Tom Meyers

Experience

In the past decade I have been working with all of our study abroad (SST) programs in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America. I have had the privilege of working with faculty to develop nine new sites. Each new location presents the challenge of finding a local coordinator, housing for faculty, language teachers, host families and the list goes on. We are very pleased to offer programs in Cambodia, China, Morocco, Nicaragua, Peru, Senegal and Tanzania. It has been my great pleasure to work along-side partners around the globe to produce excellent programs in international education.

My research and writing have focused primarily on social change in the Old Order Amish communities of northern Indiana. I have been particularly interested in the strategies that the Amish have adapted to maintain a religious identity in a time of rapid change. For more than 40 years the shift from an agricultural base to an industrial base of employment has been occurring in the Nappanee area, and in Elkhart and Lagrange Counties in northern Indiana. Although some aspects of their material culture and community life have changed the Amish have managed to thrive in this transitional period. Although many predicted that industrialization would lead to their demise, their communities have grown tremendously in size and my research and others has demonstrated that there is little evidence that their way of life will disappear in the near future.

More recently, as director of international education, I have begun to examine the impact of study abroad on Goshen College students. I have been collecting data since 2004 on students who have studied in the following countries: Cambodia, China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Peru, Senegal, and Tanzani