IAC:
Hi everyone, this is the Icelandic Association of Chicago and today we’re talking with Professor Brack Hale from the University Center in West Fjords in Ísafjörður, which offers graduate degrees in oceanography and coastal development. We’re going to talk about two of their programs, coastal communities and regional development and coastal and marine management. We will speak in English, but following a personal goal of mine, we’re going to throw in a bit of Icelandic along the way.
Við erum Íslendingafélagið í Chicago og erum að tala við Brack Hale frá Háskólasetri Vestfjarða á Ísafirði sem býður upp á framhaldsnám í haffræði og strand þróun. Við ætlum að tala um tvær gráður á ensku en ég reyni að nota smá íslensku. Svo…. Og þú veist að leiðréttingar eru vel þegnar. Svo núna… mig langar að kynna ykkur Brack….
So, Brack, thank you for joining us today. I’d like you to introduce yourself and tell us more about yourself, the school, and more specifically the information session that you guys are having next week to talk about the coastal community and regional development program and the coastal marine management program. How can folks sign up to attend?
Brack:
I’ll start off with the final thing there, the information session. So, next week on Wednesday at five o’clock Icelandic time in the evening, we have an information session where I will speak as well as my colleague Matthias Kokorsch, who runs the coastal marine coastal communities and regional development program. We will be live to tell interested folks about our programs as well as to answer questions. You can sign up through a variety of means. There is a link on our homepage which is uw.is, and if you go to the events section, there is an event on March 20th for the session that will take you to the link you need to sign up on all of our social media sites. So, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, I think we’re even on TikTok. There should also be links to sign up.
IAC:
Excellent, thank you very much. So, yeah, I guess like, well, let’s start talking about these programs, if you can. I’m going to go through a series of questions that I’m kind of curious about myself. Okay. Starting with the programs, when your students graduate, what kind of problems are they going to solve in the world? Where do you think they’ll go? Hvers konar störf vinna nemendur þínir eftir útskrift?
Brack:
Góð spurning. We have students, so both of them are master’s programs. Both of them are more oriented towards students seeking professional experience and perhaps not going on to further study.That said, we have about 20% of our students that have gone on to PhD programs after they finish here.cSo, certainly, we try to prepare students for a wide variety of careers, including for their academic degrees.Most of our students go and work, or I would say over 50% of our students go and work in jobs in government agencies and nonprofits related to coastal marine management and community development.cWe have some students that have gone and started their own businesses.One most recently here in Ísafjörður, a student in the coastal communities and regional development program, which we lovingly refer to as CRD because it’s less of a mouthful. Started up a bike business here in Ísafjörður that is a big biker and established a race in the West Fjords that happens in July, usually. I don’t want to say it’s always in July. And then as well as runs a bike shop here.
So, the university center is located in the town of Ísafjörður that, which is a small town, 2,500 people in a remote region of Iceland. We’re about a six hour drive from the capital area, Reykjavik. And so, we don’t… We have limited services, although a lot more services than you would expect from a town of 2,500 in the US. And to have a bike shop was, as a biker myself, is certainly a welcome addition to our community. And it’s nice that one of our students, one of our alum, is someone who did that.
IAC:
For international students, that’s probably most of our audiences coming from the States, what specific admission requirements are there for international students? And is there something like a language proficiency that’s required for English and Icelandic?
Brack:
So, these two programs and the university center, for the most part, is in English. All of both master’s programs are taught in English. Certainly, knowledge of Icelandic is helpful. Certainly, there are a lot of documents that the classes might rely on that are available primarily in Icelandic. And Google Translate, it still does a better job these days, but it’s still not perfect. But because they’re in English, if you’re from the US and you did all of your education in English, we don’t need anything else.
People coming from the Scandinavian realm also no longer need to provide English certificate. Other people whose native language is not English do need to provide proof of what is in the common European framework, a C1 level of English, which is an advanced proficient level of English. We do accept TOEFL and IELTS, as well as several other certifications. Information on the scores you need, specifically on those tests, are available on our website.
And so, in terms of background students, we require that you have a bachelor’s degree, which in the US is the four-year standard bachelor’s degree. And we don’t have a specific field required. We certainly encourage students who have the Coastal Marine Management Program, since the program is more geared toward the natural sciences, having a bachelor’s degree in biology, ecology, environmental science, environmental studies, physical geography, oceanography.
Certainly those fields are helpful, but the program is also interdisciplinary, so we accept students who have bachelor’s in economics, in geography. And so, we are open to…
We don’t have a specific requirement for what your field of study was. We do want to see if you don’t have a bachelor’s degree related to the program directly, that you have some sort of life or professional experience, volunteer experience, internship that has developed an interest in coastal or marine ecosystems. And similarly, the CRD program, it tends to be very heavily rooted in the social sciences, things like sociology, geography. And so, having a similar background to what is taught in the course is helpful. But again, if you have a different degree, but have a good set of experiences that explains why you are interested in the program, we’re happy to consider you. And we’ve had some of our best students have been students from outside of those core disciplines of the programs.
IAC:
Excellent. So, okay, I want to imagine someone has applied there in, could you walk me through the first month or two there as a student, as someone that’s coming from the States or Canada or mainland Europe? What’s that experience like?
Brack:
So, first you’ll be tricked by the weather, because we often have nice weather in August, which is not, I mean, what, we have nice weather if you like winter for a lot of the year. But no, so arriving in Iceland, we, as I said, we are a remote region in Iceland, you can get here by either car or by plane. There is in the summertime, a way to get here by public bus. It is complicated and not the easiest route to get here.
And we had one student try that this year and had the Icelandic experience of where ended up, I think the student had brought a bike with them, and the bus was unable to handle a box bike. And so sort of got stranded halfway on the way to us. But as, you know, happens in Iceland, someone offered to give her a ride. And then she ran into someone who, you know, knows someone at the at the university center and offered to give her a ride the rest of the way. So, you know, she made it very Icelandic experience. But yeah, so yeah, certainly encourage people to either drive up or to fly up. So yeah, so they arrive.
We do offer, obviously, our programs are in English, and there’s no requirement to speak Icelandic. But for people who might be interested, we typically coordinate with the Icelandic courses that are offered at the university center, so that there is a course they call the crash course in Icelandic, that’s a week long, intensive Icelandic course is offered the week before we start orientation.
So we certainly encourage students to take that when they arrive here, we have a student orientation for several days, where we sort of try to give them the rundown both on everything about the university center they want to know and need to know, as well as what life is like here in either field or what life is like in Iceland to get them set for the coming months.
The first week of our academic year, we have a course called Icelandic environment and culture, I believe, and it is meant both to provide students with an introduction to the physical context, the nature context of where they are studying, as well as some insights into Icelandic culture, which certainly is a Western European culture, but has, you know, some very different, perhaps cultural practices than people coming from North America might be used to, as well as people coming from mainland Europe.
So just to give them a sense of where they are and, you know, how things work here. And then after that, the courses start and they jump in to the core courses for their respective programs.
IAC:
Now, what about cost financial aid? I know this can be a real sticking point and differences between North America and mainland Europe, but how does that fit Iceland? What is the rough cost for international students? Are scholarships or financial aid typically sought after? And just generally, is the cost of living in Iceland expensive?
Brack:
So Iceland is on the expensive side of things in general. We do not have tuition. So any students that are accepted here do not pay tuition. We do have an administrative fee that students pay every year. That is if you have a European passport or a passport from the European economic area, that is 150,000 kronor a year, which is roughly $1,200. If I remember the exchange rate well, if you are not from the EU or the EEA, it is twice that. So it’s $2,400 or $300,000 Icelandic kronor, which is, you know, is certainly cheaper than tuition at a lot of US universities. We do, I mean, certainly, obviously, you have to live in Iceland. And, you know, Iceland tends to be more expensive than a lot of places. And part of that depends on your lifestyle. Certainly, if you know, alcohol is expensive, red meat is expensive. So there are certain things that, you know, if you have a car, gas is expensive.
But I mean, I would say a lot of things are not that much more expensive. That said, I haven’t lived in the US in almost 20 years. So I haven’t paid that close attention to prices in the US when I’ve been back. And I did live in Switzerland prior to Iceland, so which is also not known for being a cheap country. For housing, certainly, that’s probably one of the biggest costs that students have. As of this past fall, we opened our own student housing.
So we do have two buildings of student housing that can hold 20 students each. The housing consists of small sort of studio apartments where students have their own bathroom. They have a kitchenette, a sleeping area, a living area. And then there is within the building, then larger sort of group kitchens, shared commons areas. If students and the students this year do a Friday night dinner, fish dinner every Friday. And so it sort of is a nice place to build community, yet have that year space where it’s not quite like an undergraduate dorm from what I remember. And they’re right on the water, so you have beautiful views out on the fjords. So it’s certainly probably one of the best views from a student housing I’ve ever seen in my experience.
And those are new. Those cost, if I remember correctly, roughly 130,000 kroner a month, all inclusive. So heating and water all included in that. Once you are registered as a resident in Ísafjörður that, which is a requirement of anyone living here, you are eligible to apply for a housing benefit from the city or from the municipality, which I think is about 400, not 400, 40,000 kroner. So it takes a nice hunk off of that rent. We also have students that live rent rooms or rent apartments here separately from the university. We do help students who are interested in not living in the student housing find those opportunities. And they can also apply for the housing benefit from the city.
And then obviously, food and entertainment and all of that really depends on what you want. We have a ski area in town, so you can get the annual ski pass if you’re a downhill or cross-country skier. It’s a really nice benefit to just be able to go a few minutes down the road and ski in the evening after class or ski in the weekend.
We have a movie theater. We have a couple of museums. We have restaurants and cafes. We have a microbrewery. So as I said, for a small town, we’ve got a lot going for us. And so depending on how much you want to get engaged in some of those things and how much money you want to spend will determine somewhat your budget.
IAC:
Wow. It sounds like a fun town. I kind of want to go. So great job. I mean, that kind of wraps up student life. But what about the legal and the visa aspects of it? For example, like what would an American, Canadian, mainland, obviously like you’re in the Schengen area, things are a little bit easier. What do you do if you’re outside of the Schengen / EU / economic zone?
Brack:
So you need to apply for a student visa.
And we encourage people outside of the Schengen area, the common European border, to apply as early as they can because that process can take a couple of months. And since students apply in spring and would start in the fall, they also need to be where a lot of Iceland is closed in July. So things slow down.
So we really encourage people from outside of Schengen to apply as early as possible so that they can apply for their visa. One nice thing about Iceland is that if your visa is in process, you’re still allowed to travel to the country. So if for some reason your visa hadn’t come through in August, you’re still allowed to come in on the tourist visa. And we generally have seen students get their visas pretty quickly if they were late in the game after they arrive. The one, and I do have to at least throw in the caution that if for some reason your visa hadn’t come through in 90 days, technically you need to leave the Schengen area. But that would be three months and we have not encountered that situation yet. And once you have that visa on hand, you register at the city as a resident.
And then that again offers the things like getting the housing, being able to apply for the housing benefit, being able to apply for a work permit.
So once you get a work permit on a student visa, you’re allowed to work up to 20 hours a week, I think about that.
And our students do work in a wide variety of jobs here.
I would say a lot of students have jobs, whether they’re working at a restaurant or a cafe, whether doing being tour guides, working at the ski area.
We have some students working with the local schools in their afterschool programs, working as ski and snowboard coaches. Lots of things that our students are doing around the area. And one of the other benefits once you become a resident of either further is since you are a live in a remote region in Iceland, you are allowed six domestic flights a year at a 40% discount. So that’s so if you want to fly to Reykjavik or need to fly to Reykjavik, it’s a lot cheaper.
IAC:
Okay. And I want to turn to some other concepts in accessibility. Yeah. So how does the university accommodate students with disabilities? For example, sign language interpreters, adaptive technologies in the classroom. How are those services handled and offered? Er Háskólasetur Vestfjarða með táknmálstúlka til dæmis?
Brack:
Nei við erum ekki með nemendafólk sem þarf táknmálstúlkur.
We are a small institution. We are the two master’s programs, which roughly have about 20 students a year. So we probably have in terms of our resident students, probably 60 to 70 students on site each year, and a staff of seven. We are accredited through the University of Akureyri in Northern Iceland.
And the University of Akureyri provides a lot of our services.
They I was looking on their website, because we haven’t had, at least in my time here, a need for providing those services.
Akureyri does list that they do provide services for both having sign language interpreter, if that’s how we would say that in English, as well as other support services for students with special needs. We do, I mean, the ones I’ve encountered so far are primarily related to learning differences.
So we do provide accommodations in the classrooms for those. And if we had a student with special needs, we would need to, you know, see how Akureyri could help us out more than likely, again, because you know, we’re a town of 2500, far away from any other town. If there’s not someone on site, often what happens here is that someone would be zoomed in from another part of Iceland that could, you know, in the case of someone needing a sign language interpreter, could provide that. And actually, we do have a student currently here who does have some hearing issues, doesn’t need a sign language interpreter. And I was just asking her about her experiences and whether or not she, you know, what she thought.
And she said that one that she could actually understand some she’s fluent in sign language, and she can understand some Icelandic sign language. So that was interesting to learn.
And she said she encountered other European languages that were not as easy, or didn’t have some similarities.
But yeah, that she said, you know, they would need to be aware that you know, you are in a remote area and some of the services you might have in a large city, even if we want to provide them are difficult to provide them.
So, you know, I think we would do our best to find the student help and support.
And yeah, so I think it’s there.
We just haven’t had that opportunity.
IAC:
Okay it’s always just a curiosity that I have.
And also to for, for students who might be a bit more along in their careers, say someone who’s in their 40s, you know, kind of approaching 50, a program like this, the, would you still have enough time to do an ROI on this investment of giving up say a year of your life, two years of your life to move to a foreign country and, you know, learn something completely new, if you’re looking at a career change. Have you had students who are?
Brack:
Every year, we welcome a variety of students, some of whom diverge from the conventional age bracket typically associated with pursuing a master’s degree. While there isn’t a set standard for what constitutes a traditional age for master’s students, our program accommodates individuals fresh out of their bachelor’s studies, as well as those in their 40s who have extensive professional experience and seek a career change or further academic advancement. These diverse cohorts bring valuable perspectives and enrich our learning environment. There’s a clear return on investment in participating in our program, as we prioritize active engagement and hands-on experiences. Situated on the coast amidst abundant marine environments and communities facing unique development challenges, our program offers unparalleled opportunities for exploration and growth. Despite weather constraints, we endeavor to expose our students to real-world scenarios through frequent field trips. This dynamic approach makes our program appealing to individuals of various age groups, providing them with experiences that are both enriching and distinctive. As someone deeply involved in our program, I may be biased, but I wholeheartedly endorse the transformative journey it offers to all participants.
IAC:
Awesome. And I kind of want to turn to your own background in research. So you wrote a couple of papers, not not that long ago, talking about educational travel programs and comparing and contrasting them against, say, the carbon output you know, someone going to travel or, you know, the I guess, like weighing the cultural benefits for the learner versus the impact on the indigenous populations there. Can you talk a bit about your paper from Franklin University when you were.
Brack:
So yeah.
So when the previous institution I was at, Franklin University, Switzerland is located in Switzerland.
And one of the unique aspects are somewhat unique aspects of their curriculum is they have this program called academic travel.
And so the students are required to take these academic travel courses in order to graduate.
And so every semester they take an academic travel course and then during a two week break, they go on the travel portion of the course.
As a faculty member there, I had to teach these courses every year.
And so that certainly got me very interested in sort of, you know, what is this interesting part of our curriculum and certainly part of that broader umbrella of educational travel, which might be the short term programs like the academic travel.
It could be a semester abroad, it could be a year abroad.
And just sort of, you know, within that context of universities have really been striving to be more sustainable and lower their environmental impacts and be aware of their social and cultural impacts.
In my experience in academia and in my colleagues experience, it was sort of happening in a vacuum.
Like we had this huge discourse about how can we be more sustainable?
How can we be better citizens of this world?
And oh, but let’s travel around the world and not think about, you know, what how those programs might have an impact.
And so there is a nice group out there at many universities that are that are thinking about this.
And it certainly became an important topic for me to research when I was at Franklin to help both understand and inform what we did, but also help contribute to the discussion in the broader academic community about these programs.
Because again, you know, does it really make sense to, you know, drag a group of students halfway a quarter way around the world to study if they’re destroying the world in the process of doing so?
Right.
IAC:
And you also had a 2019 paper that echoed many of the same concerns. And I’m thinking, like as a language gardener myself, part of the reason I’m learning the language is to eventually go to that country, travel, use that language, interact. And, you know, I got curious, so I fired up Copilot, which itself lets, you know, the energy consumption of artificial intelligence and generative AI. That’s another topic. But I got quoted as saying a passenger will burn 2.7 tons of carbon between Chicago and Reykjavik. How does one kind of, I guess, what I guess your findings from these papers, what were some of the takeaways that folks can do to offset the pollution in the air versus the good on the ground, I guess?
Brack:
Yeah.
And I mean, that’s, I mean, an excellent question.
And one of the, I think it is great when people start asking those questions, because that means they’re thinking about it.
I mean, so one of the discussions sort of in the literature was, again, should we be doing this?
Is there a benefit?
And what some of the studies have been showing is that there does appear to be a long-term change in participants’ behaviors after the fact that the act of going to a different country and experiencing a different culture and experiencing a different environment can really lead to changes in how people behave, whether that’s dietary changes, whether that’s, you know, environmental behaviors, whether that’s learning how to interact with people from different cultures and different backgrounds, and that those, particularly in well crafted programs that are asking students to reflect on that and teach them about that and engage them in that discussion, that that might in some ways be an offset, that they will leave more sustainable lives.
And so perhaps that initial cost of burning that carbon might be worth it in some sense.
Certainly there are also people that would argue against that saying, you know, those changes are going to come later on in the years and, you know, climate change is something we need to deal with now.
And so there are different ways to think about that.
But again, thinking about, you know, that travel is just one aspect of your life and thinking about, you know, what you do the other, you know, 50 weeks of the year is also important.
Getting involved in government and, you know, when you live in a democracy, making sure you’re getting your voice heard and supporting people that do want to make those changes.
You know, thinking about, you know, should I drive? Do I have to drive? What should my diet be like? And having conversations with friends and people you encounter. I mean, and so I mean, there’s probably no one easy solution. And I think a lot of people won’t just stop traveling. We saw some attempts at that with Greta Thunberg and sort of the flight shame that was really sort of a, you know, a pre pandemic trend.
And what I’ve seen in the news, at least, is that that that seems to have faded away in Europe to some extent that people are traveling more than before And so, you know, and, you know, can we invest in technology that allow us to travel in friendlier ways?And so I think there’s a lot of, you know, opportunities out there for people to, you know, try to engage in being change makers in the world.
IAC:
So. Okay, well, thank you very much. Everyone, this has been Brack. And this is Icelandic Association of Chicago. Thank you very much, Brack.
Brack:
Takk fyrir mig.
IAC:
Takk fyrir
Brack:
Thank you.