Claudena Skran's professional career has brought her to over 35 countries on 6 continents. She has planned and led a range of group tours, bringing hundreds of students and other travellers abroad for meaningful travel. During her career as a college professor, Skran specialized in creating "travelling classrooms" for students and colleagues, taking groups to East Asia, West Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean. These valuable learning experiences grew out of a desire to share her knowledge about travel with others. While an undergraduate at Michigan State University, Skran studied international relations and interned at the US Embassy in New Zealand. Later, she earned a doctorate in international relations at Oxford University in the UK where she was also a Rhodes Scholar. In her academic career as an expert on refugees and forced migration, social entrepreneurship, and humanitarian assistance, Skran did extensive field research in West Africa, gave public lectures and conference presentations in North America, Europe, and West Africa, and founded KidsGive, a scholarship program for children in Sierra Leone. During her over 20-year career in international affairs, Skran has published op-eds in The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other print and on-line outlets; in addition, she has done media interviews with print, radio and television outlets, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Capitol Times (Madison, WI), Reforma (Mexico City), UPI, Jamba Africa (KCRL), The Todd Feinberg Show (Boston), Wisconsin Public Radio, and the local television affiliates of ABC, CBS, and Fox News services.  

Timothy X. Troy (playwright & stage director) is the Hurvis Professor of Theatre and Drama at Lawrence University. Professor Troy’s regular contribution to Lawrence’s Freshman Studies program was honored with the Freshman Studies Teaching Prize. Troy is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. As a director for plays, operas, musicals, and audio theatre Professor Troy devotes his role as a teacher to help students and audiences experience the stories that shape our lives. Troy’s playwrighting activities focus on how large social forces influence family relationships and our shared vision of the future. Professor Troy’s love for, and commitment to, travel began as 16-year-old Rotary Exchange Student and continued to his sponsorship of a study abroad program at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin for his theatre majors. While serving as visiting professor at Trinity College-Dublin, and as a visiting professor at Lawrence’s London Centre, Troy is committed to helping his students learn about themselves and their culture by exploring the similarities and differences in other cultures and contexts. Professor Troy and his actor and theatre-educator wife, Jacque Troy, anchor all their travel experiences in the exploration of the arts. They have experienced theatre (in all its forms), art museums, and music performances throughout East Asia, West Africa, and Europe. Professor Troy has been honored to join Professor Skran in several traveling classroom experiences where he has designed outreach experiences to explore shared culture bringing Shakespeare-related experiences to students in Jamaica and Sierra Leone. 

Production by Rubin Creative LLC