Afterword

It has been close to five years now since Gayle Woodruff and I ceased working together in the University’s Global Programs and Strategy Alliance (GPS Alliance). Gayle’s retirement in 2021, while not unpredicted, caught many of us in the field unaware. She fulfilled a role that was academically and professionally very public and very engaged, and also intensely personal. Plans and projects were already in place for more work — on ongoing projects and new ones — to build on her corpus of work from previous years, though rationally we understood that retirement was somewhere on the horizon. But even when she announced her retirement, we knew the work would continue, in large part because she had empowered so many “ones.”

Gayle’s commitment to the process of self-actualization through internationalization has made a lasting impression on the authors of the chapters in this book — and, by extension, thousands of students across the University of Minnesota. Several pieces in this book capture the many means by which Gayle influenced the what and the how of internationalization. But to summarize and provide some chronological context, after her critical work to integrate international awareness and experiences in the UMN curriculum, Gayle created the Internationalizing the Campus and Curriculum (ICC) unit in the GPS Alliance — with funding and a staff — right before my eyes, several years into my tenure as associate vice president and dean of international programs. She did it quietly and confidently. In a way, I found myself with no choice but to offer her the time and space to effectuate her dream.

Gayle went on to create the Mestenhauser Legacy Initiative, the ICC conference (which remains legendary), and the internationalizing teaching and learning cohort program, which permanently changed how faculty approach course and syllabus design. Individual chapters in this book provide a deeper, more personal look at the impact of her work. But when one looks at each of these initiatives in turn, then collectively as a legacy, it becomes clear that, rather like a magician or, even more accurately, an alchemist, Gayle transformed how we think of learning, and how we think about teaching and understand its power.

Alchemy was a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of base metals into gold, a universal cure for disease, and a means of indefinitely prolonging life. In its more current, metaphorical uses, writers invoke alchemy to describe an inexplicable or mysterious transmutation. As if through alchemy, Gayle has transformed our work as international educators.

At her retirement event, I coined a new word — “Gaylchemy”: the ability to take what we know and turn it into something new and different and even more meaningful. Gayle has been generous with this superpower, contributing to the field broadly, and was recognized for it in 2014 when she was awarded the Marita Houlihan Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field of International Education by NAFSA: Association of International Educators. The Marita Houlihan Award “recognizes an individual who has displayed imaginative activity, outstanding enterprise, and creative contributions to the field of international education through research, writing, or program development.”

As with her time and her knowledge, Gayle has always been generous with her transformative powers, working first to measure the impact of curriculum integration and sharing that information broadly and emphatically, and later advancing the idea that university curriculum could be integrated with international concepts and cross-cultural ideas to positively influence change here at home.

Simultaneously, and for many years,, Gayle shared the work of Dr. Joseph Mestenhauser and his deep commitment to intercultural communication, conspiring with him to gather and organize his archives prior to his passing, so that we might all benefit.

Her influence will be evident for years to come — perhaps as much and for as long as she will be missed.

In the videos curated by the Learning Abroad Center to tell the story of curriculum integration at UMN on the occasion of the 20th anniversary (https://umabroad.umn.edu/resources/curriculum-integration/20-years), Gayle shared her impression that curriculum integration spread successfully at this university because of the power of one — each individual who was involved and then influenced by that process went on to influence and involve others, and through that power of one, the philosophy was advanced and embraced.

Gayle’s recitation of that process in the video was delivered with a delight that seemed to suggest the formula was some kind of magic. I found it particularly interesting because Gayle not only managed all of her work with that concept clearly in mind, demonstrating her belief in the power of one in each of her endeavors, but did so as a very quiet, very stubborn, and very generous Powerful One herself.

She used her power, her “Gaylchemy,” to transform our space and challenge our perspectives, and ultimately to make us better people. Retired now myself, I am able to reflect on the many wonderful people with whom I had the opportunity to work, and for whom I had the distinct pleasure of serving. To me, the greatest use of power and authority (I use those words loosely, as university administrators have only nominal “power” or “authority”!) is to create a space for the creativity, the commitment, the courage of people like Gayle Woodruff.  Create a space, provide a budget, stir contemplation, and add a dash of hope — and then get out of the way. Early on, Gayle’s ideas were not always something that could be fully articulated, but her belief and her ever widening circle of faculty supporters gave me reason to trust, to support, and to marvel at what she created, and at the enduring quality of the resulting connections.