Beyond Basic Training

How Saint Paul College helped Ahmad Ansari move from the front lines to the front of the class.

Students who come to Saint Paul College bring with them a variety of life experiences. Few, however, have spent time dodging improvised explosive devices, infiltrating communities for intelligence, or translating during interrogations. For 23–year–old Ahmad Ansari, a Minnesotan and recent Saint Paul College graduate, these and many more dangers were a daily reality during his 14–month deployment to Iraq in 2003 and 2004. His unit, Delta Battery of the 216th Air Defense Artillery Battalion, a Minnesota National Guard unit from Monticello, was responsible for patrolling a dangerous highway outside of Baghdad. "Car bombs went off every day," Ansari says, adding that other duties included patrolling nearby neighborhoods, cordoning off perimeters, and running humanitarian missions to underprivileged neighborhoods.

When Ansari completed his tour of duty, he returned to Minnesota. "After I came back from Iraq, I wanted to go to college," he says. "During reintegration training, I ran into a rep from Saint Paul College."

The recruiter explained the offerings at the school, which inspired Ansari to do some research on his own. "My main concern was: Would the credits transfer to a national or private college?" he says, noting that he learned that the College offered classes which fulfilled the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum, so he registered and paid for school using the money he was awarded through the GI Bill and the Guard's Minnesota State Tuition Reimbursement program. "I went the first semester to see how things would go. It went really well, and I decided to stay."

Ansari adds that he was particularly impressed with the small class sizes and the dedication and approachability of the instructors. "I noticed right away that the instructors really care about the students, and they spend a lot of time with the students to make sure they get the ideas [being taught]," he says.

A New Mission

While at Saint Paul College, Ansari was a member of a Minnesota National Guard training regiment, so he was not surprised to get a call one day with a very different kind of mission. In mid–2007, the Guard decided to include a new segment on cultural issues in its troop training. The sergeant major in charge of training at Camp Ripley in Little Falls had been Ansari's sergeant in Iraq. "Knowing my background, he asked if I could help him out," Ansari says. "They were very simple instructions: 'I need a presentation on cultural awareness.' I said, 'OK.'"

With a deadline of less than a week, he scrambled to create a course that would cover a range of topics: Iraqi history, Islam, Arab cultural norms, and the Arabic language. He combined his first–hand experience in Iraq with material from academic works on Middle Eastern cultures. For religious information, he went to mosques and found books on Islam. He also pulled resources from a humanities and world religions classes he'd taken at Saint Paul College with Julie Haider, an instructor he says was particularly engaging. "I really loved the way she taught the class," he notes. "I liked the participation among students and the debates."

The finished presentation — a five–hour lecture with four PowerPoint slideshows — tells soldiers the most important things they'll need to know when they're in Iraq. It covers finer cultural points, such as meal etiquette, the importance of family groups, customs of dress, women's role in society, and gestures and greetings. Ansari delivered the presentation twice a month to groups of around 150 soldiers from December 2007 until his six–year enlistment was up in March 2008.

Ansari graduated from Saint Paul College this spring with an AA degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences, and has applied to the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, with hopes to someday pursue a business finance, banking, or law degree. He credits the College for helping provide him with a solid reentry point into civilian life and for helping him get started on the next phase of his life. But he's not leaving his military career behind — he's also reenlisted in the Guard for another three years with a commission as a lieutenant, and will continue giving his cultural awareness presentations, which he knows have made a difference. "Lots of people have appreciated what the presentations are about," he says. "The feedback has been just great."

Jenny Sherman is a New York City-based freelance writer.

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