CWU welcomes students and faculty from Plymouth University

While the United States and the United Kingdom may share certain cultural similarities, the college experience can differ wildly between the two countries.

In order to leverage this disparity to broaden students’ horizons, a group of geography students from Plymouth University in the UK visited CWU this spring.

The April 24-28 visit was coordinated by Dr. Jon Shaw, a professor of geography at Plymouth. He said the experience was an excellent way for his students to hone their skills in new surroundings.

“It’s a really great opportunity for students to put in practice in the field some of the skills they’ve learned in the classroom,” he said. “They also get to do this in an unfamiliar environment, which tests their adaptability and gives them the chance to learn about issues we don’t encounter in the UK. It was very moving, for example, for everyone to learn about pressing Native American issues from members of the Yakama Nation.”

This is the fifth year that Plymouth has sent a group of geography students to CWU, in partnership with CWU’s own geography department. In previous years, Ellensburg has only been a one-day leg on an extended road trip down the West Coast, but this year, the group got to spend five full days immersed in the CWU community.

Plymouth student Oscar Khan said the excursion gave him fresh perspective on the varied and vivid cultural landscape of the Pacific Northwest.

“My key takeaways from the visit are how rich cultures can be across just one state, such as the perception of West Coasters versus those in the rest of the state, as well as the difference in landscape across the Cascades being rather noticeable,” he said. “Ultimately, geography is such a diverse subject that really ties the world together and is really useful for looking at human and physical landscapes.”

While in Ellensburg, students had the opportunity to research the city as an American college town, explore natural resource management issues in the Teanaway Community Forest, look at patterned ground at Manastash Ridge and the recovery of landscapes from wildfire, and interview CWU students about their experiences at an American university.

Shaw has been involved in the partnership since the very beginning, working closely with CWU Professor of Geography John Bowen to coordinate and iterate upon the trip each year it has been held. He believes the reason the group keeps coming back to CWU is a combination of location and culture.

“The thing that keeps us coming back is the friendliness and professionalism of faculty and students, the spectacular local environment, and the city of Ellensburg,” Shaw said. “One of our students commented that downtown ‘looked like a movie set.’ What she meant was it was the kind of Western town she was very used to from TV and film, and she was excited to see that such places exist in real life.”

Shaw also noted the stunning landscapes of the Northwest as a driving force behind keeping the CWU-Plymouth partnership going.

“The Pacific Northwest is such a wonderful area to explore because there are so many different climatic zones, and the physical geography is something else,” he said. “Most of our students have never seen one volcano before, let alone four within 150 miles of each other!”

Bowen looks forward to seeing the collaboration evolve in future years, and hopes to send students to the UK, too.

“In the future, I hope to be able to bring CWU students to Plymouth to explore England as our visitors have explored the Pacific Northwest,” he said. “Until then, we hope the Ellensburg wind will continue to give us an advantage playing football, or soccer, on the Dean Hall lawn with our fellow geographers from across the Atlantic.”

CWU women's soccer team member and environmental geography senior Maggie McBroom concurred, noting how the sport served as a bridge between the two cultures.

"It was so much fun to play soccer with people from a different part of the world," she said. "It's such a universal thing and can always people together."