WILL KARR
Life & Arts Editor
College is about more than just going to class — it’s about the transformative experiences that take place outside of the four-walled classroom. Study abroad programs give students the opportunity to immerse themselves in new cultural environments and languages.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the SUNY system were mandated to temporarily halt their study abroad offerings. This year, a new factor has been preventing some Fredonia students from coordinating study abroad experiences.
Instead of declaring a minor or taking a foreign language course at Fredonia, a student can choose to study abroad. Since many students have not been able to figure out how to coordinate an experience, they have been forced to declare minors and fulfill foreign language credit requirements at the last minute in order to still graduate on time.
In recent months, there has been confusion about Fredonia’s study abroad opportunities due to personnel changes and departmental restructuring.
We spoke with multiple students to gain insight into the issue, who expressed concerns to us regarding whether study abroad is currently taking place at Fredonia.
The first message we received was from an underclassmen, who has chosen to remain anonymous due to the controversial nature of the situation. We will refer to the individual as Student X.
At the end of the Spring 2022 semester, Student X first reached out to SUNY Fredonia’s International Education Department (IED) inquiring about studying abroad in Spring 2023.
After struggling to get in contact with the department through their general email (internationaleducation@fredonia.edu), they reached out to Erin Willis, SUNY Fredonia’s former study abroad coordinator. Willis officially resigned from her position at the end of the Spring 2022 semester, after taking a personal leave from December 2021 to May 2022.
Many students were not informed of Willis’s departure. And since Willis’s resignation last spring, SUNY Fredonia has not hired a new study abroad program coordinator.
Willis’s email suggested that Student X should reach out to the department’s general email. Hours later, Student X sent a message to the general email. However, they didn’t receive a response until approximately a month later on July 9. The response came from the email of Jacob Czelusta, Fredonia’s assistant director of international student services.
Czelusta said he was out of the office at the time on parental leave. However, he sent Student X a follow-up email days later, on July 15, encouraging them to reach out again at the beginning of the Fall 2022 semester. He revealed that the International Education Department office was undergoing a slew of staffing transitions and was in the process of looking for a new study abroad coordinator.
With both Willis and Czelusta out of the office, Student X said that she did not know who to directly turn from IED for help anymore over the summer. She had no direct line of contact, only a general email to turn to.
Erin Mosher, a junior journalism major, also said that she had difficulty contacting the study abroad office over the summer. She had first met with Willis to discuss studying abroad back in the Fall of 2021.
“Over the summer, I had been trying to email the office, and I hadn’t heard anything. I made sure that all of my emails were being sent from my personal email and school email, and still, I heard nothing,” Mosher said. “… The email address [for study abroad] says international education. There is no name of a person; it’s just the office. So it’s not like I could ask a [specific] person [directly] at the time [for] … help.”
As a result of not knowing who to contact, both Mosher and Student X waited until the Fall 2022 semester to reach out again. Student X received a response from Czelusta on Sept. 2, which said “I’ve been directed to inform any students looking for study abroad information to email their inquiries to: internationaleducation@fredonia.edu. A Fredonia staff member that is responsible for study abroad programs will then respond to that inquiry as soon as possible.”
After hearing from Czelusta, Student X sent an email to the IED and received a response on Sept. 7, explaining that they would be in touch shortly. She received another email about a week later, on Sept. 16, explaining that her plans to study abroad through Fredonia would not come to fruition.
“Sept. 16 is when I got the email that said, ‘We still do not have a study abroad program coordinator and we are unfortunately unable to offer study abroad in the Spring of 2023. May I ask if you were working with Erin Willis? And was the plan to study abroad through Fredonia or another SUNY school? Thanks, Kim [Miller],’” said Student X.
From this email, Student X concluded that there would be no way for her to study abroad in Spring 2023 and earn course credits directly through Fredonia. Currently, many students and staff members are under the impression that no study abroad experiences will occur in Spring 2022 whatsoever.
The Leader reached out to the International Education Department’s general email asking for clarity and answers. We received a response directly from Erin Mroczka’s email, who revealed that “there are [semester-long] study abroad experiences happening now and in Spring of 2023.” Mroczka is the interim associate vice president of retention and academic success.
In addition to IED, we also reached out to Naomi Baldwin, President Stephen Kolison’s chief of staff and executive assistant, who declined to comment and recommended that we instead speak with Mroczka. Baldwin previously served as the director of the International Education Office until the end of last spring when she joined Kolison’s office staff.
We sat down with Mroczka last week to gain insight into the issue. Mroczka explained that over the summer, the International Education Department’s Office in Thompson Hall was consolidated into the Office of Academic Affairs in Maytum. The old office space is now being occupied by the Information Technology Services Department (IT). Mroczka explained how the merge came about as a result of a series of staff departures from the IED from the Spring to Summer of 2022.
After Willis and Baldwin left in the spring, Czelusta came over from the Office of Multicultural Support Services to IED to help with study abroad and access to the email was switched over to him.
“[However], this is the time where things got a little bit messy,” Mroczka said. “Czelusta had a personal leave during the summer, so that essentially left my office [to take over] and we had just brought on someone new [Kim Miller from Intercultural] this June … so we had [another] transition in who had access to the website and email. I think that’s where a lot of the hiccups definitely happened.”
Due to the changes of who had email access, Mroczka predicts that many students interested in study abroad might not have received any responses from the office for a certain period of time over the summer. However, Kim Miller (kim.miller@fredonia.edu), an Academic Affairs administrative assistant, now manages the IEDs general email and responds to student inquiries on a regular basis.
“If you can’t tell here, we have had a kind of perfect storm of change … there have been a variety of hand-offs unfortunately. When that happens, things don’t go as smoothly as we would like them to for certain. So we are now trying to rectify that,” said Mroczka. “… I can’t go back and change things now. But we’re trying to make sure that those students who were in the process are in place, while providing new opportunities for students to be advised.”
One way that Mroczka said that the office is currently working to rectify things is by raising awareness to the study abroad programs that are currently available to students and by overall communicating information more efficiently to students.
“I noticed with our influx of emails expressing interest in what’s open and available to students now that there has been some miscommunication when we send an email. I think there may have been a little bit of confusion when we say Fredonia’s study abroad programs aren’t open versus all [SUNY] study abroad programs aren’t open,” Mroczka said. “… We are learning that language is very powerful, so I can see how something that we type doesn’t always translate to someone correctly on the other side. … We’re looking to now make sure that we are really clear in that articulation piece.”
Although semester-long study abroad experiences through Fredonia as of now are not currently being offered now or in Spring 2023, they are being offered through other SUNY schools that SUNY Fredonia students can partake in.
However, Fredonia is offering faculty-led programs during J-term and Summer 2023, which are only offered to Fredonia students and require them to have taken a specific class in a given area of study.
Many students are wondering why semester-long study abroad experiences are not being offered through Fredonia, as Fredonia currently has semester-long partnerships with colleges like the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy and the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia.
“[When Fredonia offers a study abroad experience], we are the lead partner with that university and work with other [SUNY] exchange offices to help any SUNY student apply to that program,” Mroczka said. “That means we need to advise the student, do a pre-orientation and collect all their documents, whether they are a Fredonia student or any other SUNY student.”
Mroczka provides two reasons why study abroad is not currently being offered through Fredonia. The first reason she provided is that there are currently not enough staff members in the department to help maintain the partnerships.
In addition, many of the existing staff members are new and are still learning the ropes of coordinating studying abroad. But, Mroczka said that there are currently initiatives in the works to potentially reinstate studying abroad through Fredonia in the future.
“There are a lot of great partnerships. But, we just need to rebuild our department staff to support and maintain all the great partnerships out there. There is currently a proposal to the provost to review some of that,” Mroczka said. “… I think in the next few weeks, we will move that plan forward and be able to announce that to everyone.”
The second reason is that when Fredonia offers study abroad, they are required by SUNY to offer and advertise the experiences to all SUNY students, not just Fredonia students. Mroczka said that this requirement can potentially reduce the amount of time Fredonia’s office spends helping Fredonia students. Mroczka said that the office wants to prioritize helping Fredonia students first, especially with a reduced number of staff members.
Although Fredonia is not offering study abroad, they are facilitating it through other SUNY schools. Across the SUNY system, there are over a total of 600 semester long study abroad experiences for a student to choose from.
“Any SUNY student can access another SUNY college’s experience,” Mroczka said. “Each of the universities has partnerships with other international universities that they advertise and have access to for students. At Fredonia, we are continuing to help students navigate study abroad experiences with our SUNY partners. Many of their offices are still at full capacity … and they are not as new in helping students with this.”
Even when a student applies to another SUNY school to study abroad, Mroczka said that she and the office still work with them hands on through the entire application and coordination process.
“As the home school, I am still working with Fredonia students through the process, and I am … making sure your course approvals take place, … helping you decide what courses you will be taking and who you need to get them signed off by,” Mroczka said. “So we’re supporting students through that whole process, but we’re right now just [not] spending that time on other SUNY students.”
Mroczka said that applications to study abroad in the J-term or spring are typically due between Oct. 1 and Oct. 15 in order for students to have time to meet visa application requirements and other deadlines. However, she said that now is the perfect time for students to start meeting with her to talk about considering and planning to study abroad in the Summer or Fall of 2023.
If students are interested in studying abroad, they can reach out to Mroczka directly at erin.mroczka@fredonia.edu, or international.education@fredonia.edu to set up a time to chat with her about study abroad at her office in Maytum.
Mroczka is also hosting pop-up advising at the Information Office Desk in the Williams Center outside of the Blue Devil Lounge on Tuesdays from 4 to 5:30 p.m., where students can talk to her about studying abroad at a more central campus location.
“As someone who feels that retention is one of the most important things on our campus, I want there to be highly impactful applied learning experiences,” Mroczka said. “… With study abroad, I am learning something new everyday, and we are really trying to connect with SUNY and our partners to make sure that we are still providing these opportunities. But, that doesn’t mean mistakes won’t happen. What it means is that we learn from those mistakes and try to make sure they’re not detrimental to a student’s academic or personal goals.”