Gustavus Adolphus College junior Marit Isaacson studied abroad SIT Tanzania: Climate Change & Sustainability, Mt. Kilimanjaro to Zanzibar. Next, she heads to Patagonia and Antarctica with SIT. Her story was featured on her college website. It is reprinted here with permission.

When Marit Isaacson was trying to decide how to get the most out of the summer between her sophomore and junior years, she leaned on some Gustavus student services for advice. The Geography and Spanish double-major is also a member of the women’s swim team, and she figured the timing was right to take a brief break from her sport and burnish her post-college credentials.

She started in the Career Center, looking into internship possibilities, and the advisers there also encouraged her to see what study-abroad opportunities she might have. After speaking with people in the Center for International and Cultural Education (CICE), Isaacson decided to venture to Tanzania and Zanzibar to study sustainability and climate change.

Isaacson had 14 classmates in her six-week program but was the only Gustie, which allowed her to make many new connections. “The program included a ton of cool things and places, and we were able to talk to all these local experts” about various environmental and cultural topics, Isaacson said. “I thought traveling like that on my own would have been a lot harder, and everything just lined up with my schedule.”

Just doing the first six-week program made me wish I could do this for longer, so that’s what I’m doing next.

Marit Isaacson

The program … featured classroom instruction and field-based seminars, and excursions to places including a seaweed farm and a marine area where students performed tasks such as measuring coral bleaching. “It was less of a traditional university, with all kinds of guest lecturers coming in to talk to us about their fields,” she said. “We spent time with local fishers and coral reef experts to talk about their livelihoods and working conditions. And we also got to do a lot of snorkeling, which was really cool.”

The students also spent two weeks in homestay visits, which exposed them to traditional Muslim cultural norms. “It was pretty different and very interesting to be immersed in that and see how the gender roles, especially, were very different than what we’re all used to in the United States,” Isaacson said.

… it all came back to how they didn’t have enough water, and how that was that affecting the health of the tribe, and their entire livelihoods, because they’re all either farmers or pastoralists who are affected by this lack of water.

Overall, the experience illuminated how people in other parts of the world have been affected by climate change, particularly as it pertains to how water supplies and usage have influenced the local lifestyles and forced them to keep adapting any number of practices. “In pretty much all cases, it all came back to how they didn’t have enough water, and how that was that affecting the health of the tribe, and their entire livelihoods, because they’re all either farmers or pastoralists who are affected by this lack of water,” Isaacson said. “It actually influences the gender roles, because women are the ones who are responsible for going to get the water, so they have to go farther and farther for it, which affects their ability to stay in school.”

Now that she’s concluded this summer adventure, Isaacson is jumping right into another one. This fall she’ll be in Patagonia in another SIT program that examines humans’ interactions with the environment. “I went into last summer trying to figure out whether I should do an internship or study abroad, and [my advisers] told me either would be beneficial,” she said. “Just doing the first six-week program made me wish I could do this for longer, so that’s what I’m doing next.”

The Smith College journal Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism has awarded SIT alumna Cece Roth-Eagle the Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award for Prose for her piece, Month of Wind/Mes del Viento. In a statement, Meridians described her work as “a masterful blend of narrative with scholarly power.”

Roth-Eagle is a fall 2022 alumna of SIT Argentina: Social Movements and Human Rights. She is a Smith College senior completing her degree in creative writing and Spanish.

Roth-Eagle worked as the managing editor of Emulate Arts & Culture Magazine and recently published her first fiction piece through Zoetic Press.

According to the Meridians statement, the Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award celebrates an author whose work embodies the lyrically powerful and historically engaged nature of Dr. Alexander’s writing. The award aims to highlight different forms of knowledge production that emerge from the artistic, political, and cultural advocacy for transformative change undertaken by women of color nationally, transnationally, and globally.

“Our goal is to make knowledge production by and about women of color central to contemporary definitions of feminisms in the explorations of women’s economic conditions, cultures, and sexualities, as well as the forms and meanings of resistance and activist strategies. Our award winners’ writings exemplify the spirit and mission of Meridians with their winning pieces.”

The Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award winners are chosen each year by the Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism Creative Writing Advisory Board.

Registration now open for nearly 40 SIT summer programs

If you haven’t yet begun planning for next summer, this is a great time to start.

Registration opens Wednesday, Sept. 15, for 38 SIT summer 2022 study abroad opportunities. Included are new programs that encompass art and social change in Eastern Europe; hip-hop music and decoloniality in Senegal; climate change in Jordan; peace-building and human rights in the Balkans; human trafficking in the Netherlands; food security in Italy; epidemiology in Argentina; and urban design and social justice in Spain.

“SIT has historically expanded the frontiers of international education, creating global opportunities of learning and cultural immersion for thousands of students a year across all continents,” notes SIT Dean of Faculty Dr. Said Graiouid. “The summer 2022 portfolio maintains that tradition with programs that focus on social, political, economic and scientific arenas and in diverse historical periods and geographical settings.”

Students are challenged to embrace a human-centered, comparative approach …”

SIT’s immersive programs next summer will take place in sub-Saharan Africa, the Asia Pacific region, Europe, and the Middle East/North Africa.

SIT will also once again offer virtual internships that allow undergraduates to build invaluable professional and academic experience on a range of subjects. These include two Jordan internships, in counseling and humanitarian action, and in community empowerment and climate change; women’s rights in Cameroon; education and social change in Chile; sustainability in India; public health in Kenya; human rights in Serbia; diplomacy and international relations in South Africa; and development and gender in Vietnam.

Regardless of which program they choose, says Graiouid, “students are challenged to embrace a human-centered, comparative approach in which they engage with resources and the competencies needed for the development of the skills of critical literacy, intercultural communication, and intellectual polity.”

Alix Swann, an international studies major at Spelman College, did a virtual internship on the Chile program in fall 2020 in which she worked with a women’s collective that fights street sexual harassment. Alix’s task was to teach about U.S. laws and policies on sexual harassment in the workplace and digital sexual harassment.

“Before this internship, my viewpoint was solely from a U.S. perspective, and I now no longer try to relate everything to the U.S.,” she says.

Yardena Meyerhoff, a physics and astronomy major at Whitman College, also did the Chile program, interning with the Colegio de Profesoras y Profesores de Chile to conduct a comparative analysis of Chile’s standardized testing system and the effect of standardized testing on student learning and development.

“My meetings with my internship advisor were very organic and natural and would often go in fascinating and sometimes unexpected directions. Our conversations made me think about my own experiences with education growing up in Minnesota, and how education systems around the world suffer from similar inequalities,” Yardena recalls.

SIT’s virtual language programs have also been popular during the pandemic. Language options for summer 2022 include all levels of Arabic (from Jordan); Swahili (Kenya); Hindi (India); Nepali and Tibetan (Nepal).

New SIT programs for summer 2022 are:

Argentina: Epidemiology and Healthcare Management—Through SIT’s close partnership with ISALUD, the nation’s top health university and think tank, examine urban epidemiology, health inequalities, and the challenges of managing health services and policies to expand access to healthcare.

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Czech Republic: Studio Arts—Explore photography, creative writing, or contemporary dance through an intensive arts workshop while examining debates around art, politics, and society.

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Italy: Food Security and Nutrition—Delve into sustainable agriculture on a Tuscan estate and explore how international experts are confronting challenges of food security, nutrition, and health.

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Jordan: Community Empowerment and Climate Change Internship—Gain professional experience with a UN or government agency or NGO working with youth and vulnerable groups on community empowerment and environmental sustainability.

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Netherlands: Human Trafficking, Sex Trade, and Modern Slavery in Europe—Examine diverse areas of human trafficking and the sex trade, including the relationship between sex workers and broader societies.

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Senegal: Hip-Hop, Resilience, and Black Struggles—Examine how young Africans use hip-hop to question traditional representations of Africa, imagine the continent’s future, and raise consciousness of globalization and (in)equality.

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Serbia: Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and Memory Activism Internship—Look at justice, human rights, and memory in post-conflict societies and contribute to the work of an important organization with a meaningful internship.

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Spain: Sustainable Urban Development and Social Justice—Explore the approaches Spanish cities are taking to pursue sustainable urban development within a social justice framework.

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Switzerland: Global Health and Development Policy—Compare public health systems within the framework of international and sustainable development, humanitarian action, human rights, and social justice.

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For more information about these and all SIT Study Abroad programs, visit www.studyabroad.sit.edu.

Argentina: Public Health in Urban Environments

During Women’s History Month, SIT is spotlighting some of our extraordinary academic and program directors across the globe who are making history today through their thinking, their words, and their actions.

What’s your academic discipline and what inspired you to pursue it?

I studied sociology, inspired by the possibility of making a contribution by designing and implementing social policies to improve more disadvantaged people’s living conditions. Sociology as a scientific discipline allows us to understand how society and social systems work. It sheds light on the social and individual problems I have been working on in the field of public health.

Who is your hero and why do you admire her?

I most admire women who are sensitive to social injustice, inequities, and other people’s suffering; women who take action — even at the smallest possible scale — to promote rights and well-being in any way they can, and not get discouraged at the complexity or extent of the problem.

A great example for me was in my adolescence my American host mother, Julieta Saucedo Bencomo. She was an extremely generous, warm, and courageous woman who was the heart of a wonderful family and worked hard for vulnerable people. She was strongly determined to make a difference in her community.

Understanding that education plays a key role in empowering the unprivileged, she advocated for making education accessible to special groups like incarcerated youth. She was the first Latina to serve on the Arizona State Board of Education. Her activism extended to other areas like older Americans and immigrants’ rights and she was ready to support any cause related to human rights.

Why do you teach?

To promote critical thinking, sensitivity for social problems, and the desire to contribute to a better world. Something wonderful about teaching is that it is the best way to learn and go deeper in the knowledge of your area of expertise; you will be always challenged in the most rewarding way.

What advice would you offer young women?

Concerning your professional career, feel free to choose to do what you can enjoy, work hard, and try to enjoy everything you do. Always take the time to listen to yourself and to others, and to care for yourself as you care for others. Have a plan and set your priorities, not forgetting about pleasure.

When you go down in history, what do you want to be known for?

I would like to be recognized as someone who enjoyed life, family, friendship, and work; someone who was always ready to value others’ efforts and achievements and contributed in a way so that others could blossom into the best version of themselves.

By Rebecca Goldfine

This story was originally published on the Bowdoin College website. It is reprinted here with permission.

During her study-abroad semester in Buenos Aires with the School for International Training (SIT), Ilana Olin investigated an aspect of Argentina’s healthcare system markedly different from the US system.

In Argentina, all citizens must adhere to a mandatory schedule of state-sponsored vaccines. “People in Argentina generally believe they have a right to health care,” Olin said. To put this belief into practice, the government both requires vaccines and also ensures everyone has access to them.

Inevitably, this process excludes any personal antipathy to vaccinations. “Parents don’t have a say in whether their children get vaccinated in the way they do here,” Olin added. 

People were shocked when I asked, ‘Well, what if the parents don’t want the vaccine?’

As part of her study-abroad program’s curriculum, Olin pursued an independent research project analyzing the rollout of a recent policy requiring all Argentinian children receive the chicken pox vaccination. The addition of this particular vaccine to the National Calendar of Vaccinations served as a case study for Olin to explore how a nation’s “ideology around health care is reflected in its laws and in its practice,” she explained.

“People were shocked when I asked, ‘Well, what if the parents don’t want the vaccine?” she recalled. Olin interviewed six Argentinians who had been directly involved in drafting and implementing the 2015 chicken pox vaccination plan. Her objective was to “understand the process by which national authorities and a technical-scientific team came to the decision to add the chicken pox vaccine to the National Vaccination Calendar as a policy of expanding health rights.”

She wrote up her findings in a paper, which was recently published by Universidad iSALUD’s journal for faculty and student research, Revista Isalud. Olin is fluent in Spanish, and also received writing assistance from a Spanish tutor to polish her piece.

I arrived with my [American] understanding of rights relating to health care and sought to understand a system in which fundamentally different assumptions are made, and that makes the case study more interesting.

It is rare for SIT students — who are all from the United States and who are only in Argentina for a short time — to have work published by iSALUD, the nation’s top health university. Olin said she thought her philosophical approach to the topic, as well as her perspective as an American, gave her work wider appeal. 

“I arrived with my [American] understanding of rights relating to health care and sought to understand a system in which fundamentally different assumptions are made, and that makes the case study more interesting,” she said.

Within the field of philosophy, Olin has been particularly drawn to the study of bioethics, as it brings together her interests in both philosophy and medicine. “I am interested in the principles underlying health care systems. My philosophy education at Bowdoin has focused on moral theory, and that was something I was interested in when I went to Argentina: seeing how different beliefs around morality influence health care,” she said.

She is currently applying to MD/PhD programs to pursue a career as a physician-scientist involved in both research and patient care. She also hopes to work in a diverse community where her fluency can better serve Spanish-speaking patients.

Olin anticipates that her experience in Argentina will shape her path in the years to come. “It was fascinating to see how moral judgments can influence what healthcare policy looks like in practice,” she said. “As I look to enter the worlds of medicine, science, and health care, seeing how the cultural values we have can determine patient outcomes is something that I feel like I am now better equipped to face.”

A conversation with Academic Director Dr. Agustina Triquell

Can you describe for us what this program is about?

This program is focused on understanding how art is a privileged language to denounce and to gain visibility for different communities, as well as to heal collectively traumatic pasts.

How do you approach that over a six-week period?

Through experiential learning, which literally means getting down to work in a workshop dynamic, experiencing with your own hands, your body, and your camera how different artistic media can be useful for this purpose. Our program also offers language training, a week-long photography workshop, and many possibilities to meet political activists and artists that make up the contemporary Buenos Aires cultural and artistic scene.

Students will interact with a range of emerging and established artists and community leaders and consider the important role of the arts in Buenos Aires´political and social life.

We take students to museums, trauma and memory centers, LGBTQI+ organizations. Students learn through Argentina’s most interesting art projects, dealing with literature, filmmaking, theater and music. Students will interact with a range of emerging and established artists and community leaders and consider the important role of the arts in Buenos Aires´political and social life.

Why one student chose Argentina: Memory & Social Activism Through the Arts

Students will keep a personal logbook as well as a collective blog with their field notes, images, and reflections on the experience. The first three modules will deal with memories of the traumatic past and the last three will focus on contemporary issues and debates.

Where is the program based?

We’re based in Buenos Aires, one of the most important cities in Latin America, with 24/7 cultural and political activity up and down the city. Theaters, music, museums and every corner in every neighborhood vibrates with political stances and art.

… an unparalleled collective production of artistic work … has allowed people of multiple generations to work through the horrors of the past and advocate for social change in an extraordinarily inclusive manner.

In Buenos Aires, art has a lot to do in this visual dimension of social movements: representing and performing struggles against inequalities in the street, demonstrations, theaters and museums. In recent decades, the state and corporate funders, as well as alternative projects, NGOs, and groups working on the city streets, have propelled an unparalleled collective production of artistic work which has allowed people of multiple generations to work through the horrors of the past and advocate for social change in an extraordinarily inclusive manner. From street corner murals to large museums of international renown to tiny galleries, theatres, and bars, the city exudes creativity and intellectual engagement.

Students will explore Buenos Aires to ask how art has offered recent generations of porteñxs (Buenos Aires residents) a diverse means of voicing discontent and of advocating for gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights.

We will examine how contemporary artists, writers, and filmmakers work through the past and re-imagine the present through art. How are artists using new technologies and new mediums to develop and extend their messages, and bring Buenos Aires´concerns into dialogue with global issues?

Can you talk more about the current social and political environment?

The “green wave” that flooded the streets of Buenos Aires with multiple women, LGBTQI+ and social movements in general during the Congress discussion of abortion legalization is here to stay. The strong relationship between NiUnaMenos experience – one of the most important women’s rights movements in the region – and the learnings from other women, Madres and Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, who erupted in the public sphere to claim for the appearance of their sons and daughters kidnapped by state terrorism, is profoundly bonded in their shared conception of the importance of making visible their struggles.

What can students expect when they arrive in Buenos Aires?

Once we have completed orientation week and you have met your homestay family, we will start the seminar and language period in Buenos Aires. During the first part of our program, we will examine the issues related to Argentina´s past, the wounds of the last dictatorship and how they were collectively healed through human rights movements and artistic activism.

We will also meet artists who are directly involved with this past: sons and daughters of desaparecidos (people kidnapped by the military government) that make movies, plays, and photographs as a way of resilience.

Students take Spanish classes in the morning in the level best suited to each student. For students who already speak Spanish, we have a self-guided course option. These Spanish classes are usually in the morning, and in the afternoon we have the thematic seminar. Sometimes we are out and about; sometimes we have classes in our program center at the Insituto para Desarrollo Economico y Social (IDES).

We will visit historical places such as Plaza de Mayo and the impressive memory center Espacio de la Memoria y Derechos Humanos (ex Esma), which was one of Argentina’s biggest clandestine detention centers during the last dictatorship from 1976-1983.

We will also meet artists who are directly involved with this past: sons and daughters of desaparecidos (people kidnapped by the military government) that make movies, plays, and photographs as a way of resilience.

Will students travel to areas outside of Buenos Aires?

The third week of our program we will head to Córdoba, the famous hotbed where many political leaders were brought up. Having the second oldest University in Latin America (more than 400 years!) Córdoba is nicknamed “la Docta,” which means “the learned” in Latin, for this intense university lifestyle and for being the place where the “Universidad laica, pública y gratuita” (secular, state, and free university) stand was created and is constantly defended in every economic crisis we have faced.

What other dimensions of resistance will students experience in Córdoba?

We will learn about Cordobazo, the historical struggle that brought together workers and students like never before and was the key event that served as the beacon to all the political raisings and insurrections in the region during the ’70s. By the end of the week and heading also in the second part of our seminar, we will visit LGBTQI+ organizations as well as art projects that work with children in marginalized communities to compare afterwards with similar projects in Buenos Aires.

… we will visit LGBTQI+ organizations as well as art projects that work with children in marginalized communities to compare afterwards with similar projects in Buenos Aires.

Can you describe some of the other aspects of the program?

Back from Córdoba, the last three weeks of our program we will be moving a lot around Buenos Aires, meeting widely different projects and organizations in a range that goes from the Trans Memory Archive to an ex-inmate educational project in the outskirts of the city, from the Sex Workers Labor union to a cooking as art project with migrant women, focusing on different artistic repertoires that each of them display in the public sphere: performance, painting and stencil, photography and film. To do so, this part of the program has an intense mobile art studio dynamic, where we will explore in our own hands how these resources can be used to denounce, to be heard and seen, both in the street and online.

Six weeks may seem a short period of time but this is an intense program that will definitely help you improve your Spanish and hopefully embody an experience that will live in you forever! We are hoping that you join us this summer in this experience!

Daniela Chavez is excited to study memory and social activism through the arts

This story originally appeared on the website of University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts. It is reprinted here with permission.

Lincoln, Neb. — Daniela Chavez, a junior art and art history double major with a minor in human rights from Grand Island, Nebraska, is one of 17 undergraduate students at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln to earn a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to study abroad between Dec. 2019 and October 2020.

Chavez will study “Memory and Social Activism Through the Arts” in Argentina through the School for International Training next summer from June 22 until Aug. 2, 2020.

“I’m pretty excited,” she said. “I was pretty surprised, actually. I was having a hard time finding the right program for me. Luckily, I came upon the program in Argentina, and I applied for it and I applied for the Gilman. It feels good.”

The Gilman is a nationally competitive scholarship awarded twice a year by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Institute of International Education. Recently adjusted application cycles have given students the opportunity to apply several months in advance of their program and allows students to finalize their plans with the reassurance of funding.

The Gilman Scholarship Program supports underrepresented undergraduates who might not otherwise participate due to financial constraints and aims to encourage students to study and intern in a diverse array of countries and to study languages, especially critical-need languages.

Her combined interests in human rights, art history and studio art led her to ‘Memory and Social Activism Through the Arts’ in Argentina.

“One of the benefits of having faculty advisors in the Hixson-Lied College is that we can really shepherd students through an individualized academic path that maximizes their potential,” said Associate Professor of Art Sandra Williams, who helped guide Chavez in the application process. “Advising also allows you to continue mentoring students when you no longer have them in class. Studying abroad for long-term programs can be daunting, so supporting them in formulating a game plan, cobbling together resources at the department, college, university and national levels takes away some of the anxiety, at least some of the financial anxiety, and builds self-efficacy; this is essential when going on a big adventure like this. Daniela tirelessly searched for a program that would be a perfect fit.

“Her combined interests in human rights, art history and studio art led her to ‘Memory and Social Activism Through the Arts’ in Argentina. The skills acquired through competing for a national award like this will serve her well as she transitions into the professional field or continues on to masters and doctorate programs. And of course, living and studying in Argentina will be transformative as well.”

As part of “Memory and Social Activism Through the Arts,” Chavez will be creating a photo essay.

“Specifically, they’re going to be looking at how artists continue to do social activism through the making of art,” Chavez said. “They’re specifically focusing on photography, and we’re going to learn how to tell a story through the photo essay.”

Chavez said she knew that she wanted to study abroad during her time at Nebraska.

“I like learning about different cultures and with my human rights minor, I’m really interested in learning about how the world works and all the different things that go on in the world,” she said. “I was like, ‘I need to go and study abroad somewhere.’”

… they’re going to be looking at how artists continue to do social activism through the making of art,. They’re specifically focusing on photography, and we’re going to learn how to tell a story through the photo essay.

She hopes the experience will help her to become even more independent.

“I guess just knowing how to be more independent,” she said. “I think I already am, sort of, but I think just putting yourself out there. I’m really excited about getting to talk to artists there and networking more and just going out there and seeing how people are making art in different countries and how they’re using it to state something about their community. I think that’s really important.”

Chavez has focused primarily on art history during her time at UNL, but is also interested in making art.

“What I like about making art is that I’m able to talk about who I am and where I come from and all that kind of stuff, which I think is really important,” she said. “And just being able to show people what matters to me, and hopefully get them to see that it matters for everyone.”

Her interest in social activism was sparked during her sophomore year, when her color and composition class went to an exhibition at The Assemblage, where she saw a work from School of Art, Art History & Design Director Francisco Souto that was focused on his response to the political and economic situation in his home country of Venezuela.

“I really liked how the piece worked,” Chavez said. “And I was like, ‘Wow, this is really cool how people can combine history and maybe activism and cultural identity.’ So that piece really struck me. I was like, “You can do things like that.’ Art doesn’t have to just be about pretty things. It can be about things that matter to you, and I think what matters to me is knowing what’s happening in those places or how you’re connected to them.”

I’m really excited about getting to talk to artists there and networking more and just going out there and seeing how people are making art in different countries and how they’re using it to state something about their community.

As part of her program in Argentina, Chavez will live with a host family.

“I’m excited for the homestay experience,” she said. “I really like a lot of ’80s music from Argentina, and I’m excited to be able to share with them and say ‘I know about this.’ I will probably do stuff with them, which I’m pretty excited about, too, because I don’t know how life is there.”

She is also excited just to meet other artists there and work with them.

“We’re also visiting a couple of museums there,” she said. “I don’t remember which museum, but I know one of them has work by three Latin American female artists that I really like, so I’m really excited about that. I’m pretty excited to learn about the culture in Argentina.”

Paula Escott, who recently graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, will travel to Buenos Aires in February 2020 to study telehealth systems for nine months on a Fulbright grant. She received the grant after spending a semester in Argentina studying with SIT Study Abroad’s “Public Health in Urban Environments” program. In her words, she shares her experiences and insights from her SIT internship at Hospital Juan P. Garrahan.

By Paula Escott

When I studied abroad in Argentina, as part of my program I had the opportunity to do an internship with the incredible team at Hospital Juan P. Garrahan. It was so interesting for me to learn about the public healthcare experience for children in Argentina and learn from the experts about how they grew their telemedicine system from the ground up.

They started with a pilot program in the city of Jujuy, and through the formation of personal and institutional relationships, created a system of reference and counter reference that connects children with complex healthcare cases living in remote areas of the country to specialist healthcare.

As a result of my internship, facilitated by my SIT program, I made friendships with a team who encouraged my curiosity and helped me create the foundation for my proposal for a Fulbright grant. I can’t wait to return to Argentina and learn about how the original program — which started with the hospitals and clinics in Jujuy — has changed through each expansion, and how Hospital Juan P. Garrahan is getting specialist healthcare to all the children who need it. 

Three SIT Study Abroad students are among 41 scholarship recipients named by the Fund for Education Abroad (FEA) during its second spring award cycle. They were selected from a pool of more than 1,800 applicants from some 470 colleges and universities nationwide.

“These students all, in some way, represent backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in American study abroad,” said FEA Executive Director Jennifer Calvert. “They embody FEA’s mission of increasing access to international education to those least likely to experience the high-impact practice of study abroad.”

The SIT students and their study abroad programs are:

FEA aims to increase access to international education, It has awarded a total of $600,000 in scholarships to a record 176 students in 2019. That represents a 45 percent increase in the number of students awarded in a single year. A total of 466 scholars have benefited from more than $1.8 million in scholarships since FEA’s inception in 2010.

https://fundforeducationabroad.org/news/fund-education-abroad-grants-41-scholarships-totaling-200000-spring-2020-study-abroad/

Three women scientists bring expertise in fire management, fishing, frogs

SIT Study Abroad is pleased to welcome five new academic directors on programs in our 2019-20 portfolio. These outstanding leaders in their fields include four women—three scientists and a historian who focuses on gender and sexuality—and a journalist and researcher with deep experience in North Africa.

Daniel Lynx Bernard
Morocco: Field Studies in Journalism and New Media

Dan is a former newspaper reporter and online news editor who has worked in the Middle East and North Africa since 2001 as a consultant to projects strengthening media and civil society. He served as Egypt country director for the International Center for Journalists, overseeing training and exchange programs in the MENA region emphasizing the use of digital tools for public service journalism. Dan has an MP from the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a BS in communications and news-editorial journalism from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has taught news and feature journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Based in Morocco since 2017, Dan has researched the role of civil society in local governance and social issues.

Dr. Jana Byars
Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender

Jana holds a PhD in history from Penn State University. She is the author of Informal Marriage in Early Modern Venice (Routledge, 2018), the editor of Monsters and Borders in the Early Modern Imagination (Routledge, 2018), and the translator of Girolamo Benzoni’s 1565 travel narrative History of the New World (Penn State Press, 2017). She has also written reviews and articles about sexuality and gender in Europe. She comes to SIT after 20 years in American higher education, teaching at Iowa State, Whitman College, Marquette, Penn State, and Western Michigan. Her current research centers on sex work, rape, and questions of consent in a modern European and American context. Jana is a native Michigander happily living in Amsterdam.

Dr. María Gowland
Argentina: People, Environment, and Climate Change in Patagonia and Antarctica

Born and raised in Ushuaia, Argentina, María holds a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Buenos Aires. She studied for her undergraduate degree in the Patagonian city of Puerto Madryn and returned to Ushuaia to carry out her PhD research on fishery and the reproductive biology of the Beagle Channel King Crab. María has been a member of the Marine Crustaceans Laboratory of the Austral Center for Scientific Research since 2010. María’s research interests include the perspectives, knowledge, and needs of the fishing sector and other stakeholders in a fundamental partnership for real success in natural resource management. Since 2012, María has been a math, ecology, conservation, and science professor at the National University of Tierra de Fuego and supervised students in field and laboratory internships.

Dr. Oliver Nyakunga
Tanzania: Wildlife Conservation and Political Ecology

Oliver holds a doctorate in fire and grazing effects on vegetation from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venezia in Italy; a master’s degree in environmental science from UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands; and a master for education for sustainability from the London South Bank University United Kingdom. Her research interests center around wildlife ecology, wildlife management, water resources and invasive species, and she has published articles on various conservation issues. Oliver has more than 17 years of teaching experience in the discipline of wildlife management and conservation. For more than six years, she has worked within the wildlife sector in Tanzania. Prior to serving as academic director with SIT, she led field training trips to protected areas in Tanzania for students from College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka; Manchester Metropolitan University (UK); and Oshkosh Wisconsin University (USA).

Dr. Andolalao Rakotoarison
Madagascar: Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management

Ando completed her master’s degree in biology in 2011 at the University of Antananarivo. She received her PhD in 2017 at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, with a specialization in taxonomy revision of the microhylid cophyline frogs from Madagascar. In 2018, she became a lecturer at an affiliate institution of the University of Antananarivo at Soavinandriana, Itasy, Madagascar. The same year, she was appointed co-chair of the Amphibian Specialist Group Madagascar, a network of national and international research specialists representing the Malagasy government, universities, and NGOs. For the past eight years, Ando’s research has focused on the resolution of the enormous taxonomy gap within the Malagasy cophyline subfamily by maximizing taxonomy revision. This revision will contribute to the establishment of a conservation strategy for each nominal species.

​Lida pursued her undergraduate studies in biology and later received her PhD at the University of Buenos Aires, studying the conservation biology of dolphins using molecular genetics tools. Originally from Buenos Aires, she first had contact with marine mammals in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, at the age of 22, when she traveled for an internship with Dr. R. Natalie P. Goodall, a renowned expert in the basic biology of sub-Antarctic and Antarctic seals and cetaceans. Since then, she has been working with the Museo Acatushún de Aves y Mamíferos Marinos Australes at Estancia Harberton, Tierra del Fuego, and she is a board member of the Natalie Goodall Foundation. Since 2012, Lida has traveled to Antarctica during summer seasons aboard research vessels to carry out different biodiversity surveys and also as a staff member in a small tourist cruise ship. Lida is interested in the human dimension of conservation and coastal and marine protected areas, among other things. She works in conservation management for the national protected areas of Argentina. Lida enjoys her free time in the scenic city of Ushuaia, riding her bike, practicing climbing, and playing cello.

We are pleased to announce the winners of SIT’s 2019 Photo Contest.

Thank you to all who submitted! The quality and number of submissions was remarkable and revealed SIT students’ great eye for capturing the learning experiences they’re enjoying around the world.

Here are this year’s talented winners.

Learning Moments

Sage Fox
Oregon State University
Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation, fall 2018                        

My friend Caleb and I conducted our ISP in a fairly remote village of Ecuador. When we first met our host family, our host sister took us on a hike to a rock that overlooks the valley below. She was very curious about us, and she was especially intrigued by our binoculars. When we reached the summit, she borrowed my binoculars to see if she could find a bear or her house below. Soon losing interest in that, she turned to look up at Caleb through the binoculars.

Action Shots      

Anya Otterson
University of Denver
Mongolia: Nomadism, Geopolitics, and the Environment, fall 2018 

During my internship, we ran into a herd of my boss’s horses as we were driving back to camp one day. He got on the horse I was riding, put on my deel and boots, and herded them as fast as he could across the steppe while I drove ahead with my other boss taking photos.

The World Is Your Classroom     

Thomas D’Anieri
Claremont McKenna College
Mongolia: Nomadism, Geopolitics, and the Environment, fall 2018

I woke up and had to use the bathroom, so I crawled out of my wool sleeping bag, put on two extra layers of clothes, strapped up my dog-fur boots, tiptoed out of the ger, and stopped in my tracks. I had never seen anything like it. The Milky Way hung above me and was unbelievably clear, yet the moon remained on the horizon. To even see the Milky Way in America it must be a new moon, or pitch dark long after the moon has set. Yet here the Milky Way sat in all its glory, rising next to the bright, nearly full moon.

Challenging Perspectives             

Alyssa Avila
University of San Francisco
India: Public Health, Gender and Community Action, spring 2018

A village health worker from the Comprehensive Rural Health Project in Jamkhed demonstrates how she provides care and educates pregnant women within her own community.

Cityscapes          

Madeline Ninno
Tulane University
Argentina: Transnationalism and Comparative Development in South America, fall 2018

A courtyard in San Telmo, Argentina.

Honorable Mentions

Anna Stubbs
Carleton College
Chile: Public Health, Traditional Medicine, and Community Empowerment, fall 2018      

Sage Fox
Oregon State
Ecuador: Comparative Ecology and Conservation, fall 2018

After graduating with a degree in anthropology from the University of Cape Town, Nic worked as a photographer in commercials, photo-journalism, and fine art. His personal work includes long-term research-based projects focused on society, history, migration, memory, and identity. Of special interest is the way in which the lived experiences of ordinary people are shaped by, or interact with, larger political and economic forces. His work has been exhibited and published, and he has received various accolades and grants. Moving back to South Africa in 2014 after spending a few years living in Spain, Nic became a partner in a local Cape Town mapping company, researching, designing, developing, and retailing South African travel maps both locally and in Europe. He is passionate about Africa and has a keen interest in sustainability, economic development, and social justice.

Dr. Szántó received her PhD in social anthropology in 2015 from the University of Pécs in Hungary. Her PhD dissertation was based on long-term fieldwork with polio-disabled people in Sierra Leone. A migrant herself, Dr. Szántó has built a professional career in France and Hungary. Beginning in 1998, she participated in the Hungarian post-socialist democratization process as the founder and leader of the Artemisszió Foundation, a local NGO based in Budapest. Under her leadership, the organization has grown to be a focal point for intercultural dialogue and intercultural learning in Hungary. Its intercultural community offers a safe space of encounter and mutual learning for forced and voluntary migrants and Hungarians interested in making Hungary a more inclusive place. As the president and one of the part-time operational directors of Artemisszió, she overviews the organization’s training and migration-related activities.

She is the author of a dozen scientific articles. Her book, Politicizing Polio in Sierra Leone, appeared in 2020. She is also the co-author of several anthropological documentary films. She teaches anthropology at several Hungarian universities. Her research focuses on urban anthropology, migration and social movements, and the intersection of international development, social justice, and health.

Carolina holds a five-year degree in arts from the University of Buenos Aires and a postgraduate degree in contemporary cinema and theater. She became involved in the field of international education in Argentina when it was a little explored field in the country and specialized in the design of materials for cultural immersion in multicultural contexts. Her interest in intercultural education led her to design study programs for various universities and study abroad institutions from the United States, focusing on the area of Social Studies. In 2005, she started her pedagogical involvement with the International Honors Program by implementing the first IHP program in Argentina: Cities in the 21st Century; and in 2012, she designed and implemented the Health and Community program. Her approach to the field of international studies allows her to deepen and unify her passion for culture, arts, and politics with the field of intercultural education, and she feels very fortunate to be able to share that passion with the students, as well as awakening their curiosity and desire to learn, all in a context of mutual respect and understanding.

Dr. Vu Cong is the deputy director of the Institute of Population Health and Development. He was previously director of the Family Health Research Center, lecturer at Hanoi Medical School, program officer with the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, and program officer with Family Health International. Currently, he is leading several HIV/AIDS research and intervention projects in Vietnam that target most-at-risk populations and implementing an HIV prevention project targeting young Vietnamese soldiers completing mandatory military service. He obtained his medical doctorate from Hanoi Medical School in 1993 and a master’s of public health at Brown University in 2005. He is also a founder of the Vietnamese Society for HIV/AIDS Medicine and a member of the Vietnamese Public Health Association and American Public Health Association.

she/her/hers

Dr. SherriLynn Colby-Bottel received her PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Virginia in 2012, and a BA in anthropology and an MA in music, with distinction, at California State University, Fresno. From 2005 to 2012, with support from the National Science Foundation and the University of Virginia Faculty Senate Fellowship Award for Scholarly Achievement and Excellence in Teaching, she conducted ethnographic research on disaster recovery, nonprofits, urban traditions, authenticity and sincerity in the local production of music, and community-based musical activities in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her research explored issues highlighted by disaster and recovery: how racial inequities align with health disparities, how the built environment and social policy act as determinants of recovery, and the vital role of community in one’s ability to achieve well-being. Dr. Colby-Bottel has worked and volunteered for several nonprofit organizations in the last decade while also researching how nonprofit organizations retain and reward labor. She has worked in higher education for more than 20 years as both faculty and administrator in four distinct university settings. She has been with SIT since 2011.

Marta is the local coordinator for the Buenos Aires excursion. She holds a BA in education sciences and a master’s degree in social sciences with a specialization in education from the Facultad Lationoamericana de Ciencias Sociales. She is also a doctoral candidate in social sciences and an education expert with Argentina’s Ministry of Education.