GW Classes Travel the World

By Jamie L. Freedman

From the mountains of Peru to Trafalgar Square, GW students and professors are journeying far beyond Foggy Bottom to examine a wide range of academic issues through a global lens.

The University offers an array of courses with short-term, faculty-led overseas components, the majority administered by the Office of Study Abroad. Classes run the gamut from Survey of International Economics in China to Sustainable Tourism Development in the Dominican Republic.

“This year, we’re sponsoring 23 short-term abroad programs,” says Lucienne Jugant, associate director of study abroad, who oversees the offerings. “The programs, which typically run for one week to one month, have increased in scope and popularity in recent years.”

Short-term abroad options are also offered directly through GW’s individual schools. One example is the Dean’s Scholars in Globalization Program in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Established in 2004, the cross-disciplinary, two-year program is high­lighted by an annual international research expedition. This past August, Steven Livingston, professor of media and public affairs and international affairs, led a group of rising sophomores to Latin America to examine firsthand the role of nongovernmental organiza­tions and the media in redressing human rights abuses.

“We spent a week in Chile and a week in Peru meeting with key players, including human rights workers and government officials, and visiting sites such as a laboratory in Santiago where forensic anthropologists use genetic testing to identify the remains of people killed by the military during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship,” says Dr. Livingston.

A highlight of the trip was attending the trial of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who is accused of corruption and human rights abuses. “At one point, we were no more than 20 feet away from him, and we spoke with one of the lead prosecutors. The access was amazing.” The group also met with former Chilean President Eduardo Frei, who is now a senator, and observed the Chilean Senate in session.

“Another powerful experience was visiting the site in Santiago where Pinochet’s henchmen tortured people to death,” says Dr. Livingston. “When you stand in a somber place like that, you really come to appreciate what it means to be involved in a program that emphasizes human rights. It’s incredible to introduce my students to new ideas and then take them to far-off places where they can see, touch, and feel what we were talking about. It is certainly one of the highlights of my 20-year teaching career.”

Livingston and his group of Dean’s Scholars are now preparing for their second international study tour—a trip to Singapore in May. “Singapore presents an alternative of issues, since the nation state does not allow free expression of ideas or an unfettered civil society,” he explains. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for our students to experience a very different society than what they saw in Peru and Chile.”

On the other side of the world, the boardrooms of London are the setting for a popular GW graduate business course led by Jennifer Griffin, associate professor of strategic management and public policy. Students enjoy a privileged, behind-the-scenes look at corporate social impact policies and practices in the United Kingdom and the United States.

“It’s my favorite course of the year,” says Dr. Griffin, who has been taking her classes to London since 2005 for the Office of Study Abroad-sponsored program. “Executives of major corporations invite us into their London boardrooms to contribute to the worldwide conversation on corporate social responsibility, and they could not be more open. It’s an unforgettable experience that you just can’t teach in a classroom.”

Dr. Griffin typically has waiting lists of 100 students annually for the course, which is capped at 20 participants. Highlights of last summer’s trip included visits to Royal Dutch Shell, British American Tobacco, Diageo, and SABMiller. “We focus on tobacco, petrochemical, and alcohol companies because their survival depends on how they manage their corporate impact,” says Dr. Griffin. “Diageo, which is the largest premium drinks company in the world, asked us to be their first focus group on attitudes toward alcohol, and they’ve already invited us to return this spring for the next stage of their research.”

Across the North Sea, 15 Elliott School of International Affairs graduate students spent two weeks in Berlin last summer with Hope Harrison, associate professor of history and international affairs, for the course History, Memory, and Politics in Berlin.

“Berlin is one of the cities where history is most alive and fraught and difficult, so it is a perfect place to take students to witness the intersection between history and politics,” says Dr. Harrison, an expert on Berlin, who has high-level contacts throughout the city.

The group spent the first week looking at the Nazi period, World War II, and the Holocaust, while week two focused on the division of Germany, the Berlin Wall, and the East German regime. “We examined how Germans deal with these very difficult aspects of their history and how highly visible both periods continue to be in Berlin,” Dr. Harrison says.

Students met with prominent German politicians, academics, and museum heads, including the director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and the head of the memorial to the resistance. “There’s no question that one of the biggest highlights of the trip was meeting in the historic Reichstag building with three members of the German parliament, who talked very movingly to us about their personal history of being forced to leave ancestral German lands in western Poland at the end of World War II,” says Dr. Harrison.

Other memorable moments included a visit to the royal palaces in Potsdam, where the students talked at length with a professor of contemporary history about the complicated process of unifying East and West Germany, a tour of the former main prison of the East German secret police, and a visit to the Sachsen­hausen Concentration Camp on the outskirts of Berlin.

“The students came away with a firsthand understanding of the incredible amount of effort the Germans have put into dealing with their difficult history,” says Dr. Harrison. “They don’t sweep it under the rug. Everywhere we looked, there were memorials, museums, and other efforts underway to come to terms with the past. It was truly an unforgettable experience.”

This coming summer, GW professors will be jetting off with their classes to such far-flung destinations as India to study art therapy, South Africa to examine culture and music, Costa Rica to look at international education and policy, and Russia and Ukraine to probe media, power, and public opinion.

Jugant is already hard at work assembling the line-up of short-term study abroad courses for summer 2010. “These are truly life-changing programs, and we look forward to partnering with professors who want to make these opportunities available to their students,” she says.

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