Four UC Davis undergraduates took on the challenge of being international correspondents this summer to show how they see nature intersecting with culture in the broader world.
During various four-week Summer Sessions classes, these students are e-mailing photos and journal entries about their discoveries home to UC Davis, where they will be featured on the campus's home page. The campus is invited to log on at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/abroad04/ to read about their explorations of the world outside American culture.
The topics to be explored include the post-apartheid era and AIDS in South Africa, aboriginal storytelling in Australia, Scottish heritage and language, and the search for Irish writers' inspirations.
Participants are Ian MacKenzie and Erin Loury, two students interested in the biological sciences who just finished their freshman year; Pamela Reynolds, who will be a senior next year double-majoring in nature and culture and the biological sciences; and graduating senior Michelle Evans, also a nature and culture major.
The instructors, all members of the Univ-ersity Writing Program and veteran Summer Sessions Abroad teachers, are Jared Haynes, James McElroy and Eric Schroeder.
The first correspondent, MacKenzie, has more than a half-dozen dispatches posted on the Web site, ranging from how he learned to deal with extreme poverty in a Cape Town township to encountering American music and clothing in the South African malls and clubs.
When interviewed by the California Aggie recently, MacKenzie wrote, "I try to write about things that someone might (care) about or haven't heard about…people in the States don't hear about South Africa too much." He also said he hopes the journal entries will encourage undergraduate Web readers to "get out and see some place different."
In focusing on these students' experiences, the project highlights the campus's growing strength in international education, including internships and service projects.
"What we're realizing is the importance of both traditional educational opportunities and the experiential learning in global areas," says Dennis Dutschke, associate vice provost for international programs.
He points out that the number of students who study abroad or participate in internships has increased tenfold in the past decade through a gradual expansion of opportunities, including more Summer Sessions classes and the quarter-long study-abroad classes initiated in 1997. The increase in student interest is such that last year roughly 20 percent of graduating seniors had some form of international educational experience.
The Internship and Career Center pitched in to assist with the new Web project by offering the students a transcript notation that they participated as "international intern correspondents." Linda Hughes, program manager for the center, procured a digital camera for one student and a digital video camera that will be used by the students going to South Africa and Scotland to record their experiences. That video footage will be used for campus NewsWatch coverage of the students' experiences, which will be carried by KVIE-TV, the local public broadcasting station, as well as UCTV.
The project also highlights the campus's singular focus in educating students who have deeply explored the interaction between nature and culture.
"The college-educated person needs to ask what are the ways you can gain reliable notions about the world and yourself," says David Robertson of English, one of the founders of the Nature and Culture Program and a national figure in the eco-criticism movement. "Every student who majors in nature and culture is challenged to see if they can figure out what the relationship is between science and the arts."
One of the students participating in the project, Reynolds, is the peer adviser for the major. She expects her trip to Ireland will continue that inquiry.
"It's not a question of what we're studying -- because we study anything you can think of on topics from philosophy to Shakespeare to the evolution of humans," she says. "The point is we're learning to make a personalized relationship with our world and to see how we fit in it."
The summer abroad Web site is the second in a new effort to use the Web to feature UC Davis student learning experiences. (The first, Vietnam Through News Eyes, is available at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/vietnam/.)