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Central European Studies: Ramping up International Experience at Rose-Hulman
June 28, 2011
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Mike Kukral
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Every four years, the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
football team makes a summer trip to Europe, where they play a game
of American football against some European counterparts. Last time,
the team played in Rome. When it was decided that this year's
trip would take the team to Prague in the Czech Republic and
Vienna, Austria, Associate Professor of Geography Mike Kukral was
asked to help prepare the team for their visit.
Kukral was a natural choice, since he knows more than a little
bit about the region the players will be traveling. "I was a
Fulbright scholar and I lived in Prague for a year," Kukral
says. Indeed, he wasn't just there for any normal year,
either. In fact, Kukral lived in Prague during the fall of
1989 amongst the turmoil which would result in the Velvet
Revolution and fall of the country's communist government.
"I was asked to help prepare the team for this trip so they
could appreciate the places they're going," Kukral explains.
He used his historical and cultural knowledge of the area to create
a course within European Studies targeting Central Europe, which
team members could take for credit. The genius of Kukral's Central
Europe course is that it enabled football students to prepare for
the trip while fulfilling a humanities requirement. "This is the
first time we've had an accredited course to prepare for the
football trip," Kukral says.
The response to the course was overwhelming. Kukral's
class was filled to capacity at 32 students. "The football players
have been very enthusiastic," he comments. "I probably could have
had everybody," he says of the team members, had the classroom
space and time been available.
This is Rose-Hulman football's third trip to Europe. The
team traveled to London and Paris in 2002, and traveled to Rome,
Florence and Venice in Italy in the summer of 2007. A total of 85
people, including players, coaches, parents, and Kukral are
included in this year's tour. Kukral's course gave the players
context for the sights they saw during their European tour, before
they met the Austrian National American Football team in Vienna on
June 5th.
"We want to promote more international education at Rose-Hulman
and this is one of the ways to do it," Kukral says of the trip and
its corresponding class. "It's a great experience to educate
Rose-Hulman students about these cities."
The team, which departed on May 30, visited the Hradcany
Quarter, St. Vitus Cathedral and the River Vltava in the Old Town
Castle District of Prague, as well as Vienna's Schobrunn Palace,
before returning home on June 7.