Class of 2020
SAM BECKER
Hometown: Atlantic City, New Jersey Senior Thesis Title: “Beyond the Game: Indigenous Representation in International Sports”
My college hunt criteria: the traditional college athlete experience, with a bonus if it had a major football program. I was a year-round athlete who thrived on the rigorous schedule, and I wasn’t ready yet to be just a student, not an athlete. An LIU campus tour with the field hockey coach, where there was mention of the Global program, sent me in a totally different direction. I have never looked back. This school has placed me in so many locations and situations that a traditional college experience wouldn’t offer. The layout of the curriculum allows for the student to truly see where they have grown; being able to see where I started and where I am now is absolutely astonishing. Taking the traditional route through Global offered me experiences in 15 different countries, varying from having a village in Morocco celebrate my 20th birthday to swimming with sea turtles at the Great Barrier Reef. My IRIS (International Research and Internship Semester), spent on the Whanganui river in New Zealand, deepened my understanding of my connection to land while I studied indigenous representation in international sports. These four years have been filled with experiences that have shaped who I am and who I will be. We have had multiple opportunities to reflect together on these amazing experiences, but not nearly enough time for thank you’s, so I want to take this space to thank everyone that has gotten me here today! To my teachers: When I look back on these four years, I am filled with nothing but tremendous amounts of appreciation for you. I will take something from each and every one of you and implement it in my future classroom. I will challenge my students, as you challenged me, to look at every angle, to question the norm, to create their own 6 opinions, and do it all as second nature. You facilitated spaces for us to make connections that will lead us to amazing futures. You made us laugh when we needed it the most and always saw the best in us. Thank you so much. My classmates: My forever Global family, the bonds we created and the experiences we shared are so important to me. I have loved traveling with you, laughing with you, and dancing with you. I have learned from you just as much, if not more, than with you. Not having you all there at every step of the way will definitely be a change, but I am so excited to watch you all take your passions and soar. My family: Thank you for your unconditional love and support. I couldn’t have done this without you. I am here because of you, and I hope I am making you proud. Marcelle, thank you for being the best advisor around. I appreciate everything you have done for me in the last two years, and for always standing by my side ready, to advocate for any crazy idea we conjured up. A true legend. Ash, thanks for being the best supervisor. The amount of knowledge you have is astonishing and I’m so privileged that you wanted to share some of it with me. My time in Aotearoa was extraordinary and it is hopefully not over yet. My Global journey is over, but my journeys around the globe are just beginning.
Jessi Bland
Hometown: Modesto, California Senior Thesis Title: “Providing Equal Opportunities For All: The Empowerment and Support of Marginalized Women and Children Through Community Centers and Approaches”
Thinking of the past four years I have spent in LIU Global, I can’t help but smile and feel so much love. The family and friends I gained from LIU Global are ones that I feel so grateful to have crossed paths with. The endless memories and adventures I experienced are ones that I will hold onto forever. The impact that LIU Global has made on me is one that I truly call lifechanging. After attending a semester at CU Boulder, I decided to take some time off and try out LIU Global the following year. It was one of the best decisions in life that I have ever made. The incredibly inspiring and wonderful individuals and places I have spent the past four years surrounded by have taught me so much about life, the world, and myself. The people and experiences I have had fill me with so much love, and my heart smiles when I reflect on them. The past four years have been filled with endless challenges, breakthroughs, ups and downs, and there is no other space I would have rather spent them in. From Costa Rica and Panama, to traveling all around Europe, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Bali, and finishing up in New York, LIU Global has opened up endless doors and exciting pathways to pursue that I would not have otherwise. I have learned countless things over the last four years, and I keep surprising myself with my own adaptability. I feel so grateful for having this experience and I am so excited to see where we all decide to adventure next. I feel hopeful for the future knowing that there are 24 of us newly graduated LIU Global individuals entering into the world to spread our light and brilliance. I love you all so immensely! Thank you, LIU Global for growing my family by 23 and filling my life with love and knowledge. Here’s to the next adventure….n: Modesto, California Senior Thesis Title: “Providing Equal Opportunities For All: The Empowerment and Support of Marginalized Women and Children Through Community Centers and Approaches”
SEREINA BRENHOFER
Hometown: Mountain Top, Pennsylvania Senior Thesis Title: “How New York Women Cope with Pleasure Inequity”
I’m the best.
I nurture love. I stand in a room with a stranger, and feel us converge in the space between our beds. We put our hands in, count to three, go off to grow apart. We come back to each other every Sunday from anywhere and everywhere to share stories, who we’ve been in the in-between. I am trustworthy. We sit in the dark, at picnic tables and on soft sand, still warm. We whisper behind screen doors, taking turns listening covetously. We don’t look like this anywhere else, fervent and absorbed. We share syrupy wine and our sticky hands still smell like smoke, fumbling for a light. I delegate. When burdens get too much to bear on my own, I don’t wait alone anymore. We stand in the living room and no one says a word, no one tugs the frayed threads bursting at the seam of me. We brace ourselves, learn to laugh about it, tell it like a joke, and suddenly it’s weightless, made light by many hands. I am brave. I say no, I speak truth to self-proclaimed power and am held closer for it. We sit on park benches and tow each other home, tenderly holding our anger and our grief. We take turns carrying, fingers straining together and still happier for the added weight. I am resilient. I answer phone calls that paralyze me and stretch myself across the expanse, longing and mournful. We lie on top of each other in the middle of the floor and cry and worry and wait. We yearn, meeting again on the other side only to find ourselves together in the middle, solid and grounding in our yielding corporeality.
I am powerful. I fasten myself to the feeling of community. We strain to hear each other through the rush of water and the pounding in our ears. We overflow, bleeding into unfamiliar hearts, fondly conspiring. We envelop one another in grace, glowing and divine, and encourage growth beyond its secure embrace. I am loved. We lend our strengths and tend to our faults with attentive hands, gently coaxing new beginnings from within. We peer into the hereafter, and the distance between us feels like it could be nothing more than a breath. We gather this feeling close, keep it tucked away sweet and soft and safe in our memory. Nostalgia picks at its edges too soon, wistful and misty-eyed at the joy that blossoms here. I am the best because this Global family made me so. Because we are made up of experiences, and of the people we love. We get to become more and better and everything we are together, and I cherish this time you gave me. Three years is more than enough time to become, to pick up skills, but not nearly enough to get my fill of loving and being loved by you.
SOPHIA COX-WRIGHT
Hometown: Boulder, Colorado Senior Thesis Title: “Hauora Through Whakapapa: Indigenous Women’s Health and Wellbeing as Seen Through Māori Philosophical Concepts of Connection”
While reflecting on the past four years of the crazy whirlwind that makes up the LIU Global experience, there has been one element that has been steadfast throughout this chapter of my life, and that element is water. This journey began with the torrential yet beautiful rains of Costa Rica and ended with the seasonal and spring nurturing rains of New York City. However, some of my most favorite and most challenging moments were the ones I shared with my peers and professors around the other places that water tends to live. While in China, I remember spending late nights walking around the Hangzhou lake, pondering how small I felt in such a vast man-made landscape. I also remember the laughs I shared with my friends as we failed attempts to carry our huge plastic water jugs to and from classrooms because the tap water wasn’t super safe to drink. I remember the strength I felt when paddling on the Whanganui River in New Zealand for the first time, knowing that this river would carry me to entirely new understandings of how I see this world and my place in it. I also remember the lightness and freedom of splashing around in the beaches of Byron Bay, Australia, and the sense of renewal and calm that the waterfalls around Fiji brought me and my classmates. This journey has been beautiful and broken and messy, but it has been mine. And to the amazingly talented and tremendous class of 2020, I hope you feel this same sense of ownership over your own journey — no matter how ridiculous and incredible it has been for you. As for me, I know that because of LIU Global and the people that I have come to know as my global family, I will never be able to see the world in the same way again. Much less water. Stay hydrated and congratulations for making it through.
SEELEY DAVIDSON
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota Senior Thesis Title: “Extremism and Investigative Journalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina”
Everything led me here, and everything that followed showed me why.
