Senior Laura Ratliff prepared for an on-the-ground study of the effects of the genocide in Rwanda with voluminous research. But it was impossible to anticipate the raw emotions that surfaced during the journey through the killing fields. Those feelings, she says, can’t be conjured in the classroom.
“You can watch all the films and read anything and everything, but nothing compares with walking through a concentration camp in Germany on a 20-degree day or seeing thousands of skulls in Rwanda’s mass graves,” Ratliff explains. “Those experiences live with me every day.
“The trip [to Rwanda] definitely made me more interested in exploring human rights volunteer opportunities before graduate school, whether they be through the Peace Corps or another organization,” she says. “In addition, a few other students and I are planning a ‘commission’ of sorts to increase awareness of SMU’s human rights program throughout the student body and the community.”
The August expedition to the East African country was her second human rights education tour with Rick Halperin, director of SMU&rsuqo;s Human Rights Education Program in Dedman College. As part of an independent study in history, the journalism major joined Halperin’s 2008 spring break pilgrimage to Eastern Europe, which included visits to Nazi death camps.
“One of the main missions of this university is to graduate people who are true global citizens. I see these trips as working to complement that aim, namely to have our students bear witness to terrible events of the past, to remember that these issues live on today, and to be able to speak and write critically and analytically about them,” says Halperin, who is leading groups to Poland, the Baltic states and Japan in 2009-10.
“Immersion experiences,” as these intensive, beyond-the-classroom learning opportunities are known, take many forms across disciplines.
“Students thrive in an environment in which they are encouraged to apply their learning in creative ways,” says Associate Provost Thomas Tunks. “Immersion experiences allow them to explore deeply subjects for which they have significant interest and passion, cultivating not only knowledge but also understanding and a unique perspective.
“By expanding learning opportunities beyond the classroom, or perhaps by expanding the classroom itself to include the world, SMU encourages students not only to broaden their academic goals but also to consider how to live meaningful lives,” Tunks adds.
Students can draw from University curriculum or, as in Ratliff’s case, follow self-plotted paths to discovery.
“I went to Rwanda purely out of personal interest,” she says.
Two very different views of Rwanda: Senior Laura Ratliff took these photos during the human rights pilgrimage last summer. At a memorial site in Nyamata, the skulls of genocide victims are stacked in mass graves as a reminder of the atrocities. Her other photo depicts the future of Rwanda – its children.
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