Elena Axton

I completed my undergraduate degree in 2003. I've spent the last ten years working as the Eastern Washington University Education Abroad Advisor and also became the National Student Exchange Coordinator in 2019. The best aspect of my job has been not just working with students, but in helping students pursue their dreams, and expand the way they define their classrooms. My students are primarily first-generation college students. Some of them are first-generation immigrants to America. EWU has been named the most diverse university in the State of Washington for the last several years. I have been able to experience the entire demographic spectrum that the institution serves. Most of my students, whether traditional or non-traditional students, needed someone to show them how to expand go out and explore the world. As part of my mission to increase access to students who are traditionally underrepresented in Education Abroad, I designed a scholarship preparation class for the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship award. I've guided my students through one of the best life experiences they will ever have. I've guided my students through surviving some of the worst experiences that human beings encounter: terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and a global pandemic.

Along the path of my first professional life, two major things shifted. The most important change was that I met Cory, and with him, came my adult kids and my nine grandchildren. I am ten months younger than my oldest son. It also meant that when my elderly father-in-law's life shifted four years ago and he suddenly needed a fresh start, that we got begin raising a little old man. Eldercare is not always easy but we are having the time of our lives with him. In seeking ways to keep him young and combat his dementia, I have gotten to become an expert planner of the road trip to National Parks on the West Coast to bring the History and National Geographic channels to life for him.

The second life change I've encountered during my thirties is that I began going to graduate school in 2017 to pursue my MFA in Creative Nonfiction. It is an intensive studio program and my life has typically only permitted me to take one class a term, so I have been taking the scenic route through the program. However, I am now on the precipice of doing my final classes before I begin to focus in on my thesis. Additionally, I took a History of the National Parks course a couple years ago so that I could be better prepared to answer the questions my father-in-law wants answered during our travels. That choice has led me to add a second graduate degree. I will officially begin my M.A. in Public History in the Fall of 2020. I will be graduate from both programs in the Spring of 2022.