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Marlon Brown (SPA/BA ’06) at the Parliament Building in Ottawa, Canada
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Citizens of North America
MARLON BROWN (SPA/BA ’06)
AFTER CONSIDERING TRADITIONAL study abroad locations in Western Europe, MARLON BROWN (SPA/BA ’06) selected AU Abroad’s program at Carleton University in Ottawa. Having grown up in Michigan, near the U.S.-Canadian border, he was eager to learn more about our northern neighbor. He lived with Canadians in his dorm and studied with them in classes. Brown reported that he never even crossed paths with another U.S. student during his stay.
His fall 2004 semester in Canada’s capital led to enrolling in AU’s “North America: A Union, A Community, or Just Three Countries?” course. It was a “challenging class that opened my mind to so many North American topics I had never considered,” noted Brown. He became the first AU undergraduate to earn a minor in North American Studies. While at AU, Brown also participated in the “Triumvirate,” a simulated parliament organized by the Montreal-based North American Forum on Integration. Students from the three countries convened in Ottawa in May 2005. Representing lawmakers from a nation other than their own, they debated timely policy questions in the five-day exercise, which Brown described as “a hallmark of my undergraduate experience.”
Brown is beginning a master’s of public administration program this fall and hopes to enter local politics in Michigan down the road. In a place where people cross the national border daily and the local economies are closely intertwined, Brown knows the benefits of remaining focused on U.S.-Canadian and North American issues.
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