Week 2
Our second week was focused on our workshops for NMD. We began on Monday with the second of our three workshops with the student affairs staff, which Enock and I led. The presentation was on barriers to student engagement, and we spent the morning continuing to engage in conversations with the NMD staff about ways to improve their student leadership outcomes.
We had some time between our morning and afternoon meetings, so we wandered over to the university shop and bought some NMD gear.
From there, we went to one of the newer buildings on campus, where Taylor and Laurel did a presentation for the Residence Life staff on crisis management.
That night, Cheryl joined us again for dinner, which again hit right at sunset near the beach, giving us beautiful views as we ate.
The next morning, Tuesday, we spent the first half of the day touring the residence halls. On-campus housing is a commodity at NMU, but in recent years, they have built multiple new dorms. We were greeted by a student choir, saw some dorm rooms, and were given a presentation of the various student extracurriculars at the housing complex. Wandering around the housing complex accompanied by the choir’s singing was honestly one of the most special experiences of the whole trip.
Then, in the afternoon, Enock and I gave another presentation on career preparation, this time on behavioural interviews.
This was a late day, so we had a final presentation later in the afternoon that Taylor, Laurel, and I collaborated on. This one was again on mental health.
That night, we went to a restaurant on the beach. Then, we headed back to our B&B. This was the first night that we experienced load shedding, where various parts of the city turn off their access to electricity for a few hours so they don’t overload the grid. Luckily, it did not get in our way too much while there.
During this week, I was also part of a hiring committee to hire two new graduate assistants for my office. That Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night, I stayed up between 8:30 and 11:30 to help interview our candidates. Thankfully, the load shedding did not get in the way of the interviews.
Wednesday morning, we took a field trip to NMD’s medical campus, Missionvale, which was about a twenty minute drive away. We learned a bit about the medical school program, got a tour of the state of the art buildings, and visited the on-campus medicinal plant garden.
We drove back to the main campus and had the opportunity to go up to a tall floor in the tallest building on campus. From there, we were able to see the ocean surrounding us on three sides. We also caught sight of the zebra herd that live on campus.
Our afternoon was filled with a session led by Enock and I on Generative AI for faculty members.
After that, Enock and I led another session on behavioral interviewing and LinkedIn for the student leadership group. We ate dinner with the students during the presentation.
Thursday, we had our final session with the student affairs staff, foucsed on insights from an international perspective. We started to wrap up the discussion around student participation data and ways to move forward.
The final event we had was a podcast discussion between an NMD staff member and two of my colleagues, Laurel and Taylor.
That evening, we took another walk on the beach.
Then, we visited Cheryl’s house for some traditional South African Afrikaans meals. We had a great time, and the food was delicious!
Flight to Cape Town
On Friday, we packed up and got ready to leave. But before we did, we were invited back to NMD to see Open Day, which was essentially a organization fest, except for majors. We toured around the various booths, getting to learn more about all the different educational options for NMD students.
With one last goodbye, we headed off to the airport and flew across the southern edge of the continent and to Cape Town for the last part of our trip.
WANDERING 