Caleb Brooks

BRIDGE YEAR PROGRAM DIRECTOR

BS in Religion/Social Work, University of the Cumberlands
MSc in International Development, Northumbria University

Caleb hails from the river town of Louisville, Kentucky, and has tried not to stray far from those riparian roots, living along the Mekong, the Tyne, the Ganga-ji, and close to the Missouri’s illustrious headwaters.

Caleb first traveled abroad as a volunteer in 2003. From 2006-2008 he lived in Cambodia’s Kandal province while working at an NGO focused on education, health equity, and point-of-use water treatment. His outlook was permanently altered by the kindness of villagers, mango milkshakes, and the annual resurrection of the rice and the river.

The next few years found him popping up in various places around the globe: riding the Trans-Mongolian from Beijing to Moscow, hiking in the Andes, herding sheep in Montana, organic farming in Australia, and hustling on a pedicab back at home in Kentucky.

Wherever he went, Caleb sought to approach his experiences as a learner. Sensing that all this education could use a little formalization, he sat down in a classroom again in Northeast England to complete a graduate degree. From there, he headed down to West Africa and wrote a thesis on post-conflict development in Liberia while teaching Art and Social Studies at the American International School of Monrovia.

He found his way to Dragons in 2012 as a Cambodia summer instructor and never looked back. After several summer and semester courses in Southeast Asia, he worked as the on-site director for Bridge Year India and supported Bridge Year Brazil in Salvador de Bahia. He most recently punched the clock for 6 years as the director of the International Service Learning Program at the University of Louisville, leading trips to Belize, Botswana, Croatia, Ghana, Peru, and the Philippines before returning to Dragons in 2023. All told, Caleb has led more than 30 international programs and spent just north of 1,000 days in the field with countless brilliant students and so many cherished co-instructors.

Caleb can’t get enough of Jack Gilbert’s poetry, logotherapy, novels by Don DeLillo, Terrence Malick films, and Paulo Freire’s cute little beard. He watches more basketball than he should and finds his way on the court every chance he gets, regardless of attire. You can usually find him on his bike, in somebody’s pool, or playing disc golf badly.