UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009 - (Page 7)

Schultz says that by going twice he was able to focus on the cultures and values of the region the first time, and then concentrate on business issues the second time, an experience that he hopes will stand him in good stead as he seeks employment with a large multinational firm that may have managerial posts available in India. For others, a single university-led travel experience not only enhances career plans but changes them altogether. Dan Roche, a 29-year-old senior and English major, went to South Africa as part of an honors class that studied the impact of disease on societies. His experiences in witnessing the AIDS epidemic up close were so profound that he decided upon his return to pursue a nursing degree and now plans to become a hospice nurse. “We went to tuberculosis clinics and saw people who I’m sure are dead now,” Roche says. He abandoned plans to pursue an MFA degree in fiction writing, even though he says, “Writing stories is what I feel I was put here to do,” and now plans to get the training he needs (at UMass Boston) to “provide peace, security and excellent medical care for people in their last moments. The stories will take care of themselves, they always do.” But wait. What’s an English major and aspiring writer doing in South Africa, studying AIDS and touring health care facilities? In many ways Roche is a part of a story still unfolding at UMass Boston, in which, as Professor Rajini Srikanth says, “international travel becomes the same rite of passage here that it is for students at most private colleges.” As a participant in the university’s honors program, Roche took a year-long course that examined the profound role that epidemics have played in shaping human history. By traveling to South Africa, he and nine other students (not all of them in the honors program; the opportunity is available to others who meet certain criteria) capped their coursework with the kind of direct observation and experience that, as Schultz said of his trip to India, made them witnesses to history. “These programs,” Srikanth says, “help students see the purpose of interdisciplinary education. You confront complex problems that require thinking across seemingly separate fields of knowledge, such as science, technology, public health policy, and economics.” Srikanth, who oversees the South Africa trip in her role as honors program director, credits Padraig O’Malley of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies for initiating the first such trip in 2006. “That proved to me that I wasn’t off my head in believing that we could build global travel into this curriculum,” she says, “and I hope to expand that.” High on her wish list is a trip to Israel and Palestine, a place where, as she says, “history, memory, religion, and politics all intersect.” top: MS in accounting students Jeanette He and Neil engelman visiting the tsingua University lotus pond in Beijing, China. Middle: Clinton Hutton of the University of the West indies conducts a class for UMass Boston students at the site of the Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica. Bottom: a visit to the Sandy Bank School in St. elizabeth, Jaimaica.

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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