Gift Planner - Development, Concordia Language Villages
Christine Schulze was the executive director for Concordia Language Villages. She has served as the top executive of Concordia Language Villages since 1989, and has been on staff for 40 years.
During that time, she has been responsible for growing the Villages into a complex networked organization with an annual operating budget of about $12 million, serving 10,500 participants from across the United States and over 30 countries. Since 1961 more than 150,000 villagers have joined Concordia, inspired to learn a new language whilst becoming truly global citizens. The village model also enables full immersion in host village culture, positively enabling the learning process.
Christine is a past dean of the French Language Village; initiated French Les Voyageur, an innovative language immersion program in a wilderness setting; and has led teacher trainings and abroad sessions.
Christine has been a keynote speaker on global citizenship skills, language and cultural immersion techniques and creative management techniques in a not-for-profit environment. She is the chair emeritus of the board for the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange in Washington, D.C., an organization which promotes federal policies that support and advance international exchange in all its dimensions. She collaborated with the Department of State to launch an Arabic Language Village in 2006. She currently sits on the advisory board for the Center for Advanced Research in Language Acquisition at the University of Minnesota.