"Victoria Mikelonis, RIP"

Yesterday, I received word that my former professor from the U of M, Vickie Mikelonis, died as a result of her two-year battle with cancer. I've been scouring the web for obituaries, planning to link to one, but I've not yet found anything. I guess that means I'll have to write up a little bit for myself:

I got to know Vickie when I took an Intercultural Communication course from her in about 1996. She was a strong, extremely knowlegable professor, slightly scattered because she had so many interests and informative opinions on topics, but always student-centered. She pushed us to think beyond the classroom and beyond the theories we were learning, encouraged us to think of ourselves as research professionals instead of mere students, and then provided us with the tools and contacts in order to become those professionals.

Thanks to Vickie, I traveled twice to Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The first trip was to conduct a three-week, eight-country research project involving technology transfer in medical institutions, a project that had its origins in an assignment from Vickie's course. My colleage Doreen Starke-Meyerring and I interviewed about 40 doctors, medical professionals, and administrators about how they were using the computer equipment and access provided by the American International Health Alliance (AIHA). The resulting report is here: http://lrc.aiha.com/English/ProjectInfo/Eval-innov-Eng.pdf

The second trip was a direct result of the first, and I was invited by AIHA staff to conduct a 10-day "Train the Trainers" course in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Vickie helped me tremendously as I prepared curriculum. She prepped me for teaching folks who had experienced education under a communist educational system, folks who were used to following orders instead of innovating, folks who saw the world hierarchically instead of collaboratively (or "flat" as Thomas Friedman might say).

She encouraged me to borrow one of her exercises, and I did: she passed out bundles of Tinker Toys (I used K-nex) to groups of students and asked them to build the highest structure that they could build using the toys. The students typically work in their small groups to complete this task. After they finished, Vickie would explain the lesson: she hadn't told them to create *individual* structures; rather, they could have built an even taller structure if they would have pooled all of their toys instead of keeping only those they were given in their groups. Although some students would complain of a "bait-and-switch" feeling to the assignment, Vickie's point was that we come to a task with lots of previous experiences doing tasks. To truly innovate and move beyond what gets us stuck, we have to work with others in ways we haven't before. This exercise was especially important for people who had grown up in the Soviet Union and were now living in independent states.

I'll never forget the consternation I watched in the dimly lit, chalky-walled, Russian-language-filled room where my students worked with their structures. This lesson about innovation came up later in the role-plays they conducted (also scripted from ideas I got from Vickie), so I guess the students learned through their discomfort.

Thanks to Vickie, I had two unforgettable opportunities in an amazing part of the world at the end of the 20th century. She was an extraordinary teacher and human being, and she will be missed by so many of us. Good bye, Vickie.