Faculty Partner Spotlight: Dr. Sheryl Fontaine, California State University Fullerton

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AIFS Abroad’s faculty partners are the heart of our Customized Faculty-Led programs. Learning from them and with them makes us all stronger as educators and advocates. Our long-standing partner, Dr. Sheryl Fontaine from California State University, Fullerton, recently shared her personal history and insight on leading study abroad programs with AIFS Abroad.

What are your first formative experiences in study abroad and with AIFS Abroad?

My first connection was when I studied in Rouen, France during my own junior year in college, then later I led a three-week Paris Winter Session that was supported by AIFS Abroad. For two consecutive Januarys, I traveled to Paris with a group of CSUF undergrads, some of whom had never been on an airplane, most of whom had never been to Paris, and many of whom had never seen snow. While in Paris, students wrote creative non-fiction in my course, “Writing Through Paris.” The course integrated journal reflections and essay writing with class instruction, readings about Paris neighborhoods, and walking tours through those neighborhoods.

AIFS helped me to bring together those diverse pieces of my first course abroad. I should say that Sarah Plumley, my support team in Paris, made this happen. Sarah served as the student support professional (so helpful for the student who thought this was a month to go clubbing with French family and friends), cultural support (invaluable given my rusty knowledge of French and Parisian culture and history), and academic support (when the intellectual experiences outside the classroom that I wanted students to have were not the kinds found in the Frommer’s guide).

You recently crafted a course that could be taught in London for a semester. Why London as a destination? 

I was eager to recast the creative writing course I’d taught in Paris, this time as “Writing through London,” where we would use creative non-fiction about London—a diverse, rich, and complicated urban space—as a means for writing about and reflecting on cultural and ethnic identities, positioning themselves in relation to the ethnic and cultural diversities they bring from home and the one(s) students would explore in London.

The perspective provided by 10 years in university leadership and the anticipation of numerous global leadership changes, Spring ’24 was also the right time to design and pilot a course, “Leadership and Public Service.” This course invites students to explore leadership in the context of personal identity, emotional dynamics, organizational structures, local and national community and culture, gender, and emergent structures. Students reflect on how their own experiences and knowledge and their awareness of history and cultural context make a difference in their understanding of leadership and in their own leadership development.

Rethinking Study Abroad and Cultural Humility

Most of the literature I have found on study abroad programs and cultural humility is focused on courses in the health professions that take place in the global south or indigenous communities. Leading study abroad in London would challenge me to design a program that would promote students’ (and my own) self-exploration and self-critique in relation to and respect for the beliefs, customs, and values of our host city and country, both of which continue to face implications of a colonial past colliding with a culturally diverse present. Teaching in London would give me an opportunity to integrate these concepts into the pedagogy and assignments of my courses while respecting the various identities of students: Southern Californians who attend a public, HSI, ANNAPISI university.

What have you discovered in your role as faculty leader, following your own experience(s) abroad?

In retrospect, among the many things that I learned, one was the importance of the time I had taken during the fall semester in California to plan for the spring semester in London. I created curricula uniquely designed for study abroad; reflected again and again on the relationship between the readings, assignments, speakers, excursions, and London; and took a short reconnaissance trip to visit with the AIFS Abroad London team. At the time, I assumed that by being super prepared, everything would run without a hitch once the semester began. But it turns out that I was being super prepared for the reality of the hitches that would happen: speakers cancel, tube strikes threaten, excursions are too costly, and performance dates change. My weeks of preparation had armed me with a deep understanding of the gist of my courses and the connections I wanted to preserve between the class work and the city and people of London. And with that, I was able to have informed and helpful conversations with the AIFS Abroad academic coordinators, Sara Gray and Joe Videan, about extra-curricular additions and replacements. We adapted and adopted my courses with the benefit of their cultural knowledge and the clarity of intentions I’d established for my courses.

Can you share a particularly impactful experience while teaching abroad?

Sara Gray, AIFS Abroad Academic Coordinator, had arranged for my “Leadership and Public Service” class to visit Blessed Sacrament Primary School and meet with the head teacher and her assistant. In our AIFS Abroad classroom on the morning before the visit, I asked students to engage in grounded self-reflection. After discussing the chapters in our text on institutional leadership structures, students shared memories from their senior year in high school that had occurred during the COVID pandemic. What had their academic and personal experiences been? How had their teachers and school administrators responded in this moment of crisis? Later that afternoon, sitting in chairs slightly too small for their adult bodies and with notebooks open on their laps, the students listened in alarmed silence as the head teachers of Blessed Sacrament described what had happened to their school during and since COVID—declining enrollments and dramatic cultural changes in the neighborhood, severe budget cuts, efforts to balance teachers’ personal health and with that of the students, and, most significantly, the pending Council decision either to close the school or move it into a private trust. Rather than sitting in awkward, uninformed silence, the students answered our hosts’ questions and asked their own, their voices resonating with the reflections and memories they had shared with one another that morning in class. Very close to the end of the semester, we read the Council’s heartbreaking decision to close the school.

What are you most excited about as you continue this work?

Opportunity at Home

I am excited that our college Study Abroad Committee has started a mentoring program where faculty who have designed and led study abroad programs are available to mentor inexperienced but interested faculty. It is not surprising that many faculty who lead study abroad programs are either former study abroad students or practiced travelers, and often carried on lives of academic, financial, or cultural privilege. To successfully increase the cultural and ethnic diversity of the students who participate in study abroad and the locations to which we travel, we must increase the diversity of the faculty who lead the programs. A mentorship program like the one in HSS may make it safer, more comfortable, and easier for curious colleagues who don’t know how study abroad works, how to design a study abroad class, or what support is provided to the study abroad faculty and students.

Opportunity in London

Getting to this point in my understanding of study abroad has taken lots of conversation and lots of do-overs. By the time I returned home in May ‘24, I was just figuring it out. I am excited that in January 2026, I will have a chance to try again when I travel to London with another group of CSUF students and have another opportunity to teach “Writing Through London” and “Leadership and Public Service.” I hope that Sara and Joe have penciled into their schedules our Monday afternoon recap and replanning conversations, that Charlie and Nick are ready for my morning pop-ins to find out how the students are faring outside of class, and that Tracy, Kristy, and Sarah won’t be too bothered by my many emails with the subject line: “What do you think about this idea?” I am excited to return to London knowing that I will have the good fortune and pleasure of being a temporary member on a team of educators whose appreciation for the life changing benefits of study abroad is equal to—or perhaps even greater than—my own.

Dr. Fontaine spent 10 years serving as Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) at California State University, Fullerton before returning to faculty life as Professor of English. Within her field of research, Composition and Rhetoric, Dr. Fontaine teaches academic and creative writing, writing and tutoring pedagogy, and Writing Studies. She has also written about the nature of emerging disciplines, writing program and academic program administration, shared governance, and, most recently, reflections and recommendations drawn from having served as a college dean through the pandemic.