Cristin Cornell Tarr will study experiential learning and the tourism industry in Botswana
Cristin Tarr’s EMBA cohort traveled to South Africa and Mozambique.
Cristin Cornell Tarr promised she would be back.
She didn’t know how, she didn’t know when. But two weeks in South Africa and Mozambique as a student in the Daniels College of Business Executive MBA program had transformed the seasoned traveler.
“I just had a different feeling about Africa than I have other places that I’ve visited,” said Tarr (MBA 2018), now a teaching associate professor in the Department of Marketing. “Traveling with the tight-knit EMBA Cohort 68 and being exposed to a wide range of industries and business cultures in Africa was truly fascinating.”
Nearly a decade later, Tarr is keeping her word. She’ll spend the fall in the south African nation of Botswana, as a prestigious and highly selective Fulbright Scholar.
Congress created the Fulbright Program in 1946 as a tool for peace, shared knowledge and intercultural exchange. Grants have sent students and scholars to more than 160 countries to study, teach, conduct research and contribute to mutual understanding.
While abroad, Fulbright Scholars build relationships with faculty at peer institutions. They return home with ideas and connections they can incorporate into their classrooms.
International collaboration
Tarr is an expert in brand management, customer experience and community engagement with extensive experience in the tourism industry. Her classes have a heavy focus on experiential learning and prioritize hands-on, out-of-classroom opportunities.
Over the course of five months, Tarr will collaborate with Botswana Accountancy College (BAC) in Gaborone to support workforce readiness, entrepreneurship, and innovative approaches to teaching and learning.
She will work with her colleagues at BAC to develop course curriculum and identify partners who could help elevate the country’s tourism industry. She’s also interested to observe the way the Botswanan higher education system presents course material to students.
“Experiential learning is the basis of so many activities I do within the classroom,” Tarr said. “Students aren’t prepared without it. The more we can create a learning experience that mirrors what they’re going to have in the professional world, the more capable they’re going to be as professionals. Having some of that experience while they’re students is critical.”
Part of Tarr’s Fulbright project is to engage with the local business community and build lasting bridges between academic and professional life in Botswana. She will carry this collaborative knowledge back to Daniels faculty and students during and after the grant period, shaping future teaching, research and practice.
Over time, she plans to foster reciprocal research initiatives and exchanges between the two colleges and hopes to lead students on a MBA Global Business course to Botswana, creating an enduring partnership that benefits both institutions and their communities.
Cristin Tarr
A life-changing grad degree
As much as Tarr dreamed of returning to the African continent, she never would have imagined it would be in a teaching capacity.
She had no teaching experience—nor the credentials to do it—when she decided to pursue her EMBA. The program, she figured, could give her a greater breadth of knowledge for her consulting business—and perhaps open the door to adjunct opportunities down the road.
The Daniels program appealed to her because of its high-caliber cohorts of students, its connection to industry professionals and its lauded global immersion experience. For decades now, EMBA students have embarked on two-week trips to two countries of their choosing.
Many of the countries are developing nations, off the beaten path, which pushes students out of their personal and professional comfort zones. While abroad, student teams are tasked with creating a feasibility study for a new business idea, informed by meetings with local organizations.
“You can be a tourist all you want, but to be a business tourist and study business connectivity was really a highlight of the trip,” Tarr said. “It was very interesting to meet with other business professionals and learn how business is conducted.”
As her EMBA global trip wound down, she sat with Amanda Cahal, teaching assistant professor of global leadership, and made a vow to return—ideally to South Africa or Botswana.
A friendship with Kutlo Mmereki (BSBA 2024), right, put a Fulbright to Botswana in clearer focus.
The Botswana connection
Soon after her graduation, Tarr became an adjunct marketing professor. She joined Daniels as full-time faculty a few years later. On her first day back in the classroom after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she met Kutlo Mmereki (BSBA 2024), a standout student from Botswana.
Their relationship grew. When Tarr learned her student wouldn’t be traveling home for the winter holiday, she invited her over for Thanksgiving. Soon, they were dining together every Sunday.
The student’s father, it turned out, was a chemistry professor at the University of Botswana.
“Through her, Botswana became more than a place on a map,” Tarr said, “and my interest sparked by the EMBA global trip returned.”
They began corresponding via email and, when he came to visit his daughter, Tarr sat down with him and mapped out an idea for a Fulbright. The rigorous, multi-year application process bore fruit this May.
Now, as she prepares to embark in August, Tarr says her experience has come full circle—and is more profound than she ever could have imagined.
“The deeper goal [of this project] is human-centered,” she said. “By collaborating with educators, entrepreneurs, and innovators in both Gaborone and Denver, I hope to return home with culturally grounded insights that deepen cross-cultural understanding between our universities.”
She’s already thinking about future trips to Botswana after the Fulbright ends, to build more partnerships, gain more insight and expose more students to the experience that changed her life—all things that define The Daniels Effect.
“When I hear from students that have gone on global business courses with me say they’re going back or doing something internationally because of that trip, it’s all serendipitous,” she said. “It’s why connections matter.”