Sequential SST Broadens Student Choices

This piece was written by Jennifer Schrock, administrative assistant for Study-Service Term, as part of the Global Engagement office’s “Global Connections” SST newsletter. 

Dr. Jonathan Schramm, professor of sustainability and environmental education, teaches two SST cultural perspectives courses that offer very different opportunities. In one course, students spend three weeks in Northern India, trekking through mountain villages and studying ecology and sustainability. In another, entitled Renaissance and Resilience, students study ways that Midwestern rust belt cities are being revitalized. These students take a five-day trip to Detroit.

While the locations are very different, both are sequential SST courses, both are options in the Ecological Justice thread, and both are designed to fulfill the same learning goals that Schramm worked with when he led a semester of SST in Tanzania.

Schramm has become convinced that it is possible to do immersive learning in both shorter and longer time frames–if it’s well- coordinated and puts students in touch with interesting people and significant endeavors.

“You’re going to get powerful learning out of that. Even in five days in Michigan, I saw it happening,” he said.

Constraints — and resilience

Schramm’s courses explore the ways in which communities are affected and often constrained by broader systems — economic, governmental, social, ecological. In Ecology and Sustainability in the Indian Himalaya, that means looking at the ways a steep mountain ecosystem shapes civilization. Students also learn about logging and reforesting decisions made under British colonialism nearly a century ago. These choices changed local soils, making today’s restoration efforts more challenging.

In the Renaissance and Resilience course that visits Detroit, students examined the impact of the auto industry. Its large-scale economic decisions made market sense, but were not always in the interests of local communities. The class also looked at the long-term effects of racist policies that confined black residents to certain areas of the city.

In India, meanwhile, Schramm introduces his students to professionals who left high-status careers to engage in creative work with conservation organizations because they care about biodiversity — or another aspect of their community. He especially enjoys illustrating the ways that environmental improvement and social improvement are seen as complementary in India instead of the zero sum game they are sometimes assumed to be in the U.S.

Sequential Service Opportunities

For their second immersive SST course, some students in the ecological justice SST thread remain in India and complete a three-week service placement with a local organization. In June, for example, Simon Moshier, a rising junior interdisciplinary major from Goshen, IN, spent his time at a research farm founded by Vandana Shiva — a renowned scholar and food justice activist focused on seed saving, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture practices. Other students worked at a non-profit in Dehradun, doing environmental education with high school students and gathering data on urban heat islands.

The domestic alternative is Environmental Disaster and Response — a course partnering with Mennonite Disaster Service at disaster sites ranging from El Paso, Texas to Red Lake Nation, Minn. Last May, students helped repair homes at a tornado site in Selma, Alabama.

Hillary Harder, a music professor with GC’s Community School of the Arts, co-led the course this May. She describes the experience as an amazing mix of hard work, stepping back, and drawing big picture connections. The class reflected on both the Civil Rights history of the city and the contemporary justice issues related to who receives disaster services today.

Ibarra paired this course with Renaissance and Resilience, above, and was able to compare the effects of racial tension in Selma with those she’d learned about in Detroit.

“These courses brought me hope, because in both cases, we saw how bad it was, but we also saw how much progress has been made,” she said.

Which is better?

Sequential SST began as an attempt to solve an equity problem that kept a semester abroad out of reach for an increasing number of students. It has evolved into an engaging menu of SST experiences that broaden the opportunities for all students. Semester and sequential SST each have their advantages. A semester abroad provides the opportunity to learn another language and be fully immersed in another culture for an extended time. Sequential options enable students to compare how a theme plays out in two different locations or to align their SST experience more closely with their majors.

Which is better? Semester SST or sequential? We might say, “It depends on the student.” Or we might say, “All of the above.”