NMU and Finnish School Exchange Students, Faculty and Knowledge

Northern Michigan University and the Haaga Polytechnic Institute, located in Helsinki, Finland, are more connected than most schools that are half a world away from each other. In addition to NMU business students traveling to Helsinki last summer with Irvin Zaenglein (College of Business) as part of a learning abroad course, NMU and Haaga Polytechnic are also doing a faculty exchange. 

Sandy Poindexter (College of Business, right) will teach at Haaga during the winter semester, and Tuula Ryhanen (College of Business) has traveled here from Helsinki to teach for the fall semester.

According to Gary Brunswick (College of Business), this exchange became official in May of 2004, but the idea for it has been several years in the making. 

“For 10 years, we’ve been in contact with Antti Loukola, who is now the dean at Haaga Polytechnic," he said. "The idea of having our schools interact has always appealed to us, and now we have made that a reality.”  

Poindexter will teach a full load during her stay in Finland. “I will be teaching three courses and guest lecturing in others for specific topics. As I am involved in computer information systems, I will be teaching in their information management program,” she said. “I have long been interested in cultural enrichment and comparing and contrasting our academic settings to those of other nations. Previously, I've worked with the EU-US Exchange Program and have traveled extensively. I believe these experiences permit me to see other approaches to problems and understand world events in a very different light.” 

Poindexter hopes that during the course of her teaching she will be able to provide a view of the United States, its academic styles and its technology.

Ryhanen has similar goals for her classes: “I want to tell how the things are somewhere else. Most of my stories come from Finland and Scandinavia but some of them come from other European countries too. I feel that it is important that the students here start to consider the possibilities of life outside of the U.S.” 

She has traveled to the United States before, but only for a two-month stay.  This opportunity, she said, will be her first time working abroad, and she hopes to learn more about U.S. customs as well as improve her language skills.

“This university is very big, but I’ve been able to find the essentials: my office, classrooms, the bookstore, places to eat and Starbucks, of course,” she said.  “The campus is like a huge company with its buildings, and everything is so well organized.  It is said that Finland is one of the leading countries in Internet use, but when I see the students here carrying and using their laptops, I think you’ve got us beat.”