By Mary FitzSimons

In the tiny kitchen of a large villa in Differdange, Luxembourg, Jonathan Levy, diced mangos to add to a spinach walnut salad. Nearby, several of his geology students cut warm French bread, while another stirred the massive pot of chicken gumbo simmering on the stove. Quiet Cuban rhythms of Buena Vista Social Club drifted into the front hall where the guests were gathering.

The students nibbled cheese and grapes, occasionally sipping pinot grigio or cabernet sauvignon as they discussed travel plans for the weekend. Noah Levy, a 4-year-old bundle of energy, zipped through the crowd, sliding in his socks on the marble tiles and looked for someone to play with. Eight-year-old Devra Levy conversed with her father’s students, while her mother and several others set 60 place settings at two long tables in the dining room.

“People look at me in disbelief when I tell them we hosted a dinner party for 60 people,” he says. “But with that kitchen and the room in that house, we could do it and it was completely worth it.

During the academic years 2002-2003 and 2003-2004, Levy taught at the Miami University John E. Dolibois European Center (MUDEC) in Luxembourg. He lived with his wife and two children in a villa, taught Miami students in a chateau and on holidays, traveled with his family to Norway, Paris and Southern France.
Every semester, several Miami professors share similar experiences at the Luxembourg campus – some teach for one semester, some teach for a full year and others, like Levy, remain for two.

“Professors get lots of opportunities certainly to go places to do things for a semester,” Levy says. “But two years? To us, that was more than just a visit. You’re really transplanting your entire life, you’re really moving somewhere, and it seemed like an opportunity to really experience living in a different place.”
When the Levys arrived in Luxembourg, Devra was 5 years old and Noah was 2. For two years, Devra and Noah both attended the local elementary school, a five-minute walk away. The classes are taught entirely in Luxembourgish. Levy and his wife Carole Katz were concerned about the challenge their children might face their first year in the Differdange elementary school.

During the first year, Devra’s class of roughly 15 students consisted of one American (Devra), one Luxembourgian, and the rest Portuguese. (Nearly 40 percent of residents in Differdange are Portuguese immigrants who work in the nearby steel mills.). As a result, everyone received formal lessons in speaking and writing in Luxembourgish, which greatly benefited Devra, but on the playground, the majority spoke Portuguese. Her best friend became the Luxembourgian, who occasionally visited the villa to play.

“But everything changed for her the second year,” Levy says. “The class was a mix of Portuguese kids, kids from former Yugoslavia and Luxembourg children, so there was a mix of languages and therefore the common language was Luxembourgish and she was fine with Luxembourgish by that point.”

Noah, though more reluctant to learn the language, eventually spoke a bit at home too.

“There was a brief time when Devra and Noah were speaking Luxembourgish to each other so Carole and I wouldn’t know what they were saying,” Levy says. “And I liked that, I thought that was great.”

Ann Fuehrer, who is currently teaching a psychology class at MUDEC, says that like Devra, her 8-year-old daughter Kaili struggled at first last fall as the only American in her class.

“She is in a classe d’acceuil, a welcome class, which is designed to integrate immigrant children, mostly from Portugal, into the Luxembourg system by teaching them German and French and Luxembourgish in addition to math, geography and civic education,” Fuehrer says.

Since she began last August, Kaili has learned to communicate with her classmates, Fuehrer says. Last semester, several girls visited Kaili at the villa to play and explore the chateau.

For both families, with time the children settled into their new school. But despite the ultimate success of Devra and Noah settling into their schooling in a foreign country, Levy says that without his wife the entire move just wouldn’t have been possible.

Carole Katz, a freelance graphic artist, set aside much of her work to be a full-time mother. She also organized travel plans for the family, freeing Levy to focus on his class, one of the three base courses offered to students. Each base course worth four credits with an additional week-long field tour to enhance course material, which each base course professor organizes in addition to regular course lectures.

“I am just thankful that she happened to be in a position where she could step away to live for two years in Europe,” Levy says.

While the Levys were able to move the entire family to Luxembourg, other professors have had to leave spouses behind, which Levy thinks would understandably hinder some from applying to teach abroad.

When Don Daiker of the English department taught at MUDEC spring semester 2002, his wife remained in Oxford to continue practicing law in Hamilton.

“She’s an attorney, and if you’re in private practice and you go for a semester, your practice is gone,” Daiker says.

But Daiker says she was able to visit twice, each for two weeks. That February they met in Venice. And later that spring they rendezvoused in Paris for their 40th wedding anniversary.

While providing a change of scene from their personal lives in Oxford, the MUDEC program also offers a unique teaching experience for Miami professors.
Base course professors, like Levy and Fuehrer, organize a week-long field study tour each semester when professor and students travel to different European locales to enhance the subject material the class taught all semester.

In April 2004, Levy took his geology class into Germany, down the Rhine River, and into Switzerland. The class had spent the semester studying water and the environment, particularly focusing on the role of the Rhine in European development and the effect European development had on the Rhine.

On the first day of the week-long tour, Levy lectured from a ferry, floating down the Rhine to Koblenz, Germany. He says the experience of teaching and then actually seeing the river first hand is priceless.

“The whole thing provides the opportunity for a more intense, more rewarding teaching experience,” Levy says. “I wish we had the opportunity here to have week long study tours in every course. It just adds so much.”

This spring, Fuehrer will be taking her psychology class to Vienna, Salzburg and Munich to tour cities, visit museums and churches and experience more European culture.

Field study tours and everyday life in the villa and chateau also provided Levy, Fuehrer and others to get to know their students, which Levy says in hindsight, added to the benefits of his time spent in Luxembourg.

“I didn’t know that so few students had any kind of contact outside of their class with their professors. I just figured that I was the one who was just too busy, but that other professors did it,” Levy admits. “I learned what a difference getting to know the students can make. I learned more about the students as people and vice versa.”

Levy, now back in Oxford for almost a year, says that he and his family have been warmly welcomed back into the community and geology department, but he and his family hope to keep aspects of their time spent in Europe alive now that they’re back in the States.

“Every day here I go across the street and I grab a salad, a very big salad,” Levy says. “And I eat it here in front of the computer. Things are just more pressing here. But we’ve been making more of an effort to take longer dinners.”

Professors like Levy and Daiker, who are now back in Oxford, say their experiences in Luxembourg have influenced them for the better.

Daiker says he caught the “European bug” after his semester in Luxembourg. The last two summers, he taught in the English department’s six-week program Italy and the Renaissance headed by Mark Bernheim.

“That was a direct result of my being in Luxembourg,” Daiker said.

Read more of Mary FitzSimon's articles:

The Art of Teaching: Distinguished Professors Balance Publications and Pedagogy

Outside the Classroom