What's it like to travel the world? Exhibit seeks to inspire cultural exchange

CEDAR RAPIDS — From home-cooked meals to music and dance festivals to enchanting sunsets and sunrises, the collection of photographs paint a vivid tapestry of strangers making friends abroad and experiencing and connecting with the world through food, art, sports, dance and religion.

Area higher education officials gathered Friday to promote opportunities for Iowans to bring the state, and the Midwest, to the world.

Global Ties Iowa, which leads international exchange programs to bring people to Iowa, unveiled the traveling photo exhibit, “Impact of Exchange,” that will be on display until Sept. 10 at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in southwest Cedar Rapids.

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The open-air photography exhibit combines public art and storytelling to share the stories of 38 U.S. citizen exchange alumni from their time abroad. To kick off the exhibit, Global Ties held a round table Friday to discuss the importance of exchange programs.

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Representatives from the Cedar Rapids museum, U.S. Department of State, University of Iowa and Kirkwood Community College discussed ways to support and promote international education and collaboration in Iowa, highlighting the importance of networking, cultural exchange and language learning opportunities.

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They emphasized the value of providing international opportunities for young leaders to broaden their perspectives and develop leadership skills. Speakers also discussed the need to raise awareness about study abroad opportunities for high school students, particularly those from rural and low-income backgrounds.

Peyton Pangburn, a Fulbright English teaching assistant headed to Moldova this fall, said it was commonplace in high school to have an exchange student in class.

“And absolutely nobody knew how to go elsewhere,” Pangburn said. “Even as somebody who I'd say was a little bit more proactive in my own education than is maybe average, this still wasn't something that I was aware.”

The State Department offers several exchange programs for high school students that may be paid for, including scholarships and merit-based awards.

“To be able to go abroad on a lower dime as a high schooler would have been, like, unbelievable,” Pangburn said.

Amy Alice Chastain, executive director of Global Ties Iowa, said intercultural exchanges help break barriers and build bridges of understanding among people.

The community-based, member-driven nonprofit works to create, support and sustain citizen diplomacy initiatives in Eastern Iowa that further global knowledge, civic engagement, community inclusion, workforce development and international connections.

“For a lot of young people … they see it as an economic obstacle, a financial obstacle, when they don't know, again, that so many of these programs are supported by our State Department,” Chastain said.

She spent a year abroad in France as a university student, and said it was the least expensive of all her years of study due to receiving assistance from the French government to help pay her housing.

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Madelina Young-Smith, director of the Office of Alumni Affairs at the State Department, said educational and professional cultural exchanges foster sustained mutual understanding with other countries necessary to advancing U.S. foreign policy goals.

“Our programs, they're cultivating the people-to-people's ties … among current and future global leaders that build these enduring networks and personal relationships that promote U.S. national security interests,” Young-Smith said.

She said a goal of the State Department is to increase participation in cultural exchange programs from states like Iowa that historically are underrepresented.

“We hope that this exhibit showcases the power of exchanges that we all know so well, and we hope that these programs play a role in foreign policy,” Young-Smith said.

She said the federal government supports over 100 programs and more than 2.4 million exchanges, including 500,000 U.S. citizens.

“We hope that the impact of the exchange travel photo exhibit inspires the next generation of exchange program participants,” Young-Smith said. “And our hope is that U.S. citizens around the country … see themselves, right, as individuals who can benefit from people-to-people exchange, both personally and professionally … Those ties keep those bridges strong and remind the world of the American spirit, our values, our talents, our diversity, our entrepreneurial spirit.”

Peter Gerlach, executive director of the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council and professor of international studies at the UI, said such programs provide opportunities for participants to address major global challenges.

Just last year, Chastain said Global Ties brought individuals from 99 different countries and territories to Iowa.

“I was one of those people that dreamed from the time I was really young to go abroad,” Chastain said. “I've always been interested in learning languages and experiencing other cultures.”

But as the first student in her family to go to college, she didn’t know how to make that possible.

“My parents, to this day, don't have passports,” Chastain said. “I had no idea that any of these things that we see around us existed. I didn't know that I had access to these programs. I didn't know who to ask. And so that's for me what really drives our motivation to have this exhibit here in our community.”

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