Victoria Niu ’29 had never traveled outside the U.S. when she signed up for the Pomona College Global Gateways course, Experiential History: Movement Upon Movement in the Weimar Republic. Two weeks after spring semester finals, she and 13 other Pomona students found themselves in Berlin, attending classes on the artistic and political landscape of Germany in the 1920s by day and dancing salsa and swing in the city’s Monbijou Park by night.
Classmate Sonia Voloshinov ’29 quickly found that movement is a universal way to communicate.
“People would start talking to me in German, only to quickly realize I had no idea what they were saying, but somehow that never got in the way,” she says. “Dance is truly a language that anyone can speak.”
Global Gateways courses are faculty led, short-term study away opportunities designed to address major challenges through experiential learning. Diana Cummins, lecturer in dance, and Friederike von Schwerin-High, professor of German, cotaught the Berlin-based course with the goal of immersing students in what the professors describe as “powerful and often provocative imagery that captured the spirit” of the Weimar Republic era.
Exploring Movement Across Disciplines
By the time the 14 Pomona students wrapped up their time in the German capital, they had explored movement in a variety of disciplines and contexts, a hallmark of Global Gateways courses.
In addition to viewing performances and interacting with professional dancers, the class toured sites that explored the intersection of movement and history, including the stadium built for the 1936 Olympics and the city’s Jewish Museum.
At the museum, Voloshinov discovered that “the disorienting hallways and sharp angles were choreographing my movement and my emotions without me even realizing it at first.”
She says she’s “been thinking about that ever since!”
The class also choreographed an original dance and performed it as a “movement choir” in a public space. It was the capstone of a week learning how expressionist dance pioneer Rudolf Laban developed the art form during the Weimar Republic period, using non-professionals to bring the movement of dance into daily life.
Learning Through Experience
Using Berlin and smaller German cities such as Potsdam, Dessau and Wuppertal as living classrooms, students explored architecture, visual arts, history, silent film, literature, cabaret and performing arts throughout the country. The full-credit class was open to all majors and all levels of dance ability.
Students also absorbed history and culture by engaging with Berlin and its people.
“Germany keeps bits of history all over the city,” Niu discovered. A propaganda mural from the Cold War, a plaque on a parking lot built over Hitler’s bunker, a piece of the Berlin Wall—“They are not celebrated but stand as passive but powerful reminders of the past,” Niu says, “which I found extremely moving.”
Voloshinov came away from the class having learned to pay attention to how people move, which “tells you as much about a place as its texts do,” she says. “That’s a way of seeing I want to forever carry into both my art and the rest of my studies.”
Addressing Contemporary Challenges in the Mediterranean Region
While one group of Pomona students absorbed Berlin’s history, another 19 Sagehens were 400 miles away in Brussels, beginning a second Global Gateways summer course, Diplomacy and Human Rights in the Mediterranean.
First offered in 2024, this summer’s course was cotaught by politics Professors Mietek Boduszynski and Erica Dobbs. Students spent a week in Brussels—the administrative center of the European Union—going behind the scenes and dialoguing with leaders at major EU and international organizations such as the European Council, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Human Rights Watch.
They then flew to Morocco to engage with issues centered on human rights and democracy. The cohort learned about the country’s political economy and foreign policy in Tangier, Fez and Rabat. Students gained insight into challenges through in-depth conversations with people on the front lines of the issues in government and non-governmental organizations, journalism, business and education.
Seeing How Diplomacy Addresses Big Challenges
Boduszynski, a former U.S. diplomat, helped students understand that big policy challenges such as immigration and human rights do not have easy answers.
“They learned how to ask questions and how to deal with often unsatisfactory answers,” he says. “They engaged with uncomfortable realities and grappled with the tradeoffs and tensions elected officials and policymakers often face between human rights concerns and popular demands in the context of a democracy.”
It was a lesson that will stick with Rhea Sethi ’28.
“Nothing is one-sided,” she learned. “A seemingly innocuous policy move that benefits one part of the population can harm another.”
Discovering New Career Horizons
The Global Gateways experience helped Sethi envision different career possibilities.
“It gave me the opportunity to see humanitarian work, foreign service work, and politics in action,” she says. “It made me consider new pathways I hadn’t ever thought were available to me before.”
Talking with journalists and leaders of NGOs taught Pablo Garcia ’28 a lasting lesson.
“Some of the most significant contributions to global affairs come not only from governments,” he says, “but from individuals and civil society organizations working to create change.”