While traveling abroad undoubtedly creates cherished memories, the rich learning experience it provides should not be overlooked.
Dr. Cougar Hall joins his study abroad co-directors of 5 years, Dr. Ben Crookston and Dr. Josh West, to reminisce about their shared experience in Europe this past summer. The three strive to facilitate a life-changing program for the students. In this episode, they enlighten us on various paradigm shifts, such as views on work-life balance to new spiritual beginnings that arose from time abroad.
Both Dr. Crookston and Dr. West have previously appeared on our podcast. Listen to their areas of expertise here.
Learn more about BYU’s Public Health study abroad in Europe here.
Recorded, Edited & Produced by Paige Sherwood, Isabella Loosle, and Tanya Gale
While traveling abroad undoubtedly creates cherished memories, the rich learning experience it provides should not be overlooked.
Dr. Cougar Hall joins his study abroad co-directors of 5 years, Dr. Ben Crookston and Dr. Josh West, to reminisce about their shared experience in Europe this past summer. The three strive to facilitate a life-changing program for the students. In this episode, they enlighten us on various paradigm shifts, such as views on work-life balance to new spiritual beginnings that arose from time abroad.
Both Dr. Crookston and Dr. West have previously appeared on our podcast. Listen to their areas of expertise here.
Learn more about BYU’s Public Health study abroad in Europe here.
Recorded, Edited & Produced by Paige Sherwood, Isabella Loosle, and Tanya Gale
It's a real pleasure to welcome Dr. Josh West and Dr. Ben Crookston back to the podcast. How you guys doing? Great. You're the first repeat customers, so we welcome you back. Really appreciate it. And today's kind of a special opportunity to talk about the Europe Public Health Study Abroad program. I'm really excited about that. Now, the three of us have been co directors for that program for five years now. Seven years. We took two years off because of a pandemic, but five years that we've run the program really excited about that. And today is going to be just kind of a loose conversation as we talk about what we've learned, what our motivations are, how it's impacted our lives. Let me first just take maybe 30 seconds and give a little bit of an overview of where we go and how long and who we take. The 2022 version of the Study Abroad program included 44 BYU students, 13 faculty and dependents. So family members, I think our entire group was 57 people. We visited three primary countries or had three primary locations, I should say the Netherlands, France and Spain. But I believe you've got to correct me if I'm wrong. We had day trips into Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg. We had a if you can call it a day trip. We we we placed our feet down on the top of a mountain in Italy. And of course, we spent a little bit of time in Switzerland, including a visit to the Swiss temple, which was a highlight for me, an absolute adventure in every sense of the word. And maybe this is a good a good transition point, Josh, rather than just talk more about the program, maybe to go back and talk about the origins of this program, because you and Ben together really were the writers of the proposal for one and really the masterminds behind this. So do you mind just taking a minute and talking about where where these ideas came from and what the purpose and objectives were?
Dr. West :I had just recently attended a health Netherlands, the southern part of the Netherlands, a city called Maastricht. And I know I'm not saying that with a Dutch a Dutch accent at all, but this was one of the most beautiful places that I had ever been that I had never heard of. I mean, it was one of those places that if I told my neighbors I went to Maastricht, they would say, Is that a is that a town in Idaho or is that I don't even know where that is. And so when I went there and it was kind of late November, early December, I thought that it was the most magical place I had ever seen. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing, both kind of on a personal level, but also on a public health level and on a public health level. I just couldn't believe the number of bike paths. I couldn't believe the number of people riding bikes to school and to work and all these other places. I had never seen anything like it. And so from a kind of a professional standpoint, I was looking at what I was seeing, thinking, everybody has to see this. This is unbelievable. I can't believe this. And I remember it snowed one morning and I thought, well, I was kind of anxious to get out and see. So all the bikes are like put away. How is this going to turn out? And and they had this little kind of like almost like a side by side ATV UTV machine that had a big roller on the front and it just went through and they prioritize the bike past and they cleared that off before they worried about the roads and almost like it was no big deal. And I saw moms taking kids to school on bikes. And so it was like the weather was a maybe a minor annoyance, but that was it. And so I came home with a bunch of pictures and a bunch of stories to tell my students, and we had a discussion in class about the built environment and how the built environment makes it easy or difficult for us to be healthy. And so I was describing how in the Netherlands, all of these bike paths and this infrastructure that makes it safe makes it really easy for people to say, I'm going to ride my bike to work instead of I'm going to drive to work. And one of the students said, Why don't we take a field trip? And I, you know, kind of laughed because the I mean, for all the obvious reasons, it's impossible. We're not going to do that. Why would we do that? We're in a class here in Provo, and I came back from class and had a conversation with Ben and perhaps with you, Cougar, And and, you know, we kind of laughed like, Yeah, why don't we do a field trip? You know, it's funny to think about. And then, you know, it maybe just struck us as, why don't we do a field trip? Why not? Why don't we why don't we take students to to the Netherlands and see this and experience it? And hopefully that will leave us somehow changed. And and I think Ben has a better. Expect to have personally, maybe better kind of context and in international experiences to kind of speak to the cultural humility aspect that we were trying to achieve. But but, I mean, so it was kind of the beginning of of this particular public health study abroad.
Dr. Hall :I think traditional public health, you know, you will. We really have gone to places like sub-Saharan Africa where I think, if I remember correctly, when you were at the University of Utah, you took students to Ghana several summers in a row. And and, you know, poor Josh's account there of taking students to Peru, that's more of that traditional we're going to go and we're going to identify, you know, the resources that these communities need and how we can drop some knowledge on them and help them solve some of their problems. But this this approach of going to nations that have much better health outcomes, by and large, it's not fair to say that everything is better, but but they have better life expectancy and probably a better work life balance, and they mitigate stress a little better than we do in their approach to living. But to go to those locations and say, okay, we have a lot to learn from you, can you speak to that experience? Because you can really juxtapose that with your work in the developing world?
Dr. Crookston:I think. Yeah. I think for us we'd all worked amazing experiences going to these places and we learned a lot from our colleagues in those places and how resourceful they were in areas where resources were really scant and scarce, and we had really fulfilling, rewarding times there. But I think we also recognized a, that there are lots of problems in our own system. And B, you know, there is value in going somewhere to learn rather than with this idea or intent that you might treat or change some of the local outcomes. So for me, I think, yeah, I mean, Josh has described it really well. Part of the genesis with this too was what can we do that might allow us to go and learn and and kind of expand our own horizons with the possibilities. There's an article that you shared with us this spring where the writer went to the they lived abroad and they did this weekend in the Netherlands. This the wife and husband and the woman who wrote the article talked about she gave a quote that's just really stuck with me. She says, We travel partly so that we can glimpse new possibilities for our own lives back home. And I really love that. I mean, I think for me, part of going to Europe and taking students there was this hope and this idea that we could get them to see the possibilities in their own lives. They weren't going to Europe to change Europeans. They were going to Europe to change themselves. And it wasn't as if, like, America doesn't have amazing things going on here, and it's a land of immense promise and opportunity. But we're not you know, there are things in other places that are that we can bring back and add. So it wasn't a competitive thing like what countries, number one and who's number two? It was more what can we learn in the Netherlands or in France or Sweden that we could bring back home and make ourselves better with? And I think, you know, for me that was a really big deal that that same author finished up the article by saying, you know, we travel to be changed and hopefully for the better. And I think that's as we've talked about and Josh has been really good about this as having this as a clear mission in all five of our programs. We want students to have a life changing experience because we want them to go there and to come back better not not different, like in the sense that we're trying to erase anything of their past or the good things that they have. But to be built up to an even better potential than they had before.
Dr. Hall :I love it. Let's let's talk. So Josh has already introduced a little bit about the Netherlands and the it's probably been 12, 13 years since that academic conference in Maastricht. And I do remember you coming home, mind blown about the bike paths. And the bike paths are noteworthy. And we should talk about Dutch cycling culture for just a moment. The Netherlands is a small country home to 17.4 million residents, has 22,000 miles of bike path. So if we want to do a comparison, the US just this summer hit this this mark. We now have 18,000 miles of bike path in the United States. If we were if you were going to do the equivalent, right, since we're 237 times the size of the Netherlands, we would need almost 5.3 million miles of bike paths. So there's certainly many, many miles of bike path in the Netherlands. And and, you know, the modal share of, you know, commuters going by bike versus car versus it's remarkable. And it really does absolutely change society. Just just the pace, the tempo, the lifestyle in the United States. If you ride a bike, you're young, you're poor, or you're an enthusiast, you're a cyclist, you're a mountain biker in the Netherlands, day after day, you see middle aged upper class. They have down jackets, wool blazers, scarves. The most beautiful people you've ever seen. And they're riding their bike at two in the afternoon and they're not writing to the park, they're writing to the store, they're writing to work. You you really have to experience this, as Josh said earlier. So it's a remarkable place. Thoughts on Cycle Culture. Because I don't want to get into mental health and work life balance with the Dutch as well. But any quick thoughts because you are actually both enthusiast when it comes to cycling, how has it changed your perception of cycling and and what we might do in the U.S.? Any thoughts?
Dr. West :Well, I'll take a stab and Ben can play clean input. But sure. Josh in my opinion, they have done a really good job of balancing, as you would say, the enthusiasm, the competitive nature of, you know, bikes as a kind of a form of recreation and form of competition that we're really perhaps overemphasized in the U.S.. I mean, you know, we have lots of apps to track physical activity that allow you to compete with others and see your performance as compared to everybody else. And and and my sense is that they've done a good job of being able to balance the the bike is a tool that we use to get around places. And it's also a tool that we use to go see people that we love. It's also a tool we use to go to the grocery store. We have cars for that and we think of cars along those same lines. And yet I think they've also done a good job of embracing the bike as as part of their their culture. I think they've done a good job of embracing the bike as also for recreation and for physical activity and for all of these things. And so I like to think of it as as a tool for active living and not a tool for exercise. Right. The perspective that they would have is this is a tool that we use to facilitate how we want to live. And so we ride the bike and it helps us to be healthy and also helps us get to the grocery store. And it's good for the environment and all of these things. Whereas I think we've chunked up very much these, these different aspects of our lives. So we're going to use this tool in order to help us be fit. We're going to use this tool, the car for all these other activities we're going to use. And so I think they've done a really good job and they've been very thoughtful about how they build this infrastructure. And we not to get too far off topic, but we once heard a city planner that we were meeting with in Sweden say, and he was kind of making fun of other countries approach to building bike paths. And, you know, really as a as a as a way to kind of emphasize their approach that is very thoughtful. They look at where people live and where they need to go, and then they build bike path to facilitate transportation between those two points. And he said, you know, other countries and he specifically referenced France and kind of a derogatory, you know, tone, but said the French would would see a lake and they would build a bike path around a lake as if its only purpose is for recreation. And it kind of chuckled. And that was funny to us because that really characterizes our approach, right? We would build a trail, we would build a path somewhere. People would have to drive there in order to then recreate there. Whereas, you know, the Swedes or the Dutch certainly would have an infrastructure that would just make it easy to live.
Dr. Crookston:Yeah, just describe that really. Well, I think I just had one personal anecdote related to that. So you mentioned bike enthusiasts. We're all bike enthusiasts. And before the study ride, I probably rode my bike four days a week, you know, and absolutely loved it both for exercise but for fun and being with friends. And when we went to the our first study abroad and spent a week in the Netherlands, I came back just completely the possibilities of what I might do completely changed. I never had thought about it. I live about 20 miles away from campus. I had never thought about commuting and with my bike I drove my car 30 minutes each way and then I would separately spend time exercising whether that was running or biking or whatever. And I realized I started doing the math. I thought, okay, well, if I ride to campus, I can actually buy a fairly inexpensive city bike. I can ride to campus. It takes me a little bit more than an hour to get there and then reverse that in the afternoon. So I spent a little more than 2 hours commuting versus one, but I would spend at least an hour exercising previously. And so it really changed the way I thought about the bike from being a fun thing. And I still love biking. And even riding to work is fun for me. It's enjoyable. It's a way to decompress after work. It's a way to kind of refresh myself in the morning and think about the things they have before me, before me, as well as just being active and being outside and breathing fresh air. And I realized that it can be a win win. I mean, I'm using one less parking space. I save about $10 a day on gas, given how expensive gas has been. And and I'm active and I'm not racing up and down this paved bike path, but there's this one bike path in all of northern Utah County, this main bike path called the Maria Canal Trail. And so for me, I'm really fortunate. I live less than a mile from getting on that bike path and then it's a few miles to campus from the end of it. And there's a bike path that goes that connects. That's not the case for a lot of Utah County and the surrounding area. And while some cities have done a better job at paying some lines on the road, most people I talked to still don't feel very safe riding the bike. Given how fast drivers go, how distracted drivers can be, and how there's a bit of a negative stigma associated with cyclists and and them on the road. But for me, the bike path allowed me to kind of bypass a lot of that and to be in a safe situation and and to be able to. Have a chance to kind of get back to the environment for myself as well as to build to be active without I don't have to be drenched with sweat at the end of the day. So I never thought about that before going to the Netherlands. I grew up in a car family. I had a car, you know, that was the idea that cars take you places. But this really changed the way I think about public transit, the way I think about bikes, the way I think about walking. And cars are great. I use a car. I'm not anti car, but I've learned to diversify how I get places and think a little bit more deliberately about when I might use a car versus other modes of transportation.
Dr. Hall :Yeah, exactly. And I'm just thinking if there's a listener who says, Oh, I've been to the Netherlands, they've probably been to Amsterdam. And our our program actually began in Amsterdam. We had two days there and I think their primary purpose was to help students gather and and deal with some jetlag. And we went to the Anne Frank house, and I think most students went to, you know, the Van Gogh Museum and they walked the canal streets and all of them had their minds blown when they saw just the massive bike parking outside of the central station. But after two days there, we actually formally began the program in a town about 45 minutes south called Utrecht. And if you think cycling is good in Amsterdam, your mind is truly about a new trick, because it is, in my personal opinion, that I've been everywhere. But it is the best cycling city in the world, in my opinion. When you go to the Central station in Utrecht, there's there's three level modern parking garage for cycles for bikes. And they have they have made it very, very difficult to drive a car anywhere near the city centre. I have never felt so safe on a bike. If I can go full circle, the point I'm trying to make is the connectivity you can actually get on a train in Amsterdam with your bike and arrive in Utrecht 20 minutes later and ride home or ride to work or ride to school. It has a very distinguished university in new trict. Like all of that, it's just the connectivity between public transport, train, bus and psychopath. And we're not talking about painted lines. We're talking about a completely different tarmac, typically protected from parked cars, typically trees in between you and any motorized vehicle traffic. It's remarkable. So Utrecht for me was one of the highlights. And then of course, Josh we we wound up in Maastricht but I think this year going to Amsterdam Utrecht and mastered three distinct cities all very charming, all very liveable in particular Utrecht and Maastricht I think are very liveable cities, very industrious cities to these these are hard working capitalists there. I don't I don't know if everyone has that perception, but the Dutch are hardworking folk and we'll talk about work life balance in a moment. But you've got something you want to say. I can tell.
Dr. West :Yeah. Well, I mean, to your point about how how the culture and the built environment seamlessly integrates so well. One morning we went for a run and it was maybe, I guess an eight, 830 in the morning. So, you know what would be a typical rush hour? And Utrecht is a city of roughly a million people in the surrounding area. And we were on what would have been kind of a main street. So, I mean, you know, if that were a city of that size and a main street in a city in the United States at eight or 830 in the morning, you would have cars lined up, stoplight to stoplight to stoplight. And so we found ourselves at kind of this main intersection on this main street at that time of the morning. And I think there were I'm guessing I don't remember exactly, but I remember being struck that there were like three cars waiting at the stoplight. And there was really nothing behind him. Except adjacent to them was the bike lane, and it seemed like there was maybe 200 bikes. And so if you think of each of those each of those cyclists being a car, how far that line would have stretched. And that then is what we see in many of our cities and communities where, you know, people are are in a car and that just stretches on forever. But it was just for me, that was that was a very impactful moment because it helped me to realize that those things that we find frustrating sitting in traffic, we can do something about it and they've done something about it. They've eliminated some of those stressors and and and they get different health outcomes. And I mean, there are tremendous benefits. And I just want to point out one thing. I'm sure everybody listening caught this at the beginning. But just so they, you know, to to kind of emphasize this point, Ben mentioned he lives 20 miles from campus. So I just. Just just for sake of math, he's commuting each way. I just he's he's. He's my hero. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Hall :Well, there's certainly more to what we're bike paths. So we've mentioned work life balance a couple of times. And I also mentioned that the Dutch are very hard workers, very industrious. On average, Dutch workers are putting in about 4 hours less than American workers each week. So you might think, oh, that's not a huge deal. No, but it's it's going to be about 45 minutes a day. What could a worker in the U.S. do with an additional 45 minutes a day? And it doesn't just have to be physical activity. It doesn't have to be just time with family. But there are there are many things that buffer stress. That we could be dealing with that amount of time. Maybe more important is that if you look at those that really are working a lot of hours in the US, we have 11, 12% of employees that work at least 50 hours a week. In the Netherlands, it's less than one half of 1%. So they really have kind of established that balance. My first trip to the Netherlands, I, I wound up without a toothbrush. I'd love to say that was the only time that that's happened when I've traveled. And it was already it was already seven or 8:00 at night. I could not find a store, not even a corner grocer or a mini mart or whatever you want to call it, to buy a toothbrush. And then the following day, in speaking with an individual from the local university and saying, What was yesterday? A holiday? I couldn't even find a store to buy a toothbrush. And that was that was the beginning of my education as far as work life balance in the Netherlands, because their response was, well, who wants to work after five or 6:00 at night? Why would you do that? Like, because you can make money like, oh, that's a very American way of doing things. We want to be at home with our families. We want to be at a park talking and socializing.
We don't want to be working at six or 7:00 at night. So that kind of leads me. I mean, maybe that's a transition point is this idea of how the Dutch socialize. And I don't I don't speak Dutch, but I'm going to take a shot at this because there's a term my brother actually served as mission in the Netherlands. And he shared with me this term of this approach to socializing and visiting. And I'll do my best. Hazel Heit is is my best shot at that word. And it doesn't have a great translation in English. If you look it up, it's cosiness and comfort and fun. But what it really is is this approach to socializing. And we've all seen this where when I get home from work, I open the garage door, I pull in, I close the garage door, and now I'm in my abode. And we might be streaming Netflix or we might be playing a game or making a meal or doing it, but that's it. We're not we're not interacting with other people. We've seen this, whether it's in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Maastricht or anywhere in between this three and four hour social event, which is grab a bottle of wine, go sit by a canal and chit chat, or go to a restaurant with all of the all of the chairs and tables facing the street. And you just have a three or four hour meal where you talk and you socialize. It turns out that's really protective. It's not just we work fewer hours in the Netherlands. It's it's it's lowering those stress levels and allowing an opportunity for social support. So this is interesting on the on what we think are the is the tail end of COVID is there is a report just this summer looking at which nations have done the best in dealing with the mental health consequences of quarantining and isolation and working from home. And it's no surprise to me that the Netherlands and it wasn't even close the best mental health outcomes coming out of COVID, because I've observed I've observed their gift for gab, if you will. And they're and they're just willingness to just sit and talk and connect. There's a lot we can learn. I think cycling is really cool, but I think there's a lot we can learn as far as how they interact and how they value that social connection. Any other observations that you've made are are lessons learned as you as you reflect on the Netherlands?
Dr. Crookston:Well, I think the one thing I would add, too, I think when it comes to work productivity, we're. Less can be more. I'm not an expert in this research. You probably know more about. We have anecdotally had a lot of conversations. About just because you're in your office. Just because you're on the clock doesn't mean you're. A service or something of. So when an employee who made work, say, 36 hours a week but is fresher and more attentive and alert during those 36 hours, you may actually get more out of them. That's a. Working 50 hours because that productivity wanes. There's a constant fatigue, there's burnout and things like that. And so. My guess is, especially just observing this individually in these countries, they're very, like you said, industrious. They're getting a lot done even in a shorter workweek. So I think there's something to be said, both from a health point of view for the individual, but even for the productivity point of view of a company who's trying to make.
Dr. Hall :Yeah, absolutely. Let me let me transition a little bit. So we've talked quite a bit about the Netherlands following our trip to the Netherlands. We then move on to France and we have stops in Paris. I don't know if we can take you college students to France and not spend some time in Paris. I know that the big cities are not our favorites as co-directors, but we stop in Paris and then we head down to the southern part of France, to the Alps, and we spend a few nights in Shaman, which is a mountain town, very much a alpine ski town. And then not far from so many, we stop it on C and I don't speak French either, so I'm sure I'm just botching these names on sea is at the base of the French Alps, a beautiful resort town, if you will. It's gorgeous Lake. I think it's often called the Venice of France because all these gorgeous canals and and small shops and restaurants and eateries. We haven't though talked because I can transition. We I was prepared to talk about smoking rates in France. They they they double our rates here in the US they apparently didn't get the memo about smoking but probably the whole public health thing are probably hitting it too hard and boring people. Maybe we talk about our students. We took 44 students this year. Every group has been remarkable. But I just I just loved this particular group, and I think I was enjoying them in the Netherlands. But when we got to France, I was like, okay, you're all rock stars. This is it's so much fun to see them experience. Everything in Paris. So what do you two remember about these amazing students in Paris or or all of France, for that matter? But. Take it away.
Dr. West :Well, I mean, it's a little bit like a parent know, like this is your first Christmas when you're going to actually know what you're doing, what you're opening. And they open something and they're just they're oh, they're just they're just excited. And that was what was really fun. And that that is what's fun about taking students places where they've they've never been or they've never experienced things like this, is that it's all new and it's all exciting. But I felt like in Paris it was we had almost like a stopwatch. The bus rolled in and we clicked go and people were I mean, I don't know that anybody took anything out of their bags When they put them in their rooms, it was like they put them in their rooms and they were gone. And it was this a sprint for several days to see everything. And that's really rewarding. That's fun to see. And it makes you feel like this. I mean, this this was effort well worth it because you're you're experiencing and you're learning and you're growing this group.
Dr. Crookston:But their ability to live in the. It was really cool, you know? And I think sometimes we as adults are like, Oh, you got to plan for. But they just were. That was really it was really fun to see. The other thing that was really cool about them. You know, the tendency has been some of the previous study rides for kind of groups to form. And clicks aren't necessarily malicious in their exclusion of others. They're just you find. But this group was really interesting that they continue to be very inclusive. Even almost two weeks into the program, they were still, you know, we use the social media. They just are really good about that. Hey, we're meeting in the lobby in an hour. We're going to go see this. Nobody wants to. And there was a lot of interaction. And it was sincere. It wasn't just seen as. You could hear it, they really would take. And so I don't think we've seen groups where students have kind of filtered across smaller groups as much where there was just like one day you might be hanging out with. That was really noticeable. Of just. You know, you know, rising generations. But I think this group really put their money where. We're very open.
Dr. Hall :I totally agree with with both of those I think it's interesting and I am one of those old guys, you know, get off my lawn. I'm the old grumpy guy in the neighborhood, and I'm often critical of phones and social media and just just screen time in general. But this this group changed my mind a little bit on that, how they're using their phones as tools, tools for travel. My goodness. They'll be like, oh, so tomorrow, do you mind if I go to Normandy? I'm like, Yeah, no, Normandy is a long way from here. It's it's not a hop, skip and it but I already found a guide in this. They're using their phones to really just explore, and it's completely expanded. Like it's more than Google Maps. It's more than I know how to get over to the Bastille. It's like they have really expanded their abilities. But this group, yeah, it wasn't just the Eiffel Tower and it wasn't just going to the Louvre and like, whether it's Paris, Disney or, like I say, Normandy or it was remarkable. I think we watched one of the Despicable Me movies. What was that that came out this summer? We saw that at the in the oldest theater in Paris. And I might add, that old means no air conditioning. But but just all of the things that they were doing and planning and arranging, it was remarkable. It gave me a lot of hope now. Before I transition the phone thing, when my wife and I go to dinner and on study abroad, we had our youngest, our youngest daughter with this too, not uncommon for us to go to order our food. And then in the 15 or in in Paris, in the 45 minutes it takes to get your food, just be looking at our phones, catching up on the news stories, catching up on what's going on at home. But we went to dinner several times with student groups. They don't they don't bring their phones out when they eat. That is a huge social faux pas for college students right now. Like they got the memo that I didn't get because we would order they put their phones in their pockets, my phone sitting on the table, and every 30 seconds I'm picking it up and checking something. They don't do that now. I don't know how generalizable that is. If that's if that's all college students today. But they they have learned something about when it's appropriate to use a phone and when it's not. And that's something that my generation, I think needs to catch up on. So I couldn't have been more impressed with the students in France. Do you guys have a favorite Before we move on to Spain, is there a favorite experience you had with students or with family in France? It's a loaded question because I have one.
Dr. West :Yeah, we were in Sharmini, and we we actually friend of ours, Martin, He dropped us off actually across the border in Switzerland. There's a large reservoir. And so we he dropped us off there and we had a hike back to to our lodging down close to. Sharmini. It was a beautiful hike. Partway through the hike, we stopped as a group and had had a discussion. We had a discussion about behaviour change, which was one of the one of the classes that we were teaching on the study abroad. So we sat there as a group on this kind of mountainside, this, you know, you have this beautiful vista all the way over to Mont Blanc, you could see and we were talking about behaviour change and it struck me as. Just incredibly unique and beautiful. And students were pleasant. They were engaged in the discussion. But more importantly, just the I just had this sense of kind of gratitude for the efforts that they made to be there, the efforts that the university made to have them there, and the efforts that the two of you made my my friends and colleagues to be there and to make it possible for students to be in such an incredible setting, talking about something that we've talked about a million times at home in Provo. But but to be able to do it, there was really special.
Dr. Hall :That's really cool. And I have probably much work and effort goes into study abroad. And it's not to pat ourselves on the back, it's to say that there is a lot, a lot of effort by many different individuals and different offices across campus just. By way of example, this year study abroad was from, I think, what, June 24th to about July 21st. About 28 days, 30 days of travel in there with 44 students, like I say, and we each taught a class. We had some directed readings, we had some grad students who are doing projects there as we traveled many, many lectures, just a lot of work within that that approximately one month time period. But it really is reflective of almost a full year's effort. In fact, I got an email this week from the Kennedy Center on campus who really you know, that's that's where all the study abroad programs are housed, asking when can we get together in the next week or two to start planning the 2023 program? It really is an 11 month program as far as an 11 month effort, as far as preparing for our program, from recruitment to preparing classes to making travel arrangements to the finances. It is remarkable. And I had this same thought. Josh, I'm exhausted because I like I can go for about two weeks and then I'm just like, Oh boy, this is a grind. I want my pillow, I want my protein shake at home. I want to see my dog. So as much fun as it is, you're also just like, Ooh, I got to find another level. I have to rally. We have two more weeks of this, right? It's it's an incredible experience. And every day I experience so much gratitude for the students, for their family members who are are supporting them in many different ways. And just for that opportunity, it's pretty cool. So, Ben, I cut you off as per usual. You were going to say something.
Dr. Crookston:I was just going to add about it's related to through the fall and. On dates. Since we had a lot of insurgent. Which countries would be. But still, one of the things I do is each fall when they release the Tour de France plan for the following year, I like look at that calendar, look at our calendar and see what matches. In our previous four years. One time we had caught just a small portion of it. Because it's more often we'll do a few days in a. But it's pretty exciting when we looked at our potential calendar. Pass, fall and soar. Would be in the Alps. And so for me, one of the highlights and we had actually a lot of. Things that happen where we just happened to. But for me, one of the big things was that we had the. Between Sharmini and C as we are. And it's such an iconic I mean, it's not just somebody like us. We like SCI. But it's such a so it is the Super Bowl of cycling. But even more than that, it's one of the biggest cultural. Occurs in France is actually the most has the most fans of any sport. Because they have. And for us to see them to experience both the interaction you have with. And to see two Americans. And to see them kind of come. Just the excitement. It was certainly really memorable. And the students who are just the most casual cyclists most. To see how excited they were and how much fun.
Dr. Hall :Yeah, I knew that was going to be your know, my Speedo and my wrestling mask and my cape and could run up and down along the riders. It turned out it was much more tame than that, wasn't it? So that was an absolute highlight for me to the point that I wanted or the experience that I wanted to share. And this was such a loaded question, but I appreciate you playing ball with me was we happened to be in on see this gorgeous lake town on Bastille Day. So Bastille Day. That was that was the beginning of the French Revolution, which together with the American Revolution and the development of the Constitution really is a turning point in the history of the world, the Western world in particular, as far as human rights. And there's been times where we picked up the torch and and we carried it. But France certainly with the French Revolution and how that has impacted human rights throughout the globe has been remarkable. But we were there on Bastille Day, which is July 14th, and it was the most incredible firework show I've ever seen to have these in. And the fireworks were on little barges out in the lake. And it just the choreography that just the pageantry. I don't have the words of the vocab to describe it, but what a really cool experience that was. And I don't know if we'll ever have that experience again, but the stars aligned not just for the Tour de France, but for Bastille Day and for some of that celebration. So good stuff. I've taken way too much of your time today, both of you. And you have meetings and things to do. We haven't even gotten to Spain yet, but I'll just say we wrap things up in Barcelona. It was the first time that this particular study abroad program has gone to Spain. Spain has terrific health outcomes and it's just what an amazing place to go to see the sights and certainly to experience the beach. And what a great place to end our program. In the past, we've ended in Sweden, we've spent time in Austria. There have been programs where we went to Italy, programs where we spent more time in Switzerland. I just really love the itinerary. This year. I feel like the flow, a lot of that had to do with the lodging. Sometimes we're in hostels, sometimes we were in mountain resorts in the Netherlands. We were actually at one point we were in little Dutch homes in like a little community. I love the flow from large city to kind of medium size to smaller town as we went throughout, and I think the students really appreciated that they were able to recharge their batteries at different points along the way. Thoughts on study abroad, programs in general, lessons learned, all those things.
Dr. West :Yeah, I would add that, you know, Ben shared reasons why we would travel is to glimpse new possibilities. And maybe in my simple mind, I think of that as being we travel so we can be changed, so that we can change. And, and maybe the first year that we did this, we had this kind of overwhelming sense that and we had a student that had confided that her mother had passed away and left a little bit of money behind and that she wanted to use that money to experience something new that would essentially be life changing and that that would be one way to remember her mother's legacy. And I remember hearing that story and thinking we have a serious responsibility to make sure that this program delivers in a way that that would be beyond the typical experience if you stayed home in feeling like you need to come home a different person, you need to come home changed professionally, personally, spiritually, emotionally, academically, in some way. You need to come home a better person. And we oftentimes tell students that. I mean, they're going to do a lot of neat things in life, but we hope that an experience like this will be kind of on their Mount Rushmore, if you will, of neat life experiences. And so as I think about that as a as a as a co director, working with my friends and colleagues to to create an opportunity for students. That is going to be life changing. It is. It's a pretty heavy a pretty heavy responsibility. But I feel that the the infrastructure. The itinerary. I mean, all of this planning, everything goes into this. The end goal. The result is that students come home just changed a little bit better in some way. And I don't know if that's always achieved for every student, but I do honestly believe that students come home by and large, just a little bit better.
Dr. Hall :Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned the spiritual That's one thing. As a father who's had the opportunity to take all of my children at one point on the study abroad program, something I've really valued is to have them go to church in these different locations. We've been at a branch in France that has 6 to 8 members. My son blessed the sacrament in Italy. He blessed it and then passed it. That's, you know, I mean, that's that's a missionary type experience, right? If you serve in a small branch, we've been able to walk around the Swiss temple, the Baron Temple, been able to visit the Paris temple, been all these different. But to be able to to go to whether it's it's a military English speaking ward in the Netherlands or whether it's a large congregation in Barcelona to be able to be with the Saints and to feel of their strength and quite frankly, to see that some people worship around the world in converse tennis shoes and a blue T-shirt. And to see there's there's kids blessing the sacrament. They have long hair and they look a little different than they do maybe in Lehigh, Utah. But to feel of their strength and their testimonies, that has been an awesome experience for me, for my my family and my kids, but also to see the students have those experiences.
Dr. West :I as I think about the ways in which I've areas, I've benefited by being with my colleagues and friends, my family and students in a variety of locations where I've I've had very spiritual experiences. We've had family home evening, we've had devotionals in some of the most unique locations on the on the stairs leading up to an old cathedral in a in a field in Austria, in Salzburg. The farmer shut his tractor down for just a few minutes so we could sit out in the in this field and have a few moments to just visit. And when I've heard testimonies borne from my colleagues and I've heard students share really tender feelings, that strengthens me. And and so, you know, I think. These programs. Those experiences have strengthened me and I've come home a better person.
Dr. Hall :Well, I just want to say thank you. This was about three times as long as I had anticipated and kind of feels like study abroad, right? You're like, well, it's day 14. Are we done yet? No, no. We better have another protein shake or have a Fanta. Thanks so much. Thanks for joining the White House podcast. You guys have a great day.