COA's first Davis scholars arrived before I joined the faculty, so it is hard for me to picture COA without them. It's difficult to picture the dining hall without the multitude of languages being spoken around the room. It is also difficult to picture what my course in global politics would be like without the diversity of perspectives from around the world that Davis scholars bring. To put this comment a bit more in context...we have a rather unique curriculum at COA and the small size of the school allows us to create very special learning communities in each one of our classes. Because of the significant contribution that each student makes to the character of a class, without the international experience of Davis scholars a class in global politics or agriculture and biotechnology would have a very different flavor. The learning communities we collectively create in and in-between our classes provide all College of the Atlantic students-U.S. and international alike-with opportunities to share their life experiences in very profound ways. 

The sharing and learning goes in all directions. Last year in my course in global politics, I challenged a student from Namibia to take on the role of the Russian Federation in the term-long Security Council role-play, rather than her first choice, Ghana. She shared a position on the Security Council Permanent Five (Russia, U.S., U.K., China and France) with students from the U.S., India, and Costa Rica. A Kenyan student took on the role of Denmark and led the class in a discussion of the possibility of expanding the current ruling cabal of five permanent members toward a more democratic system of global governance. A principal goal for me as a teacher is that students leave my classes with a more complex, nuanced, and sophisticated understanding of the world. That challenge for me is the same with or without Davis scholars in the classroom, but their presence undoubtedly leaves me, at the end of  the term, with a more complex, nuanced, and sophisticated understanding of the world. - Doreen Stabinsky