The Academy changed me, always for the better

I was lucky enough to participate the inaugural Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change in summer 2007, and little did I know at the time it would radically alter the future course of my life.

I hadn’t really even heard of it when Susan Moeller, the Academy’s co-founder and one of my professors at the University of Maryland, told me I should attend.  I submitted an application, was accepted, and as the program grew closer, I grew more and more excited.         
Students from around the world?  Check.  A 300-year-old palace in Salzburg?  Check.  Buffet-style breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention coffee and tea breaks throughout the day?  Check.  Access to the world-famous Salzburg Music Festival?  Check.  Six academic credits for three weeks of work?  Check.

And while all of these things look great on paper, they don’t even begin to capture everything that the Academy means, how it changes you forever, how it makes you look at the world through different eyes, and how it changed my life.

I considered myself fairly worldly, having grown up in a house where my father’s job allowed us to join him on international trips.  I thought I was cultured and educated.  Nothing shook that perception more than sitting in a room with 52 people from more than a dozen countries.

We didn’t dress the same.  We didn’t sound the same.  We didn’t have the same opinions or fears or questions.  We didn’t learn the same things in schools.  But, oddly enough, we all had iPods.

Fifty-two of us lived together in a palace for three weeks, more than four years ago. We called it “The Bubble.”  This magical, protected, sheltered place, where we could ask the earnest questions and debate stereotypes and expose – then try to remedy – our ignorance.  Every conversation was grounded in mutual respect for one another, really allowing us to probe deeply into our perceived notions about strangers and change our views.

We fought, we laughed, we cried, we ate, we drank, we played poker and some people even found a significant other.  (More on that later.)

I knew the moment the program ended that I wanted to come back.  I had made up my mind, and

I wasn’t quite sure how or when, but I knew I would be back in this magical place.
Two years later, immediately after I graduated, I did a 90-day internship in Salzburg over the summer of 2009.  I was involved in the third Academy, where another amazing group of students arrived from around the world.

Shortly after my internship ended, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to continue working with the Seminar on a related program, the Strengthening Independent Media Initiative.  This gave me the opportunity to attend the Academy in summer 2010, and again in 2011.  I feel incredibly privileged that I’ve been a part of four of the five Academies.

I’ve been able to watch it expand and grow.  From that first year, where everything was a little chaotic and uncertain, because of the newness of this idea.  It was the first time students from around the world had been brought together to examine global media.  

As the years have gone on, the program has become less chaotic, but even more fun.  The academic side has been highly developed by Susan, as well as Paul Mihailidis, the Academy’s director, and a professor of media literacy at Emerson College.  Under his direction, the Academy has become a groundbreaking program, and partners of the Academy just recently published the first textbook ever on Global Media Literacy.

A curriculum on global media literacy created by students over the past five Academies has been downloaded in more than 100 countries, and is used across all levels of education.  Last April, a study spearheaded by the Academy, “The World Unplugged,” gained worldwide attention on the effects of media withdrawal on students.  This study is still garnering interest and coverage. This past summer, students discussed the ramifications and potential future outcomes of the Arab Spring, while examining how media from around the world covered the events differently.  And there were more partner universities and countries represented than ever before.

The Academy now welcomes participants from more than 20 countries, including Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom and the United States.   

I owe more to the Academy than I can ever repay.  It gave me the opportunity to meet students from around the world, which means I always have a sofa to sleep on wherever I may end up in my travels.  It gave me the opportunity to live and work at a palace in Austria, and it is the most magical place I’ve ever been.  It defined my career, as I’ve spent the last two years working for international media development.  And this past summer, it introduced me to the man I love.  I’ll always be grateful to the Academy for that.

The Academy changed me, always for the better.  I know my experiences in Salzburg will continue to shape me for the rest of my life.