5 Questions with Sonja Lindberg
Sonja Lindberg recently joined the Grinnell College community as the assistant director of off-campus study (OCS). An avid world traveler, Sonja spent seven years teaching social studies and English at college preparatory international schools in Honduras, China, and Rwanda before completing her PhD in sociology at Iowa State University. Her passion for cultural exploration and education shines through in her new role, where she focuses on advising students, overseeing OCS events, and enhancing the off-campus study experience. Between settling in at Grinnell and continuing to pursue her many hobbies, Sonja kindly took time to answer a few questions about her life and her role at Grinnell.
Q: What was the path that brought you to Grinnell?
A: I grew up on a farm in a very rural county in southwest Minnesota. In my youth, I always loved learning about peoples and places from across the globe, both throughout history and the present, but as a first-generation student from a rural working-class background, I didn’t really know what kind of career could provide an opportunity to live abroad where I could learn first-hand. After high school, I earned a B.S. in social studies secondary education from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. During those years, many of my close friends were international students from South Asian countries, and those friendships stoked my desire to live and work abroad even further. I spent several years teaching abroad and returned to the U.S. in 2017 to begin graduate school at Iowa State University, which is how I ended up in Iowa. Between 2017–2023, I earned a master’s and PhD in rural sociology. My original plan was to be sociology professor, and I taught sociology at Central College as a lecturer during fall 2023. When I heard about this position here at Grinnell, I did some research, and it seemed like a perfect fit for me: I get to work with college students to find and attain global learning opportunities! My broad formal and informal background in education, sociology, and geography, as well as various lived experiences, all inform how I approach my job here at Grinnell. Grinnell’s values and goals align with my own, which makes this job very personally rewarding.
I now live here in Grinnell with my wife, whose family has been in the Grinnell area for generations, and our beloved old cat Josie. Most of my family is scattered around Minnesota or the Sioux Falls area.
Q: What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of work?
A: Traveling is high on the list. I think I’ve been to 38 countries now, including having lived in five. From a young age I was fascinated by learning about cultures, history, and geography, which is why I can be completely content just observing how people live their day-to-day lives in new locations; I don’t need to be constantly doing some kind of organized activity while I travel, or even have a clear plan for that matter. That might be what distinguishes me as a traveler rather than a typical tourist.
Since finishing up my PhD, I've gotten back into running regularly again and ran my first half marathon in late July. My next goal is to set a new personal best in the 10K. Another hobby I recently got back into is fishing.
I also love animals and especially small animals. My pet rats have been amazing companions during both my undergrad and graduate school years. I also adopted a hedgehog named Dill Pickles back in 2019. I adored that grumpy ball of spikes, but he sadly passed in 2021. Right now, my wife and I are cat moms to our old tabby Josie, but I foresee more rats joining our family sometime in the near future.
I love learning and experiencing all sorts of things, so if people know of anything interesting happening around campus or the greater Grinnell and Central Iowa area, please let me know! Feel free to email or drop by my office to chat or leave a message. I'm still trying to build connections and a sense of community, and I appreciate sharing knowledge and resources.
Q: What does your role at Grinnell entail?
A: As the assistant director of off-campus study, my job entails advising students about off-campus learning opportunities; planning related events; fostering awareness; creating informational and other resources; and administrative tasks. I am driven to help students make studying off campus an attainable and rewarding experience. Because I’m still new to this position, the study abroad field, and Grinnell College, I’m doing everything I can to try to understand the perceived and real barriers that may prevent a student from learning somewhere new for a semester. Admittedly, I hold a strong bias about the many benefits of learning that come along with living and learning among diverse cultures, and I believe that the majority of young adults can experience tremendous personal, intellectual, and academic growth from the right off-campus learning opportunity.
I love to chat with students about topics beyond off-campus study because I know how important advising and mentorship can be for finding and obtaining opportunities as a young adult (and throughout life, actually). Without caring mentors, I may not have ever gone to college, finished college, or found rewarding career paths. I hope to build relationships with students where they feel comfortable asking for my advice or thoughts on everything from careers to graduate school to traveling the globe to life in general.
Students and colleagues may find it interesting that my work experience is quite diverse and that I'm new to the study abroad field. As a grad student, my research focus was in the sociology of food and agriculture, specifically around agricultural biotechnology controversies and gene editing in crops, where I was an active researcher on an interdisciplinary USDA grant project. I co-authored five peer-reviewed articles and received the Buttel Award for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement from the Rural Sociological Society this July. In terms of college courses, I’ve taught Social Science Research Methods, Introduction to Women and Gender Studies, Principles of Sociology, and Social Problems. Hopefully there’ll be some opportunities for research or teaching again, perhaps related to my current role in international education,
Q: What can you tell us about your experiences teaching and traveling internationally?
A: I began my teaching career as a seventh grade geography and language arts teacher at Escuela Internacional Sampedrana in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Two years later, I headed to Shanghai, China, for another teaching position. During my four years in Shanghai, I taught seventh and eighth grade social studies courses and 12th grade IB English at international schools. After that, I taught high school social studies courses for three months in Kigali, Rwanda, while a teacher was on maternity leave. Coincidentally, that teacher was a Grinnell alum, and I hadn’t even heard of the town or college prior to meeting her!
During my teaching career abroad, the most rewarding part was being immersed in and learning about cultures and varied lived experiences, both in my work life at school and in my personal day-to-day life. I learned so much from my students and their families, colleagues, friends, neighbors, and locals, which I believe has helped me grow into a more compassionate, empathetic, humble, and considerate human being. Between teaching, coaching, advising, traveling, and living abroad, I was privileged to interact with individuals from more than 50 different countries.
Q: What place that you’ve traveled to is your favorite? And what place is still on your list to visit?
A: Where do I start? There are so many beautiful and interesting people and places across the globe. In terms of places I’ve already been to, both Guatemala and Thailand are places that I’ve visited multiple times and will hopefully visit more times in the future. I’d also love to visit China and Rwanda again as those places were once my homes, and the peoples, cultures, and local places are dear to me. The number of places I’d still like to visit is so long that I've never attempted to actually write them out. I guess that in the next five years, I’d like to see more of South America since I’ve only been to Colombia so far (which is another place that I love dearly!), as well as more countries in Africa and the Middle East.