Six Fairhaven students awarded the Adventure Learning Grant, a $25,000 stipend to study abroad
Field Note
Every Western story looks different,
opening doors to new experiences
that shape student lives.
You can be part of a student's story.
Six Fairhaven students awarded the Adventure Learning Grant, a $25,000 stipend to study abroad
June 8, 2026
by Allie Spikes
WWU Communications
Originally published in news.wwu.edu
Hannah Fischer, ’25-’26 ALG recipient contributed unbisqued plates, created with local children in Jatiwangi, Indonesia, for an event with real estate investors and curators of Jatiwangi Art Factory. Photo courtesy of Fischer.
This year, six students from Western’s Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies were awarded the David T. Mason Adventure Learning Grant, a $25,000 stipend designed to enrich their education through travel abroad, with a focus on the intellectual risk, challenge, discomfort and adventure that come with that experience.
The applicants each proposed a project that features extended experiences with cultures outside of the United States and a plan to integrate those experiences into their studies at Fairhaven. The grant recipients will each spend 10 months abroad working on their projects beginning this fall.
This year’s recipients, who will travel all over the globe working on a variety of projects are:
- Syd Carver, “Practicing Alternatives to Extractivism,” Boliva and Peru.
- Rowan Casselman, “Eco-ableism and Land Conservation,” Ecuador, Panama and Uruguay.
- Theo Davis, “Learning Beyond the West: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of Alternative Education in East Asia,” Japan and South Korea.
- Mae Eifert, “Listening Across Borders: Women’s Lived Experiences of Maternal Health,” Ecuador and Peru.
- Sky Grumbles, “Understanding and Building Community Resilience Through Food Sovereignty,” Columbia and Chile.
- Georgia Marere, “Indigenous Culture and Sovereignty in Oceania: Preservation and Revitalization in Relation to French Colonialism,” French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Vanuatu.
Peter Pihos, dean of Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies, said that the student experiences supported by the Adventure Learning Grant are an asset to the whole Fairhaven community, not just to the student who studies abroad.
“The Adventure Learning Grant reflects Fairhaven College’s commitment to transformative, inquiry-based learning. It provides students with an unmatched opportunity to use the world as their classroom,” Pihos said. “ALG recipients respectfully engage cultures distinctive from their own, collaborate with community partners on meaningful work and develop skills for life-long learning outside of a classroom setting. Their experiences benefit the whole Fairhaven community, as they introduce new perspectives, ideas, and skills to the rest of us during their remaining time at the College.”
Mae Eifert, a second-year student from Wenatchee, said the Adventure Learning Grant is an important opportunity for her.
“It’s allowing me to go places and do things I would never have otherwise been able to go and do!” Eifert said. “In the past year, I’ve narrowed and refined my studies to ‘Reproductive Well-being as Public Health’ with an emphasis on birth and maternity health. I will spend all 10 months in Peru and Ecuador, countries I chose based on their Indigenous and non-Western practices in the areas of birth and maternal health.”
The Adventure Learning Grant is competitive and requires students to understand the importance of learning respectfully from the people and cultures they visit. Other selection criteria for student proposals include the project’s creativity and ingenuity, the likelihood the project will challenge the student’s perspectives and expose them to cultures that are different from those with which they are intimately familiar, and more.
During their time abroad, students must commit to participating in a program of regular communication with Fairhaven College so that other students can learn about and share in their experiences.
Andes regions of Bolivia and Peru. I hope this will provide insight into what alternatives are possible to dominating global power structures and mindsets based in exploitation of land and people,” Carver said.
The Adventure Learning Grant is designed to help students embrace challenge and adventure as integral to a Fairhaven College education. Past recipients of the grant have traveled to Turkey, Spain, Morocco, Mexico, Bolivia, Singapore, Portugal, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and elsewhere.
Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman, assistant professor at Fairhaven College, directed the grant program this year and noted that past student projects demonstrate impressive range.
“In recent years, one student surfed in Ghana to work through and remember the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” Sniderman said. “Another journeyed to the small Turkish city from which his Armenian ancestors were ethnically cleansed a century before. Another cast unbisqued plates, designed by children, for a tenuous dinner meeting between the curators of Jatiwangi Art Factory and visiting real estate hegemons in Indonesia. Another co-started a kayaking school for Indigenous youth on the Napo River in Ecuador where learning how to move on the river provides essential sites from which to witness and record illegal violations of their traditional land and water by mining companies.”
Adventure Learning Grant Eligibility
Applicants must be current students, enrolled in a least their second quarter at Fairhaven. They must have filed their concentration or declared their major prior to departure. They must commit to living internationally for at least 10 months consecutively and to returning to Fairhaven as a full-time student for three quarters (excluding summer) following the 10-month period of the grant. Learn more about the Adventure Learning Grant.
Learn more about Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies.
Gifts to Western support scholarships, research, supplies, and programs that transform student lives.
A little can do a lot.
Fairhaven student and Adventure Learning Grant recipient Mae Eifert will travel to Ecuador and Peru for 10 months to study maternal health. Photo courtesy of Eiftert.
Fairhaven student and Adventure Learning Grant recipient Rowan Casselman will travel to Ecuador, Panama and Uruguay for 10 months to study ableism and extractivism. Photo courtesy of Casselman.
Field Note
Hands-on experiences outside
the classroom are part of what makes
the Western experience special.
Programs like this are funded
by gifts from people like you.