STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELD RESEARCH, GLOBAL SERVICE LEARNING

A group of CSU Monterey Bay students is spending June in Spain, studying the life and customs of people in the northwest part of the country, earning academic credit, and completing service learning requirements.

The ethnographic field research summer school is sponsored by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and CSUMB’s Office of International Programs. This is the fourth year of the program, under the leadership of Professor Juan Jose Gutierrez.

During the first week, students traveled to villages where they are conducting research and living in a field station – a rural house in the community of Bonar in Leon Province. They mapped their communities, met with local people and explored topics that will become the subject of their final reports. During their second and third weeks, students are applying additional methods of ethnographic data collection – observation, interviewing, genealogical charting and field note-taking.

Among the topics students have chosen to investigate are graffiti, local political systems and participation, gender issues, isolation and the elderly, oral histories and informal education, family dynamics and the culture of water.

As for the service learning part of their stay, the students are working with the local chapter of the Red Cross to provide assistance to the elderly and children in bilingual programs. The service learning work was planned at a meeting in April when representatives of the Spanish Red Cross traveled to Monterey.

“The CSUMB International Service Learning Program in Spain is one of a few selected nationally to participate in a survey conducted by the Global Service Learning initiative at Kansas State University,” Dr. Gutierrez said.

The survey data will permit CSUMB to evaluate how well it ismeeting its goals for the program and “will help us continue improving on this and similar experiences.”

The program has also led to formal exchange agreements with the University of the Basque Country and the University of Leon.

Participating students:

Sophie Faulkner, Ishtar Najem, Valerie Sanchez, Jena Barrera, Christine Bergdoll, Susan Dyar (Global Studies majors); Luis Canett, Michell Figueroa, Osanna Bertsch, Selena Miranda (Social andBehavioral Sciences); Alana Daly (Psychology); Karina Ruiz (Humanities and Communication) and Jonah Platt of Humboldt State University

Photo courtesy of Professor Gutierrez