Honors Study Abroad in South Africa engages students beyond the classroom

While doing an internship in the South African township of Khayelitsha, UConn student Jason Balfour met Vivian, a woman who ran a soup kitchen from her home for HIV/AIDS sufferers.

When he learned a few weeks later that her home had burned down, he was moved to try to help.

With fellow UConn student Kelly Witt, he went door-to-door soliciting donations from local businesses.

James Tinley, another UConn student who was doing an internship with the Cape Town Argus newspaper, wrote an article publicizing Vivian’s plight.

And an e-mail to UConn’s Honors Program prompted an offer of help from director Lynne Goodstein.

Soon, Vivian had the promise of a new home, and free delivery of 30 loaves of bread a day for her clients.

“We learned how easy it is to make a difference,” says Balfour.

The students were among a group of 17 from UConn participating in a semester-long Honors Study Abroad program in South Africa, offered this past spring for the second time.

The program combines coursework and service in the community. In 2006, the academic component focused on South African ecology. This year, it highlighted another of the country’s strengths, its arts and culture. Next year, the program will feature women’s studies.

“UConn Honors in Cape Town goes to the heart of what the University of Connecticut values: human rights, service to those in need, and the development of global citizens,” says Ross Lewin, director of Study Abroad.

While in South Africa, the group lived in a rented house in the suburb where the University of Cape Town campus is located.

“The living experience in the house all together is one of the learning situations we create for our students,” says Peter Bagley, a retired UConn professor of music, who led the program. “It provides a wonderful opportunity to share their experiences.”

The students spent two days a week in class and three days a week at their internship placement.

One class, on the politics and culture of South Africa, was taught by a local instructor. The other, a fine arts class, was taught by Bagley.

South Africa is an excellent place to study the arts, Bagley notes, especially because the arts played such a dramatic role in the expression of protest about apartheid.

“Even 10 years into this young democracy,” he says, “South Africans feel they have a long way to go to accomplish equality. South African arts reflect that anger.”

The final class project was to create a hypothetical School of Fine Arts at Cape Town. Each student had to develop three course proposals in art and art history, dramatic arts, or music that could be offered in Cape Town but not in Storrs.

“I wanted our students to expand their imagination,” Bagley says. “One student came up with courses on the art of beading and how prevalent this craft is, especially in the townships.”