PHOTO BY RICHARD ANDERSON
R.
Michael Paige, professor and chair of educational
policy and administration
Mark Pedelty, journalism and mass communication
(second from left), and Jay Hatch, Post-Secondary Teaching
and Learning (fourth from left), with their students in Mexico,
May 2003.
PHOTO BY RICHARD ANDERSON
Patrick
Delaney, undergraduate research assistant in the
Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, with his light emitting
diode (LED) lamp.
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Global Learning, Global Commitments
You've heard it many times before: we are living in a “global community.”
But how well does a university education prepare our students for
that global future? What can we do to enable them to live and work
effectively with their culturally diverse neighbors abroad and at
home? Study abroad is one answer—providing students with opportunities
to experience other cultures is a top priority for the University.
R. Michael Paige, professor and chair of educational policy and
administration, co-authored Maximizing Study Abroad, and
is directing the benchmark SAGE Project (Study Abroad for Global
Engagement) with professor Gerald Fry.
The SAGE Project is examining the lifelong impact of study abroad
programs by studying the life histories of 2,000 people who have
studied abroad over the last 50 years. The principle focus is on
the contributions of study abroad participants to the common good
(e.g., wide-reaching civic engagement, knowledge production, social
entrepreneurship, and philanthropy).
The research of the SAGE Project will certainly reveal a breadth
of data to depict the beneficial impact of Study Abroad on our students
and, ultimately, our world. The following profiles reveal one University
professor actively engaging his students in the greater world and
one undergraduate student turning his Study Abroad experience into
a mission.
Global Teaching
“There is nothing like the visceral connection one gains by actually
being in the place one is studying and talking to the people who
know the most, and can teach us the most, about their world,” says
SJMC professor Mark Pedelty. Pedelty, a media ethnographer, has
traveled extensively in Latin America and taught courses on Latin
American media, music, and popular culture.
Those courses have included a "global seminar" in which
he's taken University of Minnesota students to Mexico to study cultural
history, a "custom course" concerning cultural ecology,
and a third seminar focused on Mexico City. He's planning a fourth
seminar for May term 2008, when he'll take a group of students to
Mexico City to study Mexican mass media and popular culture.
“Students often refer to their study abroad experience as life changing,”
Pedelty says. “They gain a sense of how remarkable it is to live
and study in a completely different context.” Teaching and studying
abroad is challenging, Pedelty acknowledges, but those challenges
often provide essential learning moments for students. “Often it
is the unexpected challenges, such as group dynamics or even logistical
difficulties, that provide the greatest pedagogical benefits when
we make it part of the learning,” he says. And most often, the exhilaration
of travel and first-hand experience outweigh any problems: “Frankly,
it's hard to go wrong when you're atop a pyramid in Teotihuacan
discussing Mesoamerican culture, or studying public ritual life
on the streets of Mexico City,” says Pedelty.
Teaching abroad is also a way for Pedelty to keep his own thinking
and research on a global level. “These days it is much more difficult
for me to find a way to spend time living and learning in Mexico
, which is another reason I love teaching these courses,” he says.
“Taking students abroad allows me to rediscover all that I love
about Mexico and explore issues that all of us, as global neighbors,
need to confront more creatively.”
It Takes a Village
Traveling abroad can be an enlightening experience, with a lasting
impact on your outlook on the world. While electrical engineering
student Patrick Delaney was in Nicaragua last December conducting
research, he helped a family in a remote mountainous region fix
a nonfunctioning solar-energy panel.
As a result of this thoughtful gesture, Delaney has now embarked
on a collaborative effort to provide a portable, solar-powered "lantern"
to rural villagers allowing them a few hours of low-grade lighting
each night.
Delaney and five other electrical engineering students at the University
worked with students from the University of Nicaragua and the University
of Calgary to design a light emitting diode (LED) lamp.
However, Delaney's team has now found it's more cost-effective to
get solar lanterns from other nations such as China , and to work
with them to cater the design for a rural-developing-nations market
and to distribute them. Hence, the project has evolved into an interdisciplinary
undertaking including elements of design, economics, business, and
engineering. Delaney is now working as an undergraduate research
assistant in the Center for Entreprenurial Studies.
By Andria Peters
"Global Teaching" section excerpted with permission from
the Winter 2006/07 issue of Murphy
Reporter, a publication of the School of Journalism and
Mass Communication.
"Global Learning, Global Commitments," and "It Takes
a Village" sections excerpted from Research,
an annual publication of the Office of the Vice President for Research.
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