The Global Classroom

Some academics believe foreign study programs are a waste of time. Here's why they're wrong.

WITH AN EVER-GROWING AWARE- ness of the value of the global community, American students feel a need to meet, communicate with and attempt to understand people of other cultures. Last year more than 140,000 U.S. students studied overseas.

But do study-abroad programs connect American students to the larger world? Do the programs make a substantial difference in students' lives?

In The Chronicle of Higher Education Ben Feinberg, a social science professor at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, last May reported results from an informal survey of undergraduates returning from foreign study programs. Unfortunately, rather than encountering other people and cultures, the students he polled spent their time abroad focused more on themselves, their group dynamics and "drinking too much and bungee jumping at Victoria Falls," according to Feinberg.

I found Feinberg's conclusions particularly troubling. I have lived and worked in sub-Saharan Africa for more than 35 years and direct the Africa Foreign Studies Program (AFSP) of the College's environmental studies department. Each year my colleagues and I select 20 Dartmouth students, mostly juniors, for the program. I also teach a prerequisite course, run a summer-term orientation program for the selected students and then lead them on their trip in southern Africa. Each autumn term I get to introduce a new pod of bright, adventurous Dartmouth undergraduates to the people of Africa and that continents most exciting ecosystems and environments.

Am I wasting my time?

I decided to conduct my own unscientific inquiry. Feinburg had employed one of his "favorite undergraduates" to in- terview "her peers" returning from overseas courses in Africa. So did I: Sarah Ives '03, who went on the AFSP with me in the fall of 2001, e-mailed more than 80 Dartmouth alums of the program from its days in Kenya to its current place in southern Africa. She asked participants what they learned and whether the Africa FSP is the "life-changing experience" that some of its alums claim.

All of the respondents agreed that their experiences in Africa left deep impressions and, in some instances, changed life and career paths. But many found Africa troubling as well as transforming.

"So many of my ideas about life in Africa were completely shattered by this trip," says Joshua Brann '99, who went out on the first AFSP to southern Africa. "It changed me by changing my perceptions about Third World countries, poverty, hunger, advancement and happiness. I had never lived in a village so far removed from civilization' for an extended period of time. It really makes you question the terms advancement' and 'progress.'"

Brann has been pursuing the shifting meanings of those terms since his return: After graduation he interned with the National Wildlife Federation and worked with the Alaska Rainforest Coalition and World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C. He is now finishing his M.A. in international affairs, with concentrations in environmental policy and international economics, at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and is working with the Global Environmental Facility's biodiversity team in preparing for the World Parks Council in Durban, South Africa, in September.

Matthew Nelson '00 also shifted his thinking. "I learned about culture, religion, respect, good governance and bravery. I learned how lucky I am to live in America, I learned how different people can be from another place, and yet how similar they are once the masks are off."

After his AFSP term, Nelson wrote a reflective senior thesis about the physical and spiritual search for "wilderness" in the United States and Africa. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't remember that experience," he says. "It influences everything I do today."

Dustin Rubenstein '99, who is studying behavior and the African starling for his Ph.D. in ornithology, encountered the birds—as well as the cultures and political economies—of Africa during his AFSP. Last February he returned to Africa to undertake fieldwork for the Ph.D. he is pursuing at Cornell. "Being in southern Africa opened our eyes to a diversity of political and economic problems," says Rubenstein. "I had studied many of these back at Dartmouth, but experiencing them first-hand was the most interesting part of the trip."

Tracey Pettengill '93 went to Kenya during the winter of 1992. "As my first time out of the United States, the trip exposed me to a whole new world, the world that most people live in." She stayed for a second term and completed an internship with the World Bank in Nairobi. During her senior year she returned to conduct harrowing field research for an honors thesis on relief agencies during periods of civil strife and starvation in Somalia.

Pettengill reels off a list of experiences still fresh in her mind a decade later: "Third World development, environmental issues in development, the impact of tourism on a Third World economy, new language, new foods, new culture, poverty, diversity, living as a minority." Her studies abroad and subsequent research fueled a passion for international development. After earning an engineering/economics degree with a certificate in environmental studies, Pettengill earned an M.B.A. from Stanford, worked with a social venture capital fund, volunteered with a bank providing rural micro-lending and founded a company, 4Charity.com in San Francisco, to help large nonprofits maximize online resources.

For some, the AFSP is only the first visit. Upon his return to Hanover, Chris Showalter '99 says he immediately applied for Mellon and Dickey grants "to go back and do a senior thesis utilizing contacts and topics that we visited during the FSP. I did my research in one of the game parks we went to." His fieldwork resulted in an environmental studies senior honors thesis analyzing game ranger observation data on five major wildlife species.

Showalter, who is now working in New York City on the trading desk at Goldman Sachs, can't stay out of Africa. He took the bonus from his first job after graduation to pay for his third trip back. "I have actually been back to southern Africa twice since graduation," he says. "It is fair to say that what I experienced on the trip truly ignited a passion that still exists. I am presently planning to go back this summer on another trip to Botswana."

Not every student returns to the College with such fervor. The Africa FSP struggles between being "experiential" and "academic." Students want to experience Africa, to "chill out" in the African bush. "I think probably the majority of what I learned took place outside the classroom walls," says Anne Kneedler '00, who recently completed two years in the Peace Corps in West Africa. "Those afternoons spent in the markets were a great part of the learning experience."

True enough, but Africa is physically and emotionally challenging, and unforgiving of mistakes. I emphasize—maybe over-emphasize—safety in numbers. That often means traveling, studying and living close together. "We traveled as a herd," Laura Garzon '02 says, "and thus experienced our surroundings as a herd. At times I believe I could have become better acquainted with the African people on my own or in a smaller group, but in terms of comfort and safety I would rather travel in a larger party."

The experiential can also enhance the academic. Like many of the students, Pascal Lalonde '02 got much of his education in Africa from discussions over dinner with his urban home-stay family. "One of the most valuable things I learned in Africa is how to see the world through other peoples eyes," he says. "I learned a lot from my African host family, from an 11-and a 4-year-old. I learned about how little I knew, and how little I still know."

Academically, during the 12-week program students take three courses taught by African instructors. They should come back to Dartmouth with a better understanding of the tensions between resource scarcities and development, wildlife management and indigenous peoples, land use challenges and gender issues. Some of the greatest opportunities are in the field. For example, work on African wildlife "took me outside my own focus of study—environmental anthropology—to the realm of biology and ecology," says Garzon. "The skills we practiced in interpreting tracks, observing animal behavior and identifying species have enriched my experiences in the wilderness ever since."

Based on my 14 years of university teaching, I've come to believe that Dartmouth holds one distinct advantage over Professor Feinberg's sample: Other universities and programs send their students overseas. At Dartmouth, we take ours.

Dartmouth professors accompany students on each of its 17 language study and 26 foreign study programs. Every academic year, about 650 Dartmouth students—more than 15 percent of the undergraduates—travel overseas on programs from Beijing to Glasgow, Pretoria to St. Petersburg. We get to share our research interests and our excitement for different cultures and people with our students.

Am I wasting my time? My little unscientific survey answers Professor Feinberg's troubling question: There may be no more rewarding way to spend my time.

JACK SHEPHERD is a professor in the environmental studies department.