When Michigan State University junior Lucy Van Hof, a Religious Studies major and Peace and Justice Studies minor in the College of Arts and Letters, arrived in Monteverde, Costa Rica, in Spring 2026 as part of MSU’s Sustainability and Civic Engagement in Costa Rica program, she expected to learn about community engagement and sustainability. But her education abroad experience also gave her an opportunity to apply her academic training to help a local community navigate organizational change and envision its future.

In recognition of her work, Michigan State University’s Center for Global Learning and Innovation nominated Van Hof for the Award for Academic Achievement Abroad, a national award presented by The Forum on Education Abroad, for her research project, “Seeds of Change: John Paul Lederach’s Transformation Theory in Monteverde Quaker Friends Meeting.” Her nomination recognizes how she applied academic research to a real-world challenge while working alongside members of the Monteverde community.

The Award for Academic Achievement Abroad recognizes outstanding academic work completed by students during education abroad programs. Van Hof’s nomination was supported by Vincent Delgado, Senior Teaching Specialist in MSU’s School of Residential Community-Engaged Arts and Humanities and Founding Director of MSU’s Sustainability and Civic Engagement in Costa Rica program. Delgado mentored Van Hof throughout the research project.

For Van Hof, however, the significance of the project extends beyond the award nomination. Her experience reinforced the importance of listening, humility, and understanding different perspectives when working with communities.

Learning Through Humility and Engagement

For three months, Van Hof immersed herself in Monteverde through MSU’s Sustainability and Civic Engagement in Costa Rica program, combining coursework, Spanish language learning, and hands-on engagement with local communities.

Through community participatory action research, she learned to understand communities through their strengths, needs, and perspectives. Working with community partners ranging from a girls’ advancement program to a coffee farm, Van Hof discovered that meaningful community engagement begins with humility.

“Humility is obligatory with this kind of participatory work, as everyone and everything’s perspective begins with different lived experiences and understandings of the world.”

Lucy Van Hof

“Humility is obligatory with this kind of participatory work,” Van Hof wrote in her student statement, “as everyone and everything’s perspective begins with different lived experiences and understandings of the world.” 

That lesson shaped her final project with the Monteverde Quaker Friends Meeting, a community whose history dates to Quaker families who settled in Costa Rica in the 1950s.

Facing an aging membership and changing community needs, the organization was navigating questions about its structure and future. Van Hof approached these challenges not as problems to be solved, but as opportunities for transformation.

Drawing on peacebuilding scholar John Paul Lederach’s conflict transformation framework, she used oral histories, conversations, and participatory research methods to explore how the community could build on its history, relationships, and values to envision its future.

Finding the ‘Seeds of Change’

The title of Van Hof’s project, “Seeds of Change,” reflects the approach she took.

In her research, she compares organizational transformation to a “super bloom,” when favorable environmental conditions allow new growth to emerge. Change, she argues, does not necessarily happen through one dramatic decision. It can develop gradually from conditions that evolve over time.

This perspective allowed Van Hof to examine the community’s challenges alongside its long history of innovation.

Rather than positioning organizational change as a departure from the community’s identity, she explored how new structures could help sustain the values that have defined the Monteverde Friends for decades: simplicity, integrity, peace, community, and equality.

Van Hof shared her research findings with the Meeting’s Administration Committee and general membership through workshops designed to help members better understand the organizational challenges and consider possibilities for the future.

For Van Hof, the process reinforced an important lesson: Even when people speak the same language, meaningful communication can be difficult.

“I thought going into my work with the Quakers would be simple as they are English-speaking,” she wrote. “But I found even in my native tongue, communities still fundamentally struggle with communication.”

That realization became an important part of her research as she began to recognize how communication, relationships, history, and fear can influence organizational change.

From Global Learning to Community Impact

The impact of Van Hof’s project extended beyond her research paper.

According to Delgado, the Monteverde Friends began making significant organizational changes following Van Hof’s work.

Within four months of her departure, the community hired a new school director focused on organizational capacity and strategic management, engaged a fund developer to expand support for its work around peace and the environment, and developed a general coordinator position to streamline administrative responsibilities.

“Lucy is the highest example of facilitative leadership and research practice that I have ever seen in two decades leading education abroad programs.”

Vincent Delgado

Delgado, who has mentored more than 100 community participatory research and evaluation projects through education abroad programs, was particularly struck by Van Hof’s ability to bring together academic research, listening, and reflection.

“Lucy is the highest example of facilitative leadership and research practice that I have ever seen in two decades leading education abroad programs,” Delgado wrote in his recommendation for the Forum on Education Abroad award.

Carrying the Lessons Home

Van Hof entered the education abroad program hoping to explore how community building and understanding could translate into a future career. She left with a deeper understanding of what it means to work with communities.

Her experience taught her that professional skills such as communication, leadership, and organizational development are closely connected to understanding people’s lived experiences and perspectives.

“Reframing your own perspective is essential as a part of any community,” Van Hof wrote. “I hope to take away from my conversations and interviews, and even moments from silent worship with the Quakers, that intentionality and empathy do apply to a professional career.”

“I hope to take away from my conversations and interviews, and even moments from silent worship with the Quakers, that intentionality and empathy do apply to a professional career.”

Lucy Van Hof

For Van Hof, the experience demonstrates how education abroad can extend beyond classroom learning to create opportunities for meaningful community engagement and real-world impact.

In Monteverde, Van Hof did more than study a community from the outside. She became part of the conversation about its future — listening to generations of community members, applying academic frameworks to a real-world challenge, and helping create space for people to imagine what comes next.

The seeds of change were already there. Through her research and community engagement, Van Hof helped the community recognize those possibilities and begin exploring how they could grow.

By Luna Lu and originally published by International Studies and Programs