Notes from the Field
By Heather Sullivan
Globalism is a fashionable word for an important trend: The world is getting smaller, making our interactions with people from other places increasingly meaningful. But globalism can mean many things to people depending on age, occupation and nationality.
At Wheaton, globalism means opportunity, and each year hundreds of Wheaton students take advantage of the opportunity to study abroad-individually and in groups of students and professors-and experience their own connection to life outside the United States. Here are a few of their stories.
Traveler: Adar Cohen '04 with professors Jeff Timm and Susan Dearing
Destination: Bhutan
Factoid: Located near Tibet and India, Bhutan's isolation is self-imposed.
Mission: Assist faculty members with research
Means: Davis Fellowship
Adar Cohen has been around the block in a big way. Summer '02 took him to Israel and Bhutan, where he worked with Jeff Timm, professor of religion, to research the groundwork for a contemporary Buddhist studies program, and with English professor Susan Dearing, who started a writing program based on Wheaton's tutoring program.
An English-speaking nation, Bhutan remains largely untouched by Western life and thought. "Bhutan has so much to offer us in terms of development practice, environmental protection and harmonious existence—practices of equanimity and peace," Cohen said. "They have their challenges, too. The government has kept its interests relatively free of the conflicts that perpetuate internal and external conflicts. They are very careful about Western corporate interests.
"It's a monarchy, but it's driven by the core values of the people. But religious states are complex entities," says Cohen, who also studies conflict in the Middle East and whose senior project centers on international mediation.
"Its work has more to do with the community and less to do with opening the way for personal achievement," Cohen said of Bhutan's civic life. The same could be said of Cohen, who hopes to put his expertise in conflict resolution to work in the Middle East.
Traveler: Joy Williams '03
Destination: Cuba's University of Havana (after a semester at the University of Costa Rica)
Factoid: While in Cuba, Williams was invited to a major conference held by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Mission: Study music and dance in Caribbean nation
Means: Starr International Fellowship (Costa Rica), Junior Year Abroad (Cuba)
Joy Williams wanted to look at the evolution of African music and dance in relation to the transatlantic slave trade. With admittedly limited communications skills in Spanish, as well as a modest understanding of the history and politics of Cuba, Williams headed for the Caribbean.
"Once there, I was exposed to a whole different reality and perspective on how politics can affect people's lives," Williams said "And I thought, 'Wow. How am I affected, then, by the U.S. political system?' I learned about politics, and I learned how people work to create change in a system that doesn't allow for it."
While Williams' music and dance education did progress— largely under the tutelage of a pianist known simply as "Maestro"—it was the art of politics there that intrigued her more.
"Cubans have rations of rice and oil, and they work to supplement incomes of four or five dollars a month," Williams said. "But they are always welcoming. They never let you know that they're giving you the last of their food."
Williams describes the Cuban people she knows as loving, caring, desperate, determined. "They are also victims of stereotypes. They are exoticized and commodified," she said, referring to visitors' expectations of finding a lively Caribbean island, full of fun and funky music.
"I just went there wanting to dance," she said of her Cuban experience. "Now I'm trying to figure out how to turn my activism on," she said. "Everything we do is political. I want to align myself with groups working for change."
Traveler: Robyn Gravel '04
Destination: Lima, Peru
Factoid: Worked with seriously ill or disabled orphans
Mission: An aspiring physician, Gravel wanted to improve her Spanish skills and intercultural understanding.
Means: Wheaton Fellow and Trustee Scholar awards; volunteer position through Cross-Cultural Solutions
Many visitors to Peru travel there to see Machu Picchu. Connecticut native Robyn Gravel traveled There—a week in France her only other international experience—to volunteer at Mother Theresa's Home in Lima, an orphanage for seriously ill or disabled children.
"Knowing Spanish and having some understanding of other cultures will be helpful," said Gravel, who studies Spanish and pre-med at Wheaton and plans a career in pediatric oncology. "This experience made me feel sure that I can become a doctor."
Gravel's volunteering was only partly clinical, "I helped feed and change babies and did whatever was needed," Gravel said. "It was challenging, but at the end it was hard to leave those kids."
The 16 orphans there during Gravel's visit were infants to 14 years of age. Only three could walk a little and the others were in wheelchairs; most were blind, and none could speak. "They were abandoned," Gravel explained. "One baby was found in a pile of garbage; one was found on a hotel bed. These kids just want to be normal and they are—but they're hindered.
"We worked in a poor and dangerous area of the city," Gravel said. The local conditions made it necessary for her to work only until early afternoon, when she could travel safely through the neighborhood's squalid conditions.
"Sometimes you want to fix what other people don't have," Gravel said. "But giving happiness doesn't mean you have to fix everything."
Traveler: Dan Hartmann '04
Destination: Robert College English language camp in Turkey
Factoid: Robert College trustee Rodney Wagner and Wheaton trustee Suki Wagner '56 founded the program.
Mission: Teach English to Turkish students
Means: Fund for Global Education
Dan Hartmann has been a camp counselor for years. Last summer, he and six other Wheaton students traveled to Turkey as counselors for a two-month English summer camp held at Robert College.
Robert College was founded in 1863; by the early 20th century, the school had become a leading institution in the Middle East. Today it serves 1,000 students and seeks to graduate young students with the skills, insights and determination to function as leaders in a wide range of social and cultural roles. "The school plays a strong role in Turkey because of the strength of its English program," said Rodney Wagner, a Robert College trustee.
Hartmann wasn't the first of his family to tread that ground. He recently learned that his maternal grandmother, a young Russian woman, graduated in 1932 from the American College for Girls, which formerly was at the current site of Robert College. She came to the United States after meeting Hartmann's grandfather, a member of the U.S. Foreign Service.
"Turkey is the bridge between Eastern and Western civilizations," Hartmann explained. The country is located at a point where three continents—Asia, Africa and Europe—are closest to each other, and straddles the point where Europe and Asia meet. Its location has made it a prominent center of commerce historically. "Being there, you get a greater understanding of the global, connected world...but the Turks are the Turks."
For Hartmann, the experience strengthened his personal connection to the country (and, he said, to the "fabulous" Turkish food). It also reinforced his commitment to pursue a career in education. "I want to help schools build and facilitate educational programs for learning-disabled students," he said.
Traveler: Jonah Cool '04, Liz Cormier '04, Julie Robinson '03 and professors Deb Fahey (biology), Stephen Mathis (philosophy) and Shelly Leibowitz (mathematics)
Destination: Vela School, Umtata, South Africa
Factoid: The Vela School is housed in a former sewing factory.
Mission: Teach science and technology
Means: Davis Fellowship
In her first teaching experience—at the Vela School in Umtata, South Africa—Liz Cormier '04 expected questions about her area of expertise: chemistry. She soon learned to expect the unexpected.
"A student asked me how I got to be so smart, and I told him it was because I study," Cormier explained. "He didn't understand. He told me, 'But you're a girl.'"
It was the strong cultural differences that seemed to have the greatest meaning for Cormier and her Wheaton colleagues who spent six weeks in South Africa teaching secondary school math and science in an enrichment program. With the assistance of Wheaton trustee Sukey Wagner '56 and Davis Fellowship funding, faculty and students have traveled to the Vela School twice, and Professor Shelly Leibowitz expects similar trips in the next two summers.
Inside the Vela School classrooms, resources were limited. "The families of these students struggle to pay the $50 per semester tuition," instructor Deb Fahey said, "so we had to improvise. When we looked at genetics, I used colored paper clips to represent traits."
Each of the Wheaton students and faculty taught classes in their interest area. Professor Stephen Mathis taught a logic class; Cormier, chemistry; Julie Robinson, math; and Jonah Cool, physics.
"The kids were so thankful," Cormier said, adding that she found teaching to be "a lot of work" that reinforced her knowledge of general chemistry. "They didn't waste a second of classroom time...they seemed to memorize everything."
However, it was the experiences outside the classroom that formed the lasting memories. Cormier learned that it is a tradition for 18-year-old boys in the region to go up to a nearby mountain to be circumcised. "It's a rite of passage, but many die because of infection," she said. "I can't even fathom that-going for what is meant to be a celebration, and then watching your friends die."
Traveler: Professors Michelle Harris (sociology) and Brenda Wyss (economics); students Winston Benjamin '04 and Orly Clerge '05; alumni Sarah Biolsi '02 and Tom Clarke '02
Destination: Jamaica
Factoid: The U.S. government estimates that 34 percent of Jamaicans live below the poverty line.
Mission: Conduct field research on Jamaican family life
Means: Mars Student/Faculty Fellowship, Davis International Fellowship
Jamaica is much more than white sand beaches, reggae music and Rastafarianism, according to a group of Wheaton students, professors and alumni who spent four weeks there last summer working on a household survey project in Mandeville, Jamaica. The project, A Study of the Family in Jamaica (SFJ), is a collaborative effort of Northern Caribbean University (NCU) and Wheaton College, and it allowed students a unique opportunity to conduct field research and provide the Jamaican public, policymakers and researchers with new information about Jamaican family life.
"The data doesn't exist yet. Once it does, the sky is the limit," said Professor Brenda Wyss, who won a Fulbright grant to study the economics of child-rearing in Jamaica. "This research will not live in an ivory tower; it will touch the lives of real people.... I'm trying to put together a richer picture of what the Jamaican household looks like."
Wyss' passion for this research is shared by colleague Michelle Harris, an assistant professor of sociology whose research questions the mental health and well-being of Jamaican family members as a function of exposure to stress, sociodemographic factors and parental duties. "We all went into this from different social locations. I learned a lot from how others experience issues of identity."
The trip promoted several types of learning for Wheaton students, Wyss said. They learned about survey research firsthand, gaining both practical research skills and a better understanding of what surveys have to offer social scientists. The experience also highlighted both the fruits and the challenges of collaboration. Much of the research work was done in pairs, and students learned to draw on each others' particular strengths and to compensate for weaknesses. The stay in Jamaica also inspired rich personal learning and group discussions about race, identity and social location.
"White members of the research team experienced being a minority in a black country, and yet a minority with power and privileges," Wyss explained. "Black students had different experiences. A Jamaican-American student who had not visited his country of origin in many years wrestled openly with questions of identity and belonging. And a Haitian-American student struggled with being characterized by Jamaicans as a 'typical American.'"
The word "patience" figures prominently in student reflections about the experience. "Perhaps, what we all learned is patience," Tom Clarke said. "Patience to adjust to a new environment...and to be accepting of the differences between American and Jamaican culture."
