Alumni Profile: Alexandra Dingle
Alexandra “Alex” Dingle’s, A24, civic path began in Tisch College’s 1+4 Bridge Year Program in Pune, India in 2020 where she worked with Teach for India, volunteering as a teacher’s assistant in a low-income government school. She was inspired by this experience, and her time working in a refugee camp in Greece, to travel the world researching and understanding different educational systems and structures for students in displacement or in conflict areas. After receiving her degree in International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies with minors in Arabic and Child Study and Human Development this May, Alex is now a Volunteers in Asia (VIA) Global Community Fellow in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where she is a Program Progression Advisor working with students mostly from Myanmar at Parami University.
The 1+4 Bridge Year Program was not Alex’s first experience abroad. Growing up in New York City, she spent time with family in Greece, where she encountered the refugee crisis firsthand. As a member of the Voices of Tufts Diversity Experience, a program for high school seniors, she was introduced to Tisch College’s bridge year program, “I was inspired to apply for the 1+4 Program to try and immerse myself somewhere new to learn about issues in a different region of the world.”
The bridge year “made me realize how much I value education and the power of learning from students, especially [those] who are living in difficult contexts.” Alex spent the summer of 2020 working at a refugee camp in Greece, helping refugees adjust to their new circumstances. This experience sparked her academic focus: “I spent the next 4 years trying to better understand what I could do in Greece, what work could be done with refugees, and what systems exist globally [to support affected populations].”
At Tufts, Alex found a home at Tisch College. She was a Tisch Summer Fellow at the Welcome Project in Somerville, MA, working with immigrants, and she was active in both JumboVote as a campaign fellow, and the Middle East Research Group—part of Tisch College’s Initiative for Global Leadership—where she conducted research in Cyprus. The summer after her senior year, she was granted Project for Peace funding to create a summer program for Squash Dreamers, an NGO assisting refugee girls in Jordan that she worked closely with during her junior year abroad in Amman. In recognition of her civic leadership, Alex received a Presidential Award for Civic Life and was inducted into Honos Civicus, Tufts’ civic honors society, at graduation.
“Tisch [College] made a lot of sense for me as a hub on campus for getting involved with community. At the end of the day, I really care about people. That's what I'm most passionate about. Building and supporting communities around me and across the globe is the most important pillar of my life… I think that the work that students can do all over the world, whether it's at Tisch College or at Parami University, to make their communities a stronger place, is what we need.”
Alex’s experiences added to her understanding of and belief in transnational approaches to education. “I knew that I wanted, and I still want, to make Greece a more equitable and just place for refugees to live, and right now I'm doing different experiences to build that knowledge and have those formative lenses to engage wholeheartedly in my community that I care deeply about.”
A large part of this global civic engagement work involves understanding local customs and languages. Alex recommends that any student hoping to pursue this path, “study a language at Tufts to better communicate with people across the world.” Following her work in Greece, Alex was inspired to study Arabic, and she’s now learning Thai and planning on studying Burmese. “When my one Sudanese student [at Parami University] found out I spoke Arabic, he was very happy because he felt he could communicate more personally with me, and I felt a breakthrough in the language barrier.”
For the first time this fall, the Tufts Civic Semester program is also in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Alex has already connected with the cohort, giving them guidance as a first-year global program alum. It’s also allowed her to reflect on her time at Tufts: “My biggest piece of advice [to students] is to find something you're passionate about… Speak with people, share your curiosities, go to different events, listen to speakers, learn from them, engage with them, but also take time to learn from yourself, and to see where your heart is pulling you and what feels right for you.”