What does Shansi REPresent to you?
The Shansi Board and team in Oberlin are reflecting on what Shansi means to our community. To help us answer the question "What does Shansi REPresent to you?", We asked our alumni - Shansi Reps, Fellows, Visiting Scholars, Grantees, and Shansi Prize winners - friends, and colleagues what Shansi represents to them, to our stakeholders, and to our partner communities towards the end of the year for 2023.
Experiencing the tolerance and kindness of American College faculty and staff and witnessing their commitment gave me a better sense of how small I am and how important it is to keep an open mind.
- David Dix, Fellow, American College, 1963
My experience as a Shansi Fellow in Banda Aceh wasn’t always easy, but I learned so much about seeing the world from others’ perspectives. I hope it helps me understand & support the high school students I teach here in Southeast Michigan, most of whom are Muslim and recent immigrants to America.
- Sarah Willis, Fellow, Syiah Kuala University, 2009
“Both my lifelong interest in China, and my lifelong love of teaching, began with the two years I spent as a Shansi rep at Tunghai University in Taiwan teaching English as a second language”
- Ralph Huenemann, Fellow, Tunghai University, 1961
“My Shansi experience defined the trajectory of my career in ethnomusicology, my focus on Christian Indigenization, and ultimately Dalit/caste studies. My social justice work and personal relationships with Dalit activists, theologians, and musicians today are the continuation of and coming full circle of my family’s history with the ABCFM in Turkey as survivors of the Armenian genocide. Those with whom I am engaged in Tamil Nadu today are my chosen family and our relationships are an enduring Shansi legacy. I am indebted to Oberlin and Shansi for the meaning in my life and defining its purpose.”
- Zoe Sherinian, Fellow, Lady Doak College, 1985
As a Shansi "Rep" (not "fellow"; sorry) I always thought of myself as representing Oberlin and the U.S., and later, as embodying that experience, to represent a nuanced presentation of Taiwan's ongoing transformation to the world.
- Tom Gold, Fellow, Tunghai University, 1974
“Shansi changed my life in many ways. I remember taking a 2-week trek into the Himalayas with a close friend from Rakkar. For the first time I saw the vastness of the mountains. The adventure captured the gift that Shansi gave to me: two years of protected and supported time to think deeply about the world and how I want to be in it.”
- Emmanuel Greenberg, Fellow, Jagori Grameen, 2015
“I was a very different person when I arrived in Japan to begin my Fellowship. After two years of teaching and gaining perspective on my life, I returned to the US with a sense of clarity and confidence to pursue the next chapter of my life as a clinical mental health counselor. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to grow with the support of Shansi and my co-Fellows. I will be forever grateful.”
- Leah Aki Wood, Fellow, J.F. Oberlin University, 2018
“I would never have been able to live abroad for two years, not with the same security and affordability that Shansi offered.”
- Jazmin Guerrero, Fellow, Lady Doak College, 2011
As an experimental rep to Nagoya University, I was a research student in the Public Health Department, hoping to do social work in the US serving Japanese-speakers. I immersed myself in a collective of young Japanese challenging the notion of disability, and was forced to examine my own biases and other power dynamics existing in Japanese society. I learned to be resilient in overcoming barriers and attempted to apply those lessons to my teaching and research in Japanese university English education.
- Laura Kusaka, Fellow, Experimental Rep, Japan, 1974
“My Shansi experience in Indonesia complicated my worldview—it expanded how I understood how the world worked and challenged my personal limits in a way I didn't expect but ultimately appreciated. It changed my life path.”
- Sydney Garvis, Fellow, Syiah Kuala University, 2018
“At Oberlin I had the opportunity to meet people from Spain, Russia, China, Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and friends from various states of the USA and this itself brought unfolding experience. Snow at Oberlin was awesome 🤩 Shansi facilitated a lot travel which is again unfolding experience. Visiting the Amish people which is a learning experience. Niagara, Walden Pond, Chicago the City of Broad Shoulders and New York- Truly an Immersive Experience!”
- Paul Jayakar Jayapandian, Visiting Scholar, American College, 2007
“My years teaching in Chiang Mai brought new experiences, fabulous adventures, lifelong friends, and a deep affection for that part of the world. Returning 30 years later as US Consul General was a dream assignment and Shansi connections continue to spring up with surprising frequency. Fifty years on, my time in Thailand with Shansi still looms large in my life.”
- Beatrice Camp, Fellow, Chiang Mai University, 1972
“I was the 2014-2016 fellow to Jagori Rural. Those two years in India introduced me to a world of learning that would form the topic of my ongoing ethnomusicology PhD from Indiana University. In November 2023, I returned from a nine-month Fulbright fellowship wherein I researched the role of song at Jagori Rural. This would not have been possible without Shansi. If my Oberlin education formed a foundation of knowledge and skills that shaped my perspective and actions, my Shansi experience comprised the time I needed to learn how to apply myself long-term to an unfamiliar sociocultural and institutional milieu.”
- Christian James, Fellow, Jagori Grameen, 2014
Photo credit to Addie McKnight.
“2012, the year I came to Oberlin - Still the most precious time of my life - the Shansi experience helped me become a more meaningful educator.”
- Dr. Anita Christine Tiphagne, Visiting Scholar, Lady Doak College, 2012
“Shansi has given me the chance to live and work in politics in a very different political context. The political strategies, political dynamics, and cross-cultural navigation skills that I have learned, the social movement networks that I have formed, and the things that I have seen and experienced here will shape my life's work. This would not have been possible without Shansi.”
- Isaak Heller, Fellow, Independent Fellowship, 2022
“Shansi gave me the gift of a lifetime in offering me the chance to live and work in China for two years after college. During that time, I did my first substantive travel outside of the US, explored my own heritage and identity, and radically transformed my relationship to China. It was through Shansi that the values of cross-cultural engagement, mutual understanding, and tolerance truly became lifelong goals.”
- Daniel Tam-Claiborne, Fellow, Shanxi Agricultural University, 2009
“I learned so much from my experience as a Shansi Fellow in Taigu—how to play mahjong, how to order food off a Chinese menu, and how to navigate a whole new country. However, equally important in my Shansi experience, was the opportunity to be a Returned Fellow and introduce Shansi's Visiting Scholars to American culture. I have fond memories of Friday nights in Oberlin with the Visiting Scholars eating pizza at Lorenzo's, viewing stars at the Peters Observatory, and going bowling at the College Lanes.”
- Louise Edwards, Fellow, Shanxi Agricultural University, 2016
“Since the completion of my Shansi Fellowship in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, I have continued to return to Indonesia year after year, and I am now lucky enough to call Yogyakarta my home once again. My fellowship cemented my passion to work as an educator. It also showed me the transformational power of living in one area with a culture (or cultures) quite different from one’s own for an extended period of time. Thanks to the skills and lessons learned while on my fellowship, I now get to help facilitate that same experience for students as my career.”
- Eli Fisher, Fellow, Gadjah Mada University, 2016
“I became a confident, almost fearless person after hiking through the foothills of the Himalayas to do social justice battle with the women of Jagori who have far less fear than I. I draw on my experiences from Shansi today to remind me that I can do anything I put my mind to, especially with the help of new friends and communities.”
- Christina James, Fellow, Jagori Grameen, 2012
“Towards the end of my fellowship, I hosted a Passover seder with my co-fellows who had never attended one. I made most of the traditional foods including matzo ball soup, but ordered a large sushi platter for the main course. I got to share one of my family traditions and learned about their family traditions too. This also represented my growth during my fellowship from a college student who relied on the co-op for all of my meals to an adult who could host an actual dinner party with friends. All of the best Shansi traditions involve food.”
- Franklin Sussman, Fellow, J.F. Oberlin University, 2017
