learning.
New chapter, enduring impacts
Using Cameroon as a case study, Cameroonian educators, scholars and change-makers spoke about sustainability, decoloniality and epistemic justice during a workshop co-hosted by Dickinson and SIT.
Dickinson launched the SIT-Dickinson program partnership at the start of the 2023-24 academic year. Fifteen students studied abroad in Cameroon through the partnership program last year, one of whom was a Dickinsonian, and eight students, including one Dickinsonian, are readying to study abroad in Cameroon the fall.
And the program continues to move forward: This summer, with support through the Nauiokas Fund, Dickinson partnered with SIT to host a professional development seminar in Cameroon for faculty and study-abroad professionals. Using Cameroon as a case study, Cameroonian educators, scholars and change-makers spoke about sustainability, decoloniality and epistemic justice and about how we may grapple with those concepts in local contexts. Four Dickinson employees were among those who participated in this inspiring event.
As a leader in global education and an alumna who studied abroad in Cameroon, Brandauer is uniquely positioned to attest to the ways in which the reimagined Cameroon is positioned to continue to deeply enrich Dickinsonian lives.
“The Cameroon program has an outsized impact on our institution and the students who study abroad there. When you go there, it changes the way you think about the world and your place in it and helps you learn to grapple with really complex issues in new ways,” says Brandauer, who cites her own time studying abroad in Cameroon as fundamental to her career path. “So while the last few years have been challenging in global education, we are committed to study abroad and to our Cameroon program. Amy Nauiokas has made it possible for us to innovate so we can keep Cameroon centered in our programming in important ways.”
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published July 11, 2024