Introduced to cross-cultural experience as an exchange student to Germany as a teen, Karen spent two years living and studying in Europe before graduating from college. An armchair traveler while raising her family and earning her doctorate, she returned to active global work at 50.  

Global Experience   

Since then, she's helped to lead 9 service learning trips to Cambodia, and garnered a variety of fellowships for short-term study tours or people-to-people work of various kinds in Japan, Russian, Indonesia, Thailand, and Nicaragua.  She's developed several history electives based on her travels (e.g., Women in a Global Context).  

Volunteer Work 

Karen served on the founding advisory board of the Khmer Magic Music Bus, dedicated to restoring Cambodia's rich musical heritage, one village at a time; this 501(C3) organization was born out of events on the 2012 service trip she helped lead. It is now a project of Cambodian Living Arts.

Since 2014, Karen has dedicated significant volunteer hours to Days for Girls, the US based international organization that has patented designs for reuseable, sustainable feminine hygiene kits that have been distributed to more than 1.5 million girls and women in 140+ countries. These kits help girls stay in school, and reduce both early marriage rates and sexual exploitation. Kits are always distributed by certified health educators who provide information about kit care, anatomy, the menstrual cycle, self defense, and how to avoid being trafficked. Days for Girls also supports women-owned businesses in the developing world to make these kits.

Cambodia  (10 trips, 2006 - 2015)

Her one solo trip and 9 trips with students, 3 weeks each time, involved broadening the definition of service to include relationship and the role of arts in healing a post-genocidal culture as well as more standard projects involving construction (housing, latrines, classrooms), infrastructure (water filters), and capacity building (providing sewing machines, arranging and funding ongoing health and nutrition education). Arn Chorn Pond, an internationally known human rights activist, musician, and child survivor of the Khmer Rouge, has served as primary guide and translator. 

Japan  (2005) 

After 18 months of study with the National Council for Teaching about Asia (NCTA/New England), Karen was awarded a spot on a 3 week study tour of Japan for teachers by the Freeman Foundation.  Focussed on tracking  150 years of Japanese-American relationship, the group visited Okinawa and Hokkaido as well as many spots on the main island, including Yokohama, Tokyo, Nikko, and Hiroshima.  The trip involved home stays, school and site visits of many kinds, and meetings with prominent scholars. Karen stayed on by herself in Kyoto at the end of the trip to soak up more of this world arts capital. This photograph of peace cranes comes from Okinawa. 

Russia (2008)

Karen won a Teacher Fellowship from Earthwatch to join a cultural anthropology research team.  Under the leadership of Russian scholars, the team spent ten days in rural Morachovo, near the Ukraine border, studying 'screaming' (a traditional form of a cappella women's singing from old times), witchcraft beliefs, and other folklore of the area. Here she charts some counted cross stitch designs while wearing a shirt she had woven, sewn, and hand embroidered using traditional patterns some years earlier.  It was her entry ticket into this close-knit community. 

Thailand (2009)

Karen spent two weeks working on an archaeological dig in Thailand, at a bronze age site, in an area that had been part of the Khmer (Cambodian) Empire in the 12th century. This was also an Earthwatch expedition.  She worked mostly on delicate dig projects like unearthing ancient hearths and pottery.  

Indonesia (2011) 

The US Dept. of Education selected Karen as an expert in student-centered pedagogies, and sent her to a madrasah outside Surabaya, Java, to support the efforts of an Indonesian teacher who had been trained in such methods in the US two years previously.   In two weeks, she taught 21 classes, led a day-long workshop for area teachers, and gave motivational speeches to students at five schools.  These are some of her students.  Following the teaching weeks, she gave herself five days in Bali to learn what she could of that culture, where the arts pervade everyday life for most citizens. 

NIcaragua (2013) 

Where There Be Dragons, a leader in cross-cultural educational practices, allowed Karen to join an Educators' Training group to a part of the world where she had never been. Though late in her career as a global educator, it was a good way to enter 'beginner's mind,' build empathy for students on their first international trips, and pick up best practices.   The cohort spent much of the 10 days in a remote Sandinista village.  Here she is getting a first lesson in milking.