Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Sept. 5, 1996, edition 1 / Page 5
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September 5, 1996 The Blue Banner Page 5 World tours broaden horizons for faculty and students Bob Buchanan Staff Writer The end of summer signals the beginning of school and an end to vacations everywhere. But before you open your humanities book to find missing pages, here are a few adventures you might think about trying next summer as you struggle through your first exam.. Beaches are the traditional vacation spot, whether on the east coast or the west coast, but how about something different? Would a chance to learn about a new culture without the interference of the television inter est you? Students and teachers both journeyed across oceans to experience new ways of teaching and learning, dispel some mistaken impressions, make new friends and get reacquainted with some old ones. Catherine Mitchell, chair of the mass commu nication department, traveled to Moldova, a former Soviet republic, and Nepal, India, to teach journalists how to cope with a free market economy, since both are just now experiencing freedom from government and monarchy, re spectively. The most interesting stories are not what she did there, but how she almost didn’t get there. During a layover from a flight in Bangkok,Thailand, Mitchell took a cab from the airport to her motel. Unfortunately, after driving around Bangkok, her driver failed to find the right motel, so he dropped her off at another motel. The reason Mitchell had the layover was that the airpline could not make the payments on the airplane and it was repossessed. She boarded another cab which, at first, also failed to find the right motel, but finally Mitchell arrived at the motel where she had made her reservations. During her teaching in Nepal, Mitchell expe rienced more trouble in the classroom. The classrooms in Nepal have no windows and are on the ground floor of the buildings. With a large Hindu culture present in nearby Kathmandu, cows are sacred and allowed to roam the streets with severe penalties for harm ing them. During a class, a cow started bellowing outside of the building. Since the cow is sacred, there was nothing she could do but speak over the cow. The thing that surprised Mitchell most was what the journalists knew about the news of the United States. “Every last one of them wanted to talk to me about Bill Clinton and how he strayed from his wife,” she said. Mitchell said she found every one of the jour nalists “charming, skeptical and cynical.” Despite a 27 -hour flight home and her trouble with cab rides and airplane repossession, Mitchell said, “I’d do it again in an instant.” Mitchell went on the trip for an educational experience, while another faculty member, Peggy Parris , associate professor of literature, went to Ireland with the hopes of writing without inter ruption. Parris went to Ireland with a “homesick” friend to help her refurbish an old Irish cottage her friend had bought. She managed to write when she wasn’t “putting up wallpaper, painting, or preparing the floor for vinyl covering.” During the renovation, Parris and her friend aggravated a bees’ nest. Parris escaped, but her friend wasn’t so lucky. They phoned the small town her cottage was close to, and “within 15 minutes, everybody in town who had any medi cal knowledge at all was there.” Even the doctor who was about 40 miles away made a house call. “He was there in no time, said Parris. Parris and her friend named the cottage “The house of the bee” after the inci dent. Parris admits her idea of Ireland has changed since her visit. “I expected, from what little I knew of Ireland, that it was a poor country, and at one time it was, but it is now the fastest growing economy in the European Union.” Parris said “a lot of people are buying cottages and turning them into vacation homes.” Has that thought crossed her mind? “That’s what my friend is trying to get me to do, to buy a ruined cottage.” The people of the small town were a pleasant surprise for her. “I was very impressed, the people were very friendly and I would go back there in a second,” she said. From friendly people, we go to a country where the people have a reputation for being unfriendly to tourists if you believe in the “French Kiss” story of France. Anna Rinaldi, a senior French major, can contradict that view with experience, “Most people would go out of their way to be nice to American students.” Rinaldi went to France last year with the study abroad program with a group of students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The difficulty of getting acceptance into college would seem foreign to a student from France. “Everyone is given a chance lor higher education.” The 60 percent dropout rate, however, would indicate that it is hard to stay in school unless students are serious about it. Rinaldi said the students had to “study their butts off,” to avoid getting kicked out. Rinaldi said Montpellier, the school she attended, was much larger than UNCA. The school had about 18,000 students and it could serve 8,000 students, said Rinaldi. Rinaldi also said the teachers there have no office hours, and that the students do not social ize the way UNCA students do, they “go in, lock their doors and study.” Jeremy Cadeau, a junior transfer student from UNC-Wilmington, had no troubles figuring out what the’Aussies’ were saying once he got the hang of their colloquialisms like ‘mate’ and ‘bloke.’ He was just getting the language downpat when it was time to return. Cadeau also went with a group of students in a study abroad; program to Australia. Cadeau said Australia shattered one of his images in a hurry. “I was under the impression that Australia wasn’t really that large, but when I got there, the place was huge.” He got to see the Great Barrier Reef, but didn’t get a chance to see the outback and many of the other sites he had hoped to see because the country was sim ply much larger than he had thought. Cadeau said that one of the things Australia likes to call themselves is “the most unbiased country.” One of the events that occurred dur ing his stay was a “gay Mardi Gras.” “It was a pretty big thing,” Cadeau said. Cadeau said the Australians were very “laid back,” that they liked having a good time. The fact that a tavern was always nearby might add to this “laid back” feeling. “They’re all over the place,” said Cadeau. Heidi Kelley, assistant professor of sociology, spent the summer visiting San Pan Der, Spain and visiting some old friends she had made while doing some field work in Galicia. “I think that people think of Spain and they; think of bull fights and flamenco dancing,” said Kelley “There’s not really one Spanish culture, but there are a lot of really important regional differences.” Kelley said there wasn’t much flamenco danc ing or bull fighting in Galicia, and that in rural parts of Galicia, Gallego was the accepted lan guage where the country people knew little or no Spanish. Kelley called Gallego a “romance language,” based more on Portuguese than on Spanish. One of the best parts of the trip was a chance to visit friends she had made doing her disserta tion research. Kelley admitted that she was a “terrible correspondent,” so they hadn’t heard from her in a while. Because there weren’t any students, Kelley got a chance to see the rooms where the students would live and a chance to continue her study on women’s roles in a coastal village in Galicia. m September 5 thru September 12 FYI is published each Thrusday. Deadline fo submit information is Friday at noon, for the following weeks publication. Next deadline: Sept. 6 for the Sept. 12 issue. Send copy with basic information to The Blue Banner, c/o Wendy McKinney, CH 208 A. academic notices • Last day to withdraw from Term 1 class • 9/9 athletics (ext. 6459) • AAen's Soccer vs. Montreat, 4 p.m., JC • 9/9 • Women's Volleyball vs. Wofford, 4:30 p.m. vs. ASU, 7p.m., JC • 9/11 • Women's Soccer vs. Radford, 4p.m., JC • 9/13 campus job opportunities • Homecoming Coordinator, 9/15 fo 2/15, partime, 6-8 h ours per week: applications available in HC 27 (ext. 6674), dead line to apply *9/13 concerts/live entertainment New Music in the Mountains, 8 p.m., LH Aud. (ext.6432) • 9/7 Vicky Pratt Keating (alternative / light rock) and band, 9 p.m., HC Lounge (ext. 6244) Free • 9/"-'^; Steven Ta^or, folk musician, 9p.m., HC Lounge (ext. 6675) •9/13 > Cash Dispensing Machine (replaces ATM) inside Highsmith Center > Study Break, 9-11 p.m.. Dining Hall refreshments sponsored by Residence Life (ext. 6700) *9/10 ’ tickets - cheap - $3 to Beaucalcher Cinemas, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mon. - Fri., HC 27 (Some restrictions) ' Voice Mail Survey for students who live on campus, return to Bookstore, HC, • deadline 9/13 exhibits • UNCA Art Faculty Show, Owen Gallery, 1 st floor (ext. 6559) • thru 9/10 • Richard Merritt Exhibition, Owen Gallery, 1 st floor (ext. 6559) • 9/13 - 10/1 • Rhett Thompson Exhibition, Owen Gallery, 2nd floor (ext. 6559)* 9/13- 10/1 ? leadership opportunties Leadership Through Integrity Conference sign ups by 9/10 in HC 48 (ext. 6588) $5, HC Lounge *9/15 lectures "Iran: The Evil Empire or a Failed Revolution?" by Sandra Mackay, 7:30 p.m. OCC (ext. 6140) Free to students* 9/9 Friendship in the Age of AIDS, 7 p.m. LH Aud. (sponsored by the Greek Council) *9/12 organizations/special programs • World Wide Web Help Desk, 3 - 5 p.m., M - F, RH 005 (sponsored by CHIPS) • World Wide Web: Intro. To Unix, 6-7 p.m., RH 223 (sponsored by CHIPS) *9/55-6 p.m. * 9/9 * Rush Week - Fall '96 (sponsored by Panhellenic) • thru 9/8 * Greek Week (sponsored by Greek Council) * 9/9 - 9/14 outdopr activities/recreation Equipment Rentals, Outdoor Education office, HC (ext. 6001) While water rafting on the Nantahala - sigh up now in the Outdoor Education Office, HC, $10 • 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. on 9/8 Wall Climbing at Climbmax (ext. 6244 for more information) *9/12 Intro to Kayaking sign ups in Outdoor Education office, HC, $15 (ext. 6001) *9/14-9/15 theatre * "Oh, Mr. Faulkner, Do You Write?" - one actor play about novelist William Faulkner, 8 p.m., LH Aud., tickets $4 (UNCA students) in HC 27 (ext. 6584) *9/6
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