With the support of the Office of Global Engagement, I spent two weeks in Bogotá, Colombia, to attend the Latin American Studies Association conference in Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. As a scholar in international education, this was an ideal setting to share research results, meet relevant scholars, and strengthen partnerships with local allies.

At the conference, I organized the panel “Education and Professional Development of Rural Students and Teachers for Sustainable and Progressive Futures,” chaired by TC’s Dr. Regina Cortina and discussed by Dr. Óscar Saldarriaga. My TC colleagues Dr. Amanda Earl and Sara Pan joined me in a session that analyzed teacher and rural education in Mexico, Honduras, and Colombia.

We built bridges with Latin American scholars at the conference. For instance, Nancy Mena, director of education undergraduate programs at Universidad de los Andes, attended our panel. After the conference, we met to discuss opportunities to improve teacher formation in the region. Moreover, with the mediation of Dr. María José Bermeo, a TC alum who was also at LASA, we brought together a group of doctoral students from TC and Universidad de los Andes. This helped us to articulate our research agendas and set the foundations for future collaborations.

Lastly, I presented partial research results on Colombian rural teachers’ expectations to the Colombian NGO Escuela Nueva. This meeting was crucial to my Ph.D. as it opened a space for me to successfully propose implementing and evaluating a new teacher development program, which I attempted to complete for my dissertation.

TC has an extraordinary history of international impact. The center of that influence is the cooperative relationships it nourishes between scholars from diverse backgrounds and contexts. I recommend investing as much time as possible in hearing new voices and planting the seeds for future projects.