Lifetime in education leads to global gathering in Denver

In the late 1940s, with World War II in the past and the world increasingly opening two-way avenues for college students and educators, Ruth Purkaple joined a new organization promoting those educational exchanges.

That nonprofit, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, attracted 10,000 members to Denver for its annual conference, May 29-June 3. Purkaple, a lifetime member, was among them.

“It’s fun being here,” Purkaple said, “even if none of my contemporaries are.”

Purkaple is 105.

She retired from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1978. Her work there as director of Study Abroad was the culmination of a higher-education career that had taken the Denver native to posts at institutions across the country. Some of the exchange programs she established at CU-Boulder – such as one with England’s Lancaster University that dates back 45 years – still are thriving today.

“It’s what I breathed and lived,” Purkaple said of international education.

At the Colorado Convention Center, Purkaple briefly took in some of the sights and sounds of the conference’s International Education Expo Hall, where educators from more than 100 countries were on hand to reaffirm existing ties between institutions and foster new ones. Her nieces Nancy Hart and Barbara Sihombing escorted her, as did CU-Boulder’s Larry Bell, a modern counterpart of Purkaple’s, serving as executive director of international education and Global CU.

Bell recalled the last time NAFSA came to Denver, in 1999, when attendance was roughly half of this year’s event. “It continues to grow,” he said.

Purkaple, obviously, goes back further.

“I remember when we had about 200 members and thought that was terrific,” she said.

Like NAFSA, CU can proudly point to impressive growth in the ranks of international students at its campuses, which collectively counted enrollment of about 4,400 students from outside the U.S. in fall 2015.

“It’s changed dramatically in the size and scope of it,” Bell said. “At CU-Boulder, we have more than doubled the number of international students in five years, going from 1,200 in 2010 to 2,600 in 2015.” The number of Study Abroad participants has risen, too, up 30 percent.

CU-Boulder leads the state in international enrollment. CU Denver (1,463 students) and UCCS (282 students) also rank in Colorado’s top 10, at fourth and sixth respectively. The CU Anschutz Medical Campus adds another 70 international students to the CU system tally.

Purkaple’s visit included stops at the expo booths hosted by the University of Denver – her alma mater – and her former workplace, CU-Boulder. At that substantial display marked by multiple banners, all four campuses had sent representatives to engage with the world by meeting face-to-face with potential partners.

“Time marches on wonderfully,” Purkaple said. “It’s just great.”

CU’s presence at the NAFSA 2016 Conference and Expo reached far beyond its impressive station in the exhibition hall. All four campuses hosted tours for conference visitors. A series of Global Learning Colloquia included sessions at CU Denver, exploring topics such as STEM, business education and education for health professionals. A special session hosted by CU Denver explored “Inclusion and Impact: Collaboration Between U.S. Diversity and International Offices.”

During the i-Engage Talks, a rapid-fire series of eight-minute presentations a la TEDx, Erick Mueller, a senior instructor at CU-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business, donned his motorcycle vest before presenting to an audience in the expo hall. His monologue on his Tour de Happiness shared lessons from the time he rode a Harley-Davidson cross country to gather interviews for a study of what makes people happy.

Educators from across CU also presented at sessions held throughout the weeklong event at the Colorado Convention Center. One of them brought together CU-Boulder’s Karen Crouch, program coordinator of international student orientation, and CU Denver’s Saira Yasmin Hamidi, program coordinator in the Office of International Affairs, who demonstrated ways of using participatory theater to connect with international students during orientation. The session was chaired by Rebecca Brown Adelman, founding partner of Nederland’s Affinity Arts Consulting; she co-founded and co-directed the Interactive Theatre Project at CU-Boulder from 1999 to 2015.