Blugold alumna focused on global education

“You can live in a small town and still be a world traveler,” Brownell says. “There aren’t many Spanish-speaking countries that I haven’t been to. It makes the kids even more interested to hear someone’s personal stories about a place and see beyond the textbook.”

Brownell, a 1996 UW-Eau Claire graduate in Spanish and English secondary education, has taught Spanish for the past 29 years at Crandon High School and also teaches a college-level Spanish class as an adjunct professor through UW-Green Bay.

Brownell was the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s 2023-24 Global Educator of the Year for providing high-quality learning experiences and opportunities for students in global education. She also was selected as one of 35 National Geographic Lindblad Expeditions Grosvenor Teacher Fellows out of nearly 500 applicants.

“I think as teachers, especially as teachers in rural areas, sometimes our students’ worldviews are very narrow because they have such a limited knowledge of what the rest of the world looks like,” Brownell says. “I think that any time their teachers can get really good professional development and then bring it back to show students pictures, videos and storytelling, that shows them the rest of the world isn’t scary.”

Brownell’s love of international travel started in college when she studied abroad in summer 1993 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, about 50 miles south of Mexico City. The six-week experience changed the 19-year-old Blugold.

“I was already a Spanish major, but I completely was bitten with the travel bug during that study abroad,” Brownell recalls. “Just knowing how immersed you could get in the culture, how tight you could get with your relationships with people if you are sharing a common language, and it was just a total life-changing moment for me.”

Dr. Paul Hoff, professor of Spanish and language education, recalls Brownell being among a strong cohort of Spanish and language education students at UW-Eau Claire in the 1990s, noting that Brownell stood out for her “enthusiasm, fun-loving nature, kindness, motivation and career focus.”

Many of Brownell’s travel experiences are tied to professional development as she continually strives to be the best educator possible, Hoff says. 

“Jodi is open to experiencing the world but also cherishes her roots and gives back to her home community by sharing her experiences in impactful ways,” Hoff says. “Her gratitude, humility and love for her rural community in northeastern Wisconsin are tangible. For example, after learning of the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship and the Wisconsin DPI Global Educator Award, Jodi wrote me saying, ‘I am so lucky to teach amazing students who are interested in world cultures, languages, and making a difference, and I’m especially lucky that they are in my hometown.’”

After graduation from UW-Eau Claire, Brownell had two more summer study abroad experiences in Spain to work on her Spanish as she pursued her master’s degree while beginning her teaching career in her hometown of Crandon. She continued to travel in summers with her family and took every opportunity to share those experiences with her students.

As DPI Global Educator of the Year, Brownell spent a week in Rabat, Morocco, in 2024 observing the high school study abroad programs of the Council on International Education Exchange. Brownell says many Americans have a fear of the unknown about Arabic-speaking nations, but she felt welcomed and cared for while in Morocco.

“People were absolutely lovely and I couldn’t wait to get home and tell everybody how great Moroccan people are, how loving the Muslim faith is, how much they care for each other and how respectful everybody was there,” Brownell says.

After returning from Morocco and hearing about the study abroad program, some of Brownell’s current students are applying to do a high school study abroad this coming summer.

“I’m really thrilled about that because I know how much it changed my life and what it’s going to do for theirs,” she says. 

Brownell’s eight-day expedition in the Galapagos in fall 2024 included “magical moments” with animals such as sea turtles, sea lions, marine iguanas, giant tortoises and penguins. Brownell wrote a daily blog detailing her experiences for her students back in Crandon.

“What I really liked about the Galapagos is they did so many efforts to protect and preserve the place,” Brownell says. “We would go to an island and we were the only ones there. They very much limited what you could do, how many people could be there.

“I really think that our country has a lot to learn from that with our national parks. I sometimes feel like we might be loving our national parks to death and I think that we could maybe learn to limit the love that we are showing those places to preserve them.”