1. Where in the world were you?

I was in Vienna for the spring term, but it was snowing today. This has been the coldest Viennese winter, a colleague informs me, in 130 years here.

2. What work were you doing there?

I was teaching foreign correspondence and intercultural interviewing to a class made up of students from the School of Journalism and Communication along with Austrian students from our partner school, the Forum Journalismus und Medien.

3. What does this work mean for your students, peers, the public and/or the university?

For journalists, learning techniques for reporting and interviewing across cultures and languages is critical in today's world of dissolving borders. Society relies on the Fourth Estate for survival and in order for us to do our work properly we must be borderless. In addition to my teaching duties here in Austria I was conducting research for my upcoming book on the global origins of foodstuffs labeled organic.

4. Tell our readers something they should do if they ever visit this locale.

Be careful about the chocolate, it's too good to pass up and you may overindulge. That goes for the beer, too. And the wine. Waltz. Embrace Klimt's "The Kiss." Ride your bike along the Danube (when it stops snowing!).

5. What was the most memorable experience on your trip?

My most memorable experiences this term in Vienna occurred watching our SOJC cohort develop as a mutually supportive newsroom, embracing each other professionally and incorporating into the team the Austrian students who are studying with us. Vienna is now a "zweite Heimat" for our Oregonians, a reality perhaps best summed up after reporting trips to Hungary and Slovakia when, upon their return to Austria, the students expressed relief being back in a country where the language they did not understand fully yet was at least one they recognized!

UO Abroad is a recurring feature in AroundtheO that spotlights UO professors, staff and GTFs whose work takes them overseas. If you or someone you know is traveling abroad, contact Communications Specialist Matt Cooper at mattc@uoregon.edu.