New Course Helps Students Develop Strategies for Global Change

CSC News & Reflections
Spring 2004

It’s been a few months since Kate Belden returned from working in refugee camp in Bangkok, but she’s only now unpacking her emotional and spiritual bags from the trip.

In her position with the National Catholic Commission on Migrants, she worked with people that suffered from political oppression, natural disasters, wars, and even their squalid warehousing in the slums of Bangkok. Coming to terms with her experience proved to be one of the most difficult challenges of all.

“ I was guilty,” confesses the Notre Dame senior, who participated in the International Summer Service Learning Program, “I felt guilty for my life of privilege when there are so many suffering. I also felt a sense of hopelessness at the awful conditions faced by so many.”

Yet, the experience abroad must lead to something more than guilt, soul searching and questions. That’s precisely what Greg Downey, assistant professor of Anthropology, was thinking when he designed a new course, “Cultural Differences and Social Change,” to help returning students keep the experience alive and incorporate it in their academic studies. The course was established through a Course Development Grant from the Center for Social Concerns and with funding from the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies.

“As an anthropologist, I know that the readjustment process is often more difficult than the adjustment process for students,” said Downey. “My goal was to help students to find strategies for the social problems they were exposed to.”

“ In essence, to move them from personal experience, to recognition of how the world works, to thinking pragmatically about how one might make a life out of trying to effect change.”
In the first part of the class, students write and reflect on their experiences abroad. Many of the writings delve into the personal insights of working with those at the margins of these societies.

“ When they start to talk to each other, they begin to wonder why humble circumstances are the fate of so many,” said Downey.

The students then begin to analyze the social structures and explore the reasons why so many people around the world face these conditions.

They conduct research to better understand the sites they visited, study the broader global, regional, and national patterns.

“ The final component deals with what can be done to change the situation by looking at effective projects. This effort aims to move students to the point of looking for realistic solutions to the problems facing so many,” said Downey.

In the case of Kate Belden, her experience abroad—and her thinking about her experience—has pushed her to take action.

On campus, she has formed the “Free Burma Coalition” to focus attention on the humanitarian abuses of the repressive regime ruling Burma.

In the longer term, she is exploring the possibility of doing a year or more of postgraduate service work.

“ My experience abroad was a life changing event for me,” said Belden. “It has changed my life by exposing me to the conditions that so many around the world face.
“ But, for it to have a lasting impact on me, I need to work to address these problems.”