Study abroad is one of Furman’s most impressive and distinct educational offerings. While most every institution of higher education sends its students abroad, few do so in a manner comparable to us. While this is true of our study abroad program in general, I am particularly referring to our non-residential travel study programs, which occur mostly, but not exclusively during winter term. I suggest that any discussion of our future curriculum and calendar make the preservation of our existing travel study program a priority. If this can not be done with proposed changes to our curriculum and calendar, then I recommend we limit those changes to avoid losing this precious aspect of our curriculum.
Allow me to use the Spring 2004 program in Latin America as an
example. As part of that trip we went to El Salvador with the objective
of studying the civil conflict of the 1980s. Because much of the
fighting occurred in the rural Eastern areas, we embarked on a
three-day trip from the capital city of San Salvador to the far eastern
province of Morazan. While there, we went to the small village of El
Mozote, which was subject to an army massacre in December, 1981. The
army killed nearly 1,000 unarmed, non-guerrilla peasants in two days as
part of a counter-insurgency campaign. This was a major international
event that defined the civil conflicts in the 1980s. Only one person
survived that massacre, a woman named Rufina Amaya. Owing to our
contacts in El Salvador, Amaya joined us for the trip to El Mozote,
where she provided us with an eye-witness description of the massacre.
In addition to meeting Amaya, the students interviewed ranking military
officers and read academic analyses of El Mozote.
This combination of personal encounter and academic study not only
provided the students with a deeply personal experience, but also
allowed them to directly engage questions of oral testimony and
“truth” in warfare. In my opinion, this day at El Mozote
epitomized a successful study travel program.
But this type of experience is dependent upon two particular
conditions, and it is the defense of these conditions that I believe
Furman as an institution should make a priority in any future
discussions of curriculum and calendar. The first condition is the
number of students. If more than 30 or 35 students had been on that
trip, going to El Mozote and meeting Amaya would have been impossible.
Food, lodging and transportation would have been either economically or
practically infeasible. Certainly, the fact that we were in El
Salvador, a developing country not prepared for large group travel, was
a factor. But that in and of itself should be sufficient to make such a
travel study a priority, for it is places like El Salvador and El
Mozote that our students need to visit. But, actually, this
infrastructural challenge applies to almost anyplace in the world. The
number of students on a study abroad more or less defines curricular
possibilities. A group of more than 35 students is too large to eat,
sleep, move around or listen to on-site speakers without either sending
our students out individually (which is impossible in many places) or
limiting ourselves to those destinations that cater to mass tourism
(which also severely limits our options). Even if a destination allowed
either of these options, exercising them would undermine the coherence
of small group travel, which in pedagogical terms allows the travel
study experience to become a “mobile classroom” or
“traveling seminar,” where students and faculty are
interdependently engaged.
This brings me to the second condition; the directing presence of FU
faculty on travel study programs. Many , if not most other universities
farm out their study abroad programs to other institutions or
organizations, which means, in short, that the actual teaching is
rarely, if ever done by their faculty. Furman has programs like this,
where our faculty serve as overseers or are not actually present, and
such programs are meritorious, but arguably the distinct aspect of
Furman’s study abroad options is our travel study programs where
Furman students are taught on the ground by Furman faculty. For me
personally, this type of teaching has been the most meaningful aspect
of my professional career. It is as if I am teaching my on-campus
course abroad with direct access to the people and places being
studied. The educational growth of my students during these experiences
is immediately palpable.
I am concerned that changes to our calendar or curriculum have the
potential to undermine our travel study options. How else can we get 35
or fewer students with two faculty members abroad for up to seven or
eight weeks with mobility as the curricular priority? Our current
wing-term programs are mostly residential in nature. The Spring 2004
Latin America was designed as a travel program, but it is not a viable
long-term option. The reduced teaching load that made it possible taxed
the faculty members’ departments and the institution as a whole.
Already, faculty members face the difficulty arranging their personal
lives to be abroad for up to twelve weeks in Fall term. If we were to
change to a semester system, this problem would only be exacerbated by
the longer terms. Furthermore, in a semester system the students would
likely take four courses per semester, which would effectively
eliminate the possibility of small-group travel study, because it would
be extremely difficult to cover that many courses with only two faculty
members. If Furman were to try to squeeze travel study into an
abbreviated January term or a “May-mester,” we would be
reducing the time and opportunity for travel and also relegating travel
study to a curricular appendage rather than an educational centerpiece.
The worst-case scenario for the future of study abroad at Furman is
that we end up like so many other institutions and farm out our
students’ education to others. If our proposed changes can allow
small groups of Furman students to go abroad with their Furman faculty
members for more than one month at a time in a travel-seminar format,
then we should encourage those changes. But if our proposed changes
disallow this curricular option, then we would be undermining one of
the great features of a Furman education. As I look back to our
experience in El Mozote in Spring 2004, we should do whatever it takes
to insure that such opportunities remain possible for future Furman
students.