Anna is fully committed and passionate about education, both learning and teaching. She constantly strives to learn and improve. She is truthfully excited by the thrill of learning new facts, beginning a new subject, and mastering an important skill.

1. Ksenija Napan, PhD
Associate Professor
Massey University
Auckland
Aotearoa New Zealand
K.Napan@massey.ac.nz
Auckland, 25.10.2017
To whom it may concern
I am delighted to provide a reference for Dr. Anna Storck for her professional future in Germany.
I had the pleasure of interacting with Anna over the three years that she has been in New Zealand.
She was recommended to me through our mutual friend Prof. Dr. Wendelin Küpers from Germany.
She approached me with warm heart and keen mind - so typical for her way, as I recognised it later.
Her irrepressible curiosity and intelligence as well as an unusual ability for dealing with people of
all ages and cultures struck me from the very first moment of our relationship. Later on I was able
to recognise that she as an exceptional educational professional with hands-on experience in
learning and teaching activities and a high measure of drive, energy and engagement.
From my own experience I know that integration is not always a smooth and easy process, Anna
astonished me by her prompt and successful adaptation to the new environment in New Zealand.
She is transculturally comptetent with the ability to communicate with people in a way that earns
trust and respect, the ability to adapt to the professional skills to fit to the local conditions and
constraints, as well as the ability to personally adjust to the culture in order to feel at ease and
comfortable within the new culture dynamics. I guess she just walks the talk, because she is
passionate, enthusiastic and totally committed to her specialist areas of diversity and intercultural
communication. New Zealand's defining issue now is diversity and her expertise in this particular
area and experience working in a multicultural environment was enriching for the community
where she worked. She initiated the project in Auckland called: Talk to Me and coordinated the
three follow up events gaining support of several organisation and funding from Ministry of Social
Development. She created a beautiful opportunity for young people from various cultures where
they can learn to focus on relationship building, deep connections, mutual gifting, respect, and
learning from one another. In the own words of one of my students, who participated in the project
was: „One of the most meaningful experiences of my life so far.“ This show not only Anna‘s great
organisational skills and adaptation to the new environment, but also her ability to inspire young
people and uncover hidden treasures, possibilities and magic right before everyone’s eyes.
Anna is fully committed and passionate about education, both learning and teaching. She constantly
strives to learn and improve. She is truthfully excited by the thrill of learning new facts, beginning a
new subject, and mastering an important skill. Anna with her willingness to share what’s she has
learned inspires others with her own love of learning and her passion for intercultural study. Her
innovative approach to problems and projects is always a source of new and valuable ideas for
others. She works tirelessly to create a challenging, nurturing environment and helps others
“stretch” to discover new ways to solve problems or enhance the quality of their work and study.
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2. As a teacher she is warm, accessible, enthusiastic and caring with a great ability to create a sense of
community and belonging in the classroom. She integrates the best components of both
conventional and alternative approaches to education into a fuller, wider, deeper, more
transformative educational space. This allows her to continually transform herself, serve her
students, create multidimensional curriculum, participate compassionately with others and support
the health and dynamism of global systems.
I wish I could attach the astonishingly adulatory statements the university received from students.
Expressions such as „motivating“, „inspiring“, „passionate“ permeate each of the statements. A few
examples from students she taught at the School of Communication at the AUT:
•„Her passion and enthusiasm in everything taught. Her enngaging range of learning resources
made everything more interesting.“
•„I love her energy and motivation towards this class. She obviously cares a lot about us.“
•„She creates a very positive environment to learn and encourages real world application of
theory“
Anna is a gentle soul, an intellectual giant, a fair person to people at all levels, generous, accessible,
and always projecting a calm demeanor. She is a rare combination of scientist and humanist,
representing the best in academia.
We work in different research areas so while we had a healthy level of interactions it was mostly in
social settings. I fondly recall our long conversation and appreciated listening to her analysis of
issues ranging from new academic research on education to world affairs, of course, with strong
emphasis on diversity and intercultural matters. Anna has the ability to explain complex concepts in
a simple way. She is a big person with a caring temperament, a mentor, and a first class scholar.
I was saddened to hear that Anna and her family heading back to Germany, however, I know that it
is in her best interest although it will be a huge loss for us here. We are loosing not only an
engaging academic and expert in intercultural diversity, we are losing a great personality who could
made a change here. I hope we will be in collegial exchange in the future. I wish her all the best for
her work in Germany where I am certain that Anna will be a great asset to your institution.
In short, I give Anna my highest recommendation, and very much hope that the committee judges
his application favorably.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any further information.
Sincerely
Ksenija Napan, PhD
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