2008 Woodie Awards
Crossing Borders
Johanna Goldberg
Issue date: 4/7/04 Section: News
There is a new intensive summer study abroad program designed, according to Laura Burns, co-instructor and Assistant Professor of Art, "to make students aware of what's going on in a very complex part of this country."
Border Crossing: Experiencing the US-Mexico Border, co-taught by Burns and Rob Koulish, Assistant Professor of International Studies, will take students to Socorro, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. It will revolve around the Colonias Program, which, according to the Office of International Studies' online description, "attempts to reduce border residents' isolation by connecting them to education, health and human services, job training, and youth and elderly programs so that they can achieve sustainable economic self-sufficiency and well-being."
The idea for the course began in the fall, when Koulish and Burns met, recalls Burns, on a "day of service in September - Rob and I were in the same group, and started talking. I have been doing a lot of work at the Border as a photographer," and Koulish lived at the border for four years doing research. Burns and Koulish then came up with the idea for the course together.
The broad theme of the course, in Koulish's words, will be women and violence. "Three hundred women have disappeared from the Juarez area," and yet "most resident leaders are women." Burns adds, "The majority of women are in the labor force" and as such have been made "invisible." Koulish is proud to be, through the course, "opening up and investigating" the lives of these women."
Koulish explains that the ten students participating in the course will incorporate "conflict resolution training" in order to "impart skills, build trust, relationships, shed away layers of stereotypes that students have both ways."
In the second-seven week pre-departure course that began last Wednesday, the students will be "reading border theory and stories by and about women on the border; having open conversations; video conferencing with the people we will be working with in the Colonias; showing documentaries on border issues; presenting studies describing Human Rights issues; learning about documentary making; and looking at and understanding images," describes Koulish.
Border Crossing: Experiencing the US-Mexico Border, co-taught by Burns and Rob Koulish, Assistant Professor of International Studies, will take students to Socorro, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. It will revolve around the Colonias Program, which, according to the Office of International Studies' online description, "attempts to reduce border residents' isolation by connecting them to education, health and human services, job training, and youth and elderly programs so that they can achieve sustainable economic self-sufficiency and well-being."
The idea for the course began in the fall, when Koulish and Burns met, recalls Burns, on a "day of service in September - Rob and I were in the same group, and started talking. I have been doing a lot of work at the Border as a photographer," and Koulish lived at the border for four years doing research. Burns and Koulish then came up with the idea for the course together.
The broad theme of the course, in Koulish's words, will be women and violence. "Three hundred women have disappeared from the Juarez area," and yet "most resident leaders are women." Burns adds, "The majority of women are in the labor force" and as such have been made "invisible." Koulish is proud to be, through the course, "opening up and investigating" the lives of these women."
Koulish explains that the ten students participating in the course will incorporate "conflict resolution training" in order to "impart skills, build trust, relationships, shed away layers of stereotypes that students have both ways."
In the second-seven week pre-departure course that began last Wednesday, the students will be "reading border theory and stories by and about women on the border; having open conversations; video conferencing with the people we will be working with in the Colonias; showing documentaries on border issues; presenting studies describing Human Rights issues; learning about documentary making; and looking at and understanding images," describes Koulish.