Caris Boegl, ‘18, writes from a hotel in Denver, Colorado,where she is completing two weeks of quarantine after having to hastily evacuate Jordan. 

From Jewell to Jordan

My time at William Jewell College ended in 2018 with a flurry of essays and comprehensive exams. I crossed the stage with a blurry sense of gratitude, exhaustion, relief and love for friends and faculty. The following autumn I began my MA in Arab Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. I took my seat at the orientation table alongside a former British government official, Naval officers, a journalist from Brazil, two Syrian refugees, anthropologists and a Cambridge graduate. Most of them were fluent in Arabic before entering our program. As I sat in daily Arabic classes and studied diplomacy, it occurred to me that I was the only student who had never been to the Middle East. I prayed for the opportunity. Three opportunities arose: a FLAS Fellowship which covered my Spring tuition, a Critical Language Scholarship to Oman, and a Boren National Security Fellowship to Jordan. 

Discussing these options with my advisors, I accepted all three. I postponed the second year of my Master’s degree in favor of a gap year. Last summer I hopped on a plane to the desert city of Ibri, Oman. I lived there for nine weeks immersed in Arabic. After a two week interlude in the United States, I moved to Jordan for 10 months. My language plan included Arabic coursework at a language institute in Amman. But this experience was more than linguistic. It was about exposure to culture and new people: tutoring refugees, chats with – or marriage proposals from – taxi drivers, going to the Friday market, hiking in Wadi Mujib, picnicking by the Jordan Valley, shivering in front of my heater in winter, tasting delicious foods, singing Arabic songs and harvesting olives.   

Evacuating Jordan

In mid-March everything came to a sudden halt. In my mildly traumatic evacuation, a series of coincidences occurred. I view them as miracles, but I’ll let you decide for yourself. 

For weeks in February and March, I felt a nagging and inexplicable urge to leave Jordan early, though COVID-19 had only affected one person in Jordan. My sense seemed irrational. Late one Thursday night, I decided to return to the States. Within the same hour, I received an urgent email from my fellowship: “Evacuate as soon as possible.” I started packing and cobbling together plans to say goodbye to friends. Some asked me a piercing question, “You will come back to us soon, won’t you?” My eyes welled with tears and I focused my attention on securing a safe travel plan. 

On Saturday, the situation intensified. The Jordanian government announced the closure of Amman’s only airport with two days’ notice. This sent me into crushingly intense hours of trying to find a flight amidst a surge in demand. Hour after hour passed with no success. Around midnight, one friend comforted me as I physically shook from stress. I felt dependent on others and God’s intervention. At 1:45 a.m.,, after six hours of searching and calling the embassy, I found a flight to D.C. through Abu Dhabi with a 16-hour layover.

The next morning, after minimal sleep, I vacated my apartment and rode to the airport. It felt surreal. How could I leave so suddenly? I refused to let my mind wander, saving my strength for my 30-hour trip. An airline clerk – realizing I spoke Arabic – pardoned my overweight suitcase, and I gave away two masks to fellow travelers. Oddly, my twin sister’s friend happened to be in Abu Dhabi at the same time as my layover. She booked me a hotel so I could rest for 16 hours outside of the crowded airport. Refreshed, I returned to board a 14-hour flight to Washington Dulles Airport. On the plane, an elderly Nepali couple encouraged me and shared their hand sanitizer. I alternated between sleep, food and music. A comforting thought washed over me: You’re going to be alright.

Before arriving to a major D.C. airport, I fastened my mask tighter in anticipation of five hour lines at customs. Multiple people had warned me about the health risks of transiting U.S. airports during the pandemic. However, I found Dulles empty. I walked along the corridors to my departure gate alone, wondering if I needed a mask. Security guards remarked to one another how odd it was that the airport was empty. On my third flight, I prayed for sleep. I had a row of seats to myself. I sprawled out, surrendering to the exhaustion of 30 hours of travel. After landing, a Jewell friend happened to be in Denver. She picked me up and drove me to a hotel. Unfortunately, I could not return to my family immediately due to health concerns. I had minimal savings because my fellowship had not released my final stipend. Worry overtook me. But, subsequently, my program offered to pay for my isolation-period hotel room for 13 nights. 

Quarantine Period

As I sit in isolation and write, it occurs to me that solitude is not terrible. It allows us to hear our souls. Perhaps my exit was a series of coincidences. To my eyes of faith, the events were the careful orchestration of a deliverer who lovingly foresaw, before I ever could have, the intense hours of my evacuation. Although I transited four international airports and likely came in contact with a thousand people, I have no symptoms for COVID-19. My evacuation was perfectly timed. Days after I left, Jordan imposed a military-enforced curfew. A siren sounded, and residents were instructed not to leave their homes under penalty of arrest. Over a thousand people were arrested under this policy. My mind often wanders to Jordan. Will its health infrastructure be able to support a country with many refugees? How will my friends who relied on daily wages eat? I do not have the answers for them or for myself. Because my program ended abruptly, I have no income nor preset plan for the next four months. But my confidence is in the one who brought me safely this far.

In closure, I will share a few encouragements in these hours of uncertainty. It is beautiful to receive others’ genuine offers to help. It is healthy to embrace humility. It is good to recognize the sovereign one both in moments of fragility and in comfort. As a recipient of extravagant generosity, I hope to give back as well. Please reach out if you need a word of encouragement or practical help. We are, after all, Jewell family.

The Faculty Award is a time-honored tradition at Jewell, given to one senior each year who best exemplifies the ideals of a liberal arts education.

Thirty-seven seniors had the required 3.75 GPA and were consequently eligible for the Award. Still, the application requires much more than good grades.

Dr. David McCune, assistant professor of mathematics and the 2018 Faculty Award Committee chair, outlined two main qualities the Committee looks for in applicants.

“First, academic excellence … Past recipients have done things like present their work at conferences, receive significant scholarships based on academic achievement, be a co-author on a publication, etc. Second, as part of the application process an applicant must write an essay stating what she thinks the selection criteria for the Award should be and how she fulfills those criteria. Since the Award goes to the senior who ‘most exemplifies the ideals of a liberal arts education,’ we are interested in seeing an applicant think through what that means,” McCune said.

The Award is extremely well-respected on campus, and each of the applicants kept this in mind when deciding to apply. The sacredness of the Award was a driving factor for finalist Seki Anderson, senior biochemistry and Applied Critical Thought & Inquiry major.

“I decided to apply for the award as soon as I found out I was eligible because Jewell takes this award seriously, and I like the mission behind the award. I learned about the Faculty Award and what it meant to be a Faculty Award finalist my second year of college,” Anderson said. “At previous Honors Convocations, I was awestruck hearing about all the versatile accomplishments the finalists had accumulated in just four years. I was (and still am) not sure if I was involved enough to have equivalent academic accomplishments, but I set myself the goal of reaching the GPA requirement to be eligible to apply for the Faculty Award.”

While Anderson anticipated the application since her sophomore year, Erin Melton, senior Oxbridge Literature & Theory major, didn’t foresee herself applying for the award.

“Honestly, when I first saw the email, I was almost certain I wouldn’t apply. I didn’t think I had any of the qualifications I needed other than the GPA. But when I read the application essay prompt, I realized it would be really fun for me to write on that topic. So I decided to apply to write a fun essay,” Melton said.

The application process for the Award is rigorous in order to discern the best recipient. After a thorough review of the paper applications, which include the applicants’ leadership positions, awards, service activities, career goals and essays, the Committee picks six to ten semifinalists. The semi-finalists must get two letters of recommendation and go through an interview process. After considering the letters of recommendation, paper applications and interviews holistically, the council picks five finalists and, later, one winner.

For Caris Boegl, senior Oxbridge Institutions & Policy and international relations major, the application process has given her a way to reflect on her journey at Jewell.

“Articulating to the award committee what changed in me as a result of my time at Jewell was enjoyable,” Boegl said. “It helped me remember all the ways I have grown intellectually and as a leader while here on the Hill.”

The interview process was nerve-wracking for the finalists. Anderson was intimidated by the six-professor board of interviewers and felt the questions that tested her thought process were the most difficult part. Aware of the intensity of the interview process, Grace Miller, senior psychology and Spanish major, entered the process intent on not letting her anxieties inhibit her.

“Right before I received the email that said I had made it onto the interview round, I had this calming thought of ‘I just need to try my best.’ What this meant for me was that no one else’s opinions, nor thinking about what someone would ‘want’ to hear was going to affect my answers or what I said during the interview,” Miller said.

After they received the email that informed them that they were finalists, most were shocked. Each finalist was honored to be chosen among other accomplished students. Jesse Lundervold, senior chemistry and studio art major, described the strangeness of being selected, since she has admired the Award and its significance since her first year at Jewell.

“It’s very surreal to know that I have been selected as a finalist. I still very much remember seeing the Faculty Award finalists on stage my freshmen year and hearing about the variety of achievements each of them had earned,” Lundervold said.

 “To know that I am now in that same place is very weird because it definitely does feel like I am a senior in college. Being a finalist has been one of my personal goals since I was a first-year at Jewell and I am so honored to be a finalist with four other outstanding women.”

All finalists are female, as Melton proudly pointed out.

“I think this is an important platform from which to note how rare it is that any group being thus celebrated is all, or even mostly, women, so, again, that is what I’m most excited about with regard to being part of this group,” Melton said.

The five women intend to pursue ambitious and diverse paths after their graduation from Jewell. Accepted as a City Year AmeriCorps member, Seki Anderson will be mentoring local primary or secondary students. Interested in working with refugees from the Middle East, Caris Boegl plans to attend a two-year program at Georgetown University, pursuing a degree in Arabic studies and with the aim of achieving fluency in Arabic. Jesse Lundervold, still unsure of which school she will attend, plans to attain a Ph.D. in chemistry. Erin Melton will be accepting an AmeriCorps position doing fundraising and marketing for Habitat for Humanity in La Crosse, Wisconsin, until 2019. Afterward, Melton will attend the London School of Economics and Political Science where she will study International Social and Public Policy. While Grace Miller has no concrete plans now, she wants to apply her interests in psychology and statistics to one of her passions – helping her community.

The winner of the Award will be announced April 20 during the Honors Convocation in Gano Chapel at 7 p.m.

Photos by Sofia Arthurs-Schoppe. Feature photo courtesy of William Jewell College.