CREATIVITY BY NECESSITY: AN INTERVIEW WITH CHASE SMITHBURG '12 As a professional working with study abroad in Morocco, OU alum Chase Smithburg has seen firsthand the pandemic’s impact on international education. A 2012 graduate who double majored in political science and Arabic with a minor in international studies (he also worked in CIS as Arabic Flagship coordinator post-graduation), Smithburg has lived in Morocco for the past six years, working for American Councils for International Education as resident director of the Arabic Overseas Flagship Program, a federal initiative for American students to learn Arabic and gain skills to become global professionals. “I oversee the program, particularly student well-being, safety and overall experience, including cultural activities, excursions and host families,” he says. In March 2020, when countries began to address the coronavirus’s global spread, Smithburg and his colleagues faced an urgent situation: they had to get their students home quickly or risk being stuck indefinitely in Morocco under lockdown. “As the situation deteriorated, we quickly figured out how to get out,” he recalls. “We were actually on two of the last flights out of the country before they totally shut down the border. So it was certainly one of the higher-stress periods of my employment with this program, seeing the potential for being trapped in this country with quarantines and curfews and being responsible for some 30-some-odd young adults.” They managed to get all the students home safely, and though Smithburg had himself planned to return home to Morocco, border closures forced him to continue on to the United States. He spent the next six months with family and friends in Tennessee, Kansas and the Dallas area, working remotely until he could return in September. But evacuation was far from the only hurdle. Smithburg and his colleagues still had a program to run, and the students needed to complete their coursework in order to graduate. So Smithburg took on the task of helping to transition the program online and train faculty in new systems. “As you can imagine, it’s a bit strange to be responsible for overseeing a virtual study abroad program — an overseas program, online,” he says. “We had to totally retool the program.” (continued on page 14)
WWW.OU.EDU/CIS • SPRING 2021 • COMPASS: PANDEMIC EDITION
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