Reflecting on 10 Years of Fostering Intercultural Learning

As of this month, True North Intercultural has officially been in business for ten years! 🔟🥳🙌🏼🎉✨

Even a decade in, I often feel like I’m just beginning to figure things out. However, when I look back, I can see how much the business has evolved and how much I’ve learned and grown through the process of building True North Intercultural and serving and supporting so many schools and educators committed to intercultural learning.

The following are a few highlights, reflections, and lessons learned.

Highlights

• Partnering with over 50 schools and organizations (many multiple times)—including colleges and universities of every type and size, K-12 schools, study abroad providers, non-profits, and even a few corporations—to build intercultural capacity among their faculty and staff, helping them meet their intercultural learning and teaching goals more consistently and sustainably.
• Developing two online professional development offerings (the Facilitating Intercultural Learning train-the-trainer program and the Navigating Cultural Differences online course) so that individual educators from around the world can develop their capacities even if their institutions aren’t ready or able to invest in group training.
• Consistently publishing a monthly blog and newsletter to support educators interested in fostering intercultural learning for more than eight years.
• Publishing my first solo-authored chapter, “Design and Pedagogy for Transformative Intercultural Learning” in Learning Across Cultures: Locally and Globally, edited by Kappler Mikk and Steglitz (read an excerpt here), and getting a publishing deal for my first book (more on that to come later this year).
• Bringing together educators dedicated to developing intercultural competence—their own and others’—through the previously-mentioned online programs, newsletter, and monthly Intercultural Leadership Forum strategy sessions, so we can share ideas, support one another through challenging times, and together move forward this important work more effectively than we could ever do alone. In addition, many of True North Intercultural's institutional partners have created their own intercultural learning communities of practice to build on the work we did together. Every day I am thankful for and inspired by the educators I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of working with. We’ve faced many challenges over the past ten years—including a global pandemic, cuts to diversity efforts and to higher education in general, political unrest, and more—but I have always felt in good company and inspired by this community.
• Joining the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) faculty in 2021. This has also given me the opportunity to facilitate private IDI Qualifying Seminars with our university partners wanting to build a team of internal IDI Qualified Administrators.
• Serving on Wake Forest’s WISE Conference Steering Committee for the past ten years and the NAFSA Region IV team for a term, as well as presenting at countless conferences—including sessions, workshops, and keynotes—and collaborating with wonderful colleagues from a variety of institutions to do so.
• Teaching “Leading Across Cultures” in the Middlebury Institute for International Studies graduate program for two years.
• “Retiring” my spouse in 2019 so that he could spend more time in Spain helping his sibling care for their aging father (and join the business part-time to manage finances and administration).

 
Evolution of the Field & True North Intercultural

• I’ve observed (and I hope in some small way contributed to) a slow but important evolution of how intercultural learning is thought about and approached in education. More institutions are realizing they need to intentionally focus on developing all students’ intercultural competence, and that this must be a broader, more integrated, institution-wide effort. In addition, educators and institutions increasingly recognize that developing intercultural competence needs to start with the faculty, staff, and leaders for such efforts to be sustainable.
• Being both a trainer and a business owner requires constant iteration, so I’ve been focusing on my own growth and development and continually refining what I do and how I do it. When I started True North Intercultural, I offered my services as a specialist and consultant on all things related to intercultural learning. Over time, I realized my passion and unique skills lie in training educators to facilitate intercultural learning while also helping them develop their own intercultural competence. While this is still at the core of all that I do, what True North Intercultural offers today goes beyond training or professional development. In addition, I’m a strategic thought partner to schools and leaders seeking to shift their institutional culture to more intentionally integrate intercultural learning into their work to ensure all students become interculturally-competent global citizens who can thrive in this diverse, complex world.

Lessons Learned

I’ve learned—and continue learning—so much from starting and running this business. The following are just a few key lessons that I think might be of interest to others.

• Running a small business requires many of the same skills involved in developing intercultural competence, such as self-awareness, emotional intelligence, the ability to engage ambiguity, collaboration, and so much more (check out this blog post where I talk more about the intersections between intercultural competence and entrepreneurship). Also, intentionality and debriefing are key to both building a business and fostering intercultural learning.
• Productivity is just as much about managing my energy as managing my time. Some of the key things that help me manage my energy are: practicing mindfulness, taking daily walks in nature, calendar blocking so I use the time of day when I’m freshest to tackle the tasks that require more brain power and creativity, and regulating my news and social media intake.
• Investing in my own learning and development pays huge dividends.

What’s Next?

As I look forward to the next decade of doing this work, I would love your input on how I can best support your intercultural education efforts.

• What are your burning questions related to intercultural learning and teaching?
• What topics would you like to see addressed in the blog or discussed during the Intercultural Leadership Forum?
• More broadly, what do you see as the future of intercultural learning and teaching in higher education?

 
If you have input or would like to explore how True North Intercultural could help your institution achieve your intercultural learning goals, please reach out.

 
Photo credit: David Ballew, Unsplash