German
Dan Karl Hamilton
Dan Karl Hamilton is dean of Waldsee (second half), the German Language Village. He has been on staff at Concordia Language Villages for 40 years and was a villager for four years. He is fluent in German and has studied French, Russian, and Spanish.
Karl earned his bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He was awarded a Doctor of Humanities, honorus clausus, from Concordia College, Moorhead, in 2002.
Karl has served the United States government in many positions and now serves as the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Professor and founding Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS, and as executive director of the American Consortium on European Union Studies. He serves on a number of international advisory and selection boards. His center was named the No. 1 university think tank in Washington DC and No. 6 in the world in 2011.
Karl is a prolific author and a regular media commentator on international relations and international education. He has been awarded Germany’s Federal Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz), France’s Palmes Academique, Sweden’s Royal Order of the Polar Star, and the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award.
Jon Berndt Olsen
Jon Berndt Olsen is dean of Waldsee (first half), the German Language Village. Berndt has been on staff at Concordia Language Villages for 26 years and was a villager at both the German and Norwegian Language Villages. He is fluent in German and has studied Norwegian and Russian.
Berndt received his bachelor’s degree in German, Russian studies, and history from St. Olaf College, his master’s degree in German and European studies from Georgetown University and his doctorate in German history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
He has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Commission, the Robert Bosch Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. Berndt has held teaching positions at Texas Tech University, The College of William and Mary, George Mason University and is currently an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he specializes in German History and Digital History.
Edwin Dehler-Seter
Edwin Dehler-Seter (Eddy), a native of Germany, is the Dean for the German Year-Round Program and Environmental Education and the Natural Resource Management Specialist Concordia Language Villages. He has been working for the organization for over 20 years. Eddy holds a teaching degree for secondary schools from the University of Regensburg, Germany and a MS in Environmental Studies from Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene, NH. He has been a co-founder and leader of Waldsee's environmental outdoor program, die Grüne Welle, and in his capacity as environmental educator has trained many staff and helped many other villages with the implementation of their own environmental programs. With the development and construction of Waldsee's BioHaus, he has become a passionate advocate and expert for super energy efficient houses, such as the the German Passivhaus. Together with Laura Dehler-Seter, Edwin co-authored the book: Natur! Bringing Nature and the Environment into the German Language Classrooms an extensive manual for teachers of German.
