Adding pinpoints to a growing map, Riley Bond of Albany has augmented her academic journey with multiple once-in-a-lifetime explorations of the larger world itself.

The 20-year-old outlined a multifaceted, if dizzying, checklist of class schedules and mind-expanding globetrots in a recent interview. How she's kept it straight is a testament to her organization.

First, her schooling. Thanks to the College Now credits she accrued at West Albany High School (she graduated in 2022), Bond entered Linn-Benton Community College as a sophomore. And although she described herself as "kind of undecided" when it comes to a specific field, she's doggedly borne the workload of multiple students.

Currently, she's pursuing a business degree, but she's also taken an abundance of pre-medical nursing courses and plans to minor in Spanish. Add to that a slate of Oregon State University classes (her parents, Rebecca and Jason, are both graduates), and her local learning time is well-accounted-for. Beyond those familiar, winding red-brick corridors and her own Willamette Valley, she has had adventures in Mexico and backpacked through Peru.

"I took some time off last winter term to travel," she said, "and I took off the past term for a certified nursing assistant course. I'm planning to return to Linn-Benton and OSU  winter and spring terms."

Of her scholastic sojourns, the one she's found most impactful, naturally, is the LBCC Study Abroad program, through which she's traversed Costa Rica and Prague (twice), the latter with the school's culinary students. So when an opportunity arose earlier this year to visit Tunisia in North Africa through Amideast Education Abroad Connect's Community, Activities, and Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) Program, as a student curious for new experiences, she leapt.

Beth Lyons, Administrative Assistant under Academic Progression Dean Katie Winder, and Meg Roland, Dean of business, education, and liberal arts, encouraged Study Abroad-ers to vie for the trip and even guided hopefuls through the application process, part of which required essays and responses to essay questions. In the end, Bond and fellow Study Abroad member and co-traveler Sarah Rose Larson were selected. (Larson did not respond to interview requests.)

"I didn't know much about Tunisia," Bond admitted, "and I think that alone was appealing. I didn't really know what to expect. What was most fascinating was how progressive Tunisia is as a country, which was unexpected due to general stereotyping of that area of the world. That was cool to see. And then the chance to go with an organization like Amideast sounded amazing."

That organization funded most of the trip, covering everything from transportation to accommodations at the Hotel Belvedere Fourati in Tunis to food vouchers for 15 community college students from around the country over eight days of panels and activities in June. Air travel from the United States to the Tunis-Carthage International Airport, however, was another story. The LBCC Foundation stepped in with two $1,500 scholarships apiece, both of which made the 36 total flight hours and multiple layovers worthwhile.

Upon arriving, Bond discovered a country in transition, roiling still from the 2011 Arab Spring, a fraught period of civil unrest meant to institute more progressive measures — including efforts in women's equality — across an historically dictatorial landscape, culminating in the ouster that year of authoritarian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after nearly a quarter-century in office. (There have since been setbacks, however. Elected in 2019, current leader Kais Saied has been accused of thwarting democratization, replacing the Tunisian Constitution of 2014 and dissolving the parliament in 2022.)

"We did cover that in some of the discussions, some of the laws that they're implementing," Bond said. "They talked a bit about how post-revolution political figures were influencing the younger generation. We had Amideast Tunisian peers there — locals who were also studying political science — and they could provide input because they'd obviously lived in the country during the revolution, so they could talk about the differences they've seen."

In that spirit, Amideast offered such informative panels as "Colonial History and the Effects of Post-Independence Neoliberal Policies," "Race, Colorism, and Indiginiety," "Labor and Migration," "Feminism, Gender, and LGBTQIA Communities," and "Intervention on Social Entrepreneurship and Civil Society in Tunisia," all of which featured related activities, like cleaning up the beach in the coastal city of La Marsa, edging the mythical Mediterranean Sea.

Bond's favorite session covered "Sustainability and Sustainable Foodways," a topic close to her own heart. "My mom was always on us to recycle and to compost as kids," she said. "Having that history of loving the environment, it was cool to see how Tunisia was implementing its own sustainable foodways."

One involved urban gardening, something she experienced firsthand in The Medina of Tunis, a large historical district in Tunisia's ancient capital city built around the Al-Zaytuna Mosque, established in the seventh or eighth century. The process involved removing hopelessly dilapidated structures, flattening the earth below, then filling the empty spaces between existing buildings with new, sustaining life.  "That was probably the most fascinating," Bond said.

Of course, that fascination fits the lure of world travel: exposure to exotic locales and customs, plus the camaraderie that develops between strangers in strange lands, and, ultimately, the realization everyone faces in foreign territories — that, boundaries and borders notwithstanding, we're all, at heart, very much the same.

"It definitely opened my eyes, to say the least," Bond said. "It was cool to see cultural similarities. You wouldn't expect there to be many because of the distance. But there are universal languages and cultures. Even though we're hundreds of thousands of miles apart, we're pretty similar, more so than we think. It makes me want to continue traveling, to continue seeing that among all cultures.

"The opportunity wouldn't have been there without CASE," she continued. "So I think that having programs like CASE is one of a few ways for students to get out and see those cultures, similarities, and differences, and expand their educations beyond the classroom. But, then, also, what we learned in the classroom impacted everything we did while we were there."