UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009 - (Page 6)

Oh, the Places They’ve Gone! Global travel opportunities abound for UMass Boston students, and none seem to return unchanged. By SCott leiBS F rom St. Augustine (“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page”) to Samuel Johnson (“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are”), great thinkers of all persuasions have drawn a decidedly unambiguous connection between travel and education. An increasing number of UMass Boston students are making that connection for themselves as they travel to distant corners of the globe under the auspices of a number of different academic departments and programs. Upon returning, they report that their time abroad has not merely supplemented their classroom educations but completely reoriented their view of the world and their place in it. The number of such opportunities is growing, and extends well beyond popular semester-abroad programs (although the university has those as well—see the sidebar on page 8), giving students a chance to immerse themselves in some of the world’s most dynamic cultures, booming economies, and struggling societies. In the aggregate, these programs play an important role in helping UMass Boston meet one of its key objectives. As Chancellor J. Keith Motley noted during his inaugural address, the university can and should help to transform Boston into a truly international city. “Standing on this peninsula,” he said, “we see ourselves as the capital of the Atlantic Rim, but we are not limited by coastlines or other geographical definitions.” The university, he said, must become “less parochial in our approach to the world around us,” and he pledged to work with elected officials, business leaders, and all the members of the UMass Boston community to instill “greater richness, breadth, and vigor” into the university’s engagement with the cultures and concerns of other countries. “Richness, breadth, and vigor” could serve as the very motto of the academic trips sponsored by the university. No less striking than their sheer variety of destinations is their characteristically strong sense of purpose—on the part both of those who organize them and of those who participate in them. “I had been all over Europe, Mexico, and South America before I enrolled at UMass Boston,” says Robert Schultz, a recent graduate of UMass Boston’s MBA program. “But the two trips I made to India while pursuing my degree left me awestruck. There was a lot of structure to them, and a lot of resources behind them. It was a very innovative approach.” Schultz’s trips brought him to the Jaypee Business School on the outskirts of Delhi, one of the world’s five largest and most densely populated cities. The school provided him entrée into a number of large companies in the area, where he saw first-hand how the technology offshoring boom was playing out in practice. “I felt like I was witnessing history,” he says. “In the six months between my two visits the changes were huge; the volume of traffic, the retail construction—you could see how fast things were changing.” 6 n UMass Boston

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009

UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009 Contents UNews Oh, the Places They've Gone! "One of Those Rare Leaders" Acknowledging History, Renewing a Commonwealth Heart and Mind Indelible Images About Alumni Investing in UMass Boston A Generous Friend Alumni Calendar

UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009

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