Current College Scholars Travel the World
Erin Grimson spent her Spring 2013 semester living and working in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, France. Attending art history and photography classes in the historic Marais district, Erin left France with dozens of rolls of film and a fresh perspective for her senior thesis. Her College Scholars career will culminate in April 2014 with an exhibition consisting of her musings and photographs from France.
After spending six weeks in Shenyang, China, completing soil science research at the Institute of Applied Ecology, Kenna Rewcastle brought back much more than just a better understanding of soil respiration and conservation tillage practices.
Shortly after landing at the Shenyang Aiport, Rewcastle attended a China-US joint workshop on the Biogeochemistry of Carbon and Nitrogen, at which UT College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources professors shared the conference’s program with many Chinese scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shenyang Agricultural University. The underlying theme for the conference was always clear: heightened collaboration between American and Chinese scientists will produce benefits in the form of a scientific relationship between two cultures that, together, can tackle global problems and research questions that face us all. This same motif of collaboration and cultural immersion became interwoven in Rewcastle’s Chinese experience.
While spending late nights in the Institute’s laboratory monitoring soil respiration curves with several graduate student collaborators, Kenna was struck not by cultural differences, but by how overwhelmingly similar her life, values, and aspirations were to that of her Chinese mentors. Qin Qin and Qiufeng Xu, both graduate students at the Institute of Applied Ecology, taught Rewcastle various techniques used in soil science research, but also gave Kenna insight into how their Chinese culture and education informed their research. “The Chinese graduate students welcomed me into their labs, their culture, and their lives. The patience and generosity that I was shown will forever stand as a model for me as I pursue opportunities for intercultural collaboration in the future,” said Rewcastle.
Rewcastle’s six weeks in China culminated with a formal presentation of her research and a short lecture on her life as an undergraduate in the US, which was given to the graduate students involved in similar research projects at the Institute of Applied Ecology.
In late summer 2013, Shawana Davis studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa under the leadership of Dr. Amadou Sall of the Africana Studies Department. In this five week course, International Civic Engagement: Social Justice, Poverty and HIV, Shawana studied post- apartheid South Africa. The students visited three poverty-stricken townships: Langa (the oldest township in Cape Town), Guguletu, and Khayelitsha. During four days in Langa they built a vegetable garden and a bookshelf for Nomonde Pre-School headed by Mama Lumka. Shawana enjoyed spending time with the children. Besides visiting townships, the students visited the Cape of Good Hope, Lion’s Head Mountain, Slave Lodge Museum (where slaves were kept when they arrived in Cape Town), and the District Six Museum, which is housed in the church that was the last remaining building after District Six of Cape Town was demolished and inhabitants were forcibly removed in the 1970’s during the apartheid regime. They also visited Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in jail, and the place where Mandela gave his first public speech in 1990 after being released, Cape Town’s City Hall.
During the summer of 2013 Brianna Rader participated in Yale University’s Bioethics Summer Institute which was an amazing opportunity. The program was international and for undergraduates, graduates, and professionals, so the learning community was extremely diverse. The participants wrestled with questions of healthcare allocation, public health ethics, and care for the dying. They visited the first hospice in America, Monsanto’s Research facility, and the Hastings Center. Brianna’s summer project was on America’s flawed pre-med education system. She was able to interview deans of different medical schools and work in a bioethics analysis. New Haven had character, but it helped that New York City was a short train ride away. She had a wonderful summer with many new international friends.