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Field Sites 2003GIEU Site - Beijing, ChinaMaking a Difference: International exploration of community health field study in Beijing, China Abstract: University of Michigan undergraduate students interested in development of health promotion activities and delivery of health care to culturally diverse communities will benefit from sharing of ideas with Chinese undergraduate students living in a different culture and political environment. A project, funded by the Kellogg Foundation began six years ago with the University of Michigan and Beijing University to develop a partnership between the Schools of Nursing. This project also works in close collaboration with China's Ministry of Health. As a continuation of this partnership, four to six undergraduate students will accompany two school of Nursing faculty members to Beijing and Tianjin, in rural China for three weeks. Students in all pre-health disciplines are encouraged to apply. GIEU Site - Shanghai, ChinaWhat Does it Take to Launch a Successful Global Engineering Operation? Abstract: A student's task will be to investigate a global operation that has taken place in Shanghai, focusing on some of the issues encountered by that company in ramping up/maintaining its operations with its global partner. Although the focus is on engineering operations, the GIEU experience is open to on-engineering majors. Students will choose an example of a global operation and research background motivations behind the global operation both before and during their study/work abroad experience. In addition, they will be required to perform interviews on both sides of the ocean in order to compare perspectives on cross-cultural issues related to the operation. Students will be hosted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), a major academic partner of the College of Engineering. Students will live in SJTU dorms and contacts to on-site corporations will be facilitated by our administrative partners at SJTU. Students will develop a number of skills in order to decipher and integrate the knowledge they receive via these "case study" presentations and interviews. GIEU Site - DetroitService Learning in Inner-City Detroit Abstract: The central purpose of this project is to provide students with a comprehensive experience of living, working, and studying in inner-city Detroit. In particular, the project will dispel stereotypes and promote intercultural understanding by bridging racial, ethnic, class, and geographic divides. Students will live for four weeks at the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership. The Boggs Center is a combination of think tank and incubator of community activism. In cooperation with the multi-ethnic leadership of the Boggs Center, students will go on tours of Detroit and foster discussion of readings and videos placing the history of immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and whites in Detroit into a broader context of race relations and American urban history. Every weekday, students will work on a community project, such as painting a mural, planting a community garden, or rehabilitating a house. GIEU Site - East AfricaEco-Explorers East Africa Abstract: This interdisciplinary program uses art, science, technology, and distance learning to reach several thousand local school children. The group will be composed of undergraduate students, 2 U of M faculty, and up to 4 Michigan elementary and middle school teachers. The subject foci will include: Michigan and African ecosystems, African anthropology, African culture, and North American and African politics. The program emphasizes experiential learning through personal observation and wilderness experience along with local home-stays and school interaction. Students from all disciplines and levels of study are encouraged to apply for the winter course Art and Design 484/684 with meets once a week on Fridays from 1-5 PM in Science Illustration Field Sketching. Please be sure to visit: http://www.lib.umich.edu/ecoexplorers/ for more information about the program and to see results of past projects which link distant ecosystems to local school students and uses U of M students to moderate the exchange.
GIEU Site - Morazan, HondurasMaking a Difference: International Community Service Learning Abstract: Students will accompany a Doctorally prepared Lecturer III nurse-midwife from the Departments of Women's Studies and Obstetrics and Gynecology and a research associate to Morazan, Honduras for three weeks. The students will be placed in home stays in pairs or alone. Students will be assigned to one of four different social service organizations (non-governmental organizations, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Public Health) functioning within Morazan or outlying villages. This project was conducted last year in the same site with a slightly different focus and was very successful. All of the sites have requested continued participation in the project. Students must have the equivalent of at least two semesters of college-level Spanish. GIEU Site - IndiaDialogue Across Margins: Culture, Gender and Empowerment Among Minorities Abstract: The purpose of the project is to engage students in a dialogue with ethnic minority female students in India in order to explore notions of gender and class from the margins of privilege. The team wishes to particularly recruit African American female U of M students into this experience. This cultural dialogue between women who are marginalized within their cultures will foster an understanding of how social location and stratification affect women's lives in different countries. They will learn from each other about their strategies to overcome both institutional as well as everyday discrimination. The initiative is modeled after existing programs at the U of M such as Inter-group Relations (IGR). Readings and discussion will focus on the intersections of ethnicity, class and gender in the United States and the parallels and divergence with culture and experiences in India. The students will also be trained to collect narrative data, learn techniques of qualitative data collection, and practice narrating their own life stories in terms of contact or understanding of experiences of privilege. The group will then travel to Tamilnadu, India to spend two weeks during the summer of 2003 with eight bilingual Dalit women students. GIEU Site - Oaxaca, MexicoHealth and Illness in the Mexican Context Site Leader: Jody Lori Abstract: The proposed program, Health and Illness in the Mexican Context, is a 3-week program in Oaxaca designed to support the development of cultural competence in students with an interest in the health professions; examine health and illness from an ecological framework; and examine the relation between Mexican cultural beliefs and health and illness practices. This cultural immersion experience includes a variety of experiential learning experiences, including observations in health care settings and discussions with lay and professional health providers, and home-stays will provide students with a panorama of health and illness in Mexico. While in Oaxaca, students will experience a cultural immersion. In coordination with the Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca, students will be provided with a panorama of the Mexican health system including private, government, and traditional healing experiences and institutions. In addition, students will live with a Oaxacan family. This will provide an opportunity to participate in Oaxacan life. GIEU Site - PhilippinesCulture, Language, and Public Policy in the Philippines Abstract: This project is designed to provide undergraduate students with practical experiences in intercultural cooperation through language as they help in the implementation of an international housing project in a developing country, the Philippines. They will be introduced to the national language of the Philippines, the people, aspects of the culture, and specific areas and applications of public policy in the country. The student experience rests upon a foundation of previously established and ongoing relationships with Habitat for Humanity of the Philippines, with residents of the Bajumpandan community of Dumaguete City, with a number of universities, and with the public schools in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental. The project is a rich design of instruction, language and cultural immersion, and actual partnership work. It will provide the students with content learning, international experience, opportunity for the contribution of labor, practice in language use, and more importantly, time to communicate and establish friendships with Filipinos and with student peers in at least two universities. GIEU Site - Geneva, SwitzerlandScience: Practice and Culture Abstract: This GIEU field study program has been created for University of Michigan physical science students at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. This would provide both an unparalleled opportunity for research at one of the world's leading international laboratories as well as a special opportunity for students to expand their cultural horizon by directly working on projects with students from other nations and visiting sites of historic relevance to the development of modern science. This GIEU program is the opportunity to study and explore facets of scientific culture at the places where the science was born. Scientifically, the CERN research experience is a hands-on research experience in modern physics and engineering areas. Most of the students need some physics background and expertise with computers, particularly with the language C++. During the Ann Arbor orientation period, the program makes "loaner laptops" available to the students and provides some introductory instruction in C++ for those that need it. GIEU Site - ThailandThailand—Experiencing is True Learning Abstract: Undergraduate students will be placed in homestays either in pairs or individually. This will give them opportunities to observe the every-day lives of Thai families as well as to practice the language. For the first two weeks of the Project, students will stay in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, and will conduct field study work at one of the following three social service organizations: the Slum Children Project, AIDS Education Project, and the Education for Women Project. For the third week and fourth weeks of the Project, the students will travel to regions of Thailand other than Bangkok to learn about and experience Thailand's diversity. Priority will be given, but not limited, to students who have taken Thai language classes for at least two semesters at the University of Michigan since this is a unique opportunity for them to learn more about the country of the language they have chosen to study as part of their undergraduate education.
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The University of Michigan | Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates |
