David Benson

David Dahveed Benson lived in Cameroon for twelve years as the onsite academic director of the School for International Training's (SIT) college study abroad program there. Benson has been on staff at Concordia Language Villages since 1988. Many of those years he has spent as dean of Les Voyageurs, the Language Villages' French outdoor adventure program, where he successfully creates a community of French-speaking wilderness lovers out of 14-18 year olds in the Northwoods of Minnesota. He is also the dean of the three-week study abroad program Cameroon. He was a villager himself at the French Language Village, Lac du Bois, for seven years.

He is fluent in French and English and has studied Hausa, Swahili, Fulfulde, Yemba, Malgassy and Pidgin. 

Dahveed graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in French and history.  He earned his master’s degree in African history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also attained competency in Hausa and Swahili, two sub-Saharan African languages.

Dahveed is currently teaching history at an experiential learning-based high school, the Colorado Springs School. An avid lover of paddling and wilderness experiences, he has participated in and/or led canoeing and kayaking expeditions in Thailand, New Zealand, Samoa, South Africa, Namibia, Cameroon, Madagascar, Canada, and throughout the United States.