USC Beaufort faculty and students return from summer study abroad

USC Beaufort Professor of Spanish, French, and Global Studies Babet Villena-Alvarez, Associate English Professor Sheila Tombe, and six USC Beaufort students have returned from four weeks of study abroad in Spain.

USC Beaufort's study abroad program has provided unique educational opportunities for studies since 1995 with five programs in Spain, two in Paris, and one in Costa Rica. From 2003 through 2006, the university has received Title VI A grants as part of the federal government program to internationalize university curricula. Since receiving the grant, the university's non-western course offerings have increased from six to sixteen, including the University's Spanish 398D class this summer in Spain.

The students in the Spanish 398D class studied non-Western immigration in Spain, one of the country's most controversial and pressing issues. For five weeks in a classroom setting, the students learned about illegal immigration in Spain and the strain being put on resources throughout Europe by the more than 1,000 illegal immigrants daily, primarily from Africa and largely illiterate, who are using Spain as a gateway to the European Union.

As part of the course, the students had the opportunity to interview officials in the Regional Office of Immigration in Madrid. All course work was conducted in Spanish. The students, whose majors include business management, Spanish, and human services, also had the opportunity to visit Toledo, Segovia, Avila, and Escorial on day trips.

Living in Madrid for four weeks, the students also benefited from experiencing a different culture.

"The study abroad program in Madrid, Spain was an extravagant lifetime experience for me," said Reginald Thompkins, a junior. "The program placed me in a completely different cultural background. I was able to relate many problems they were having to those of the United States. What I learned in class and what I was seeing while over there were identical."

Student Deborah Curry said that the educational trip "helped flesh-out the history and culture that I had been hearing about in class. There is nothing compared to visiting the Plaza Mayor and realizing that this place was where the judgments for the Inquisition took place, or to eating authentic Spanish Paella in a restaurant and ordering your food in Spanish. Living in Spain gave me first-hand experience of the culture, the art, and the history of the country that was responsible for the settlement of so much of the Americas."

As for Camille Faulknor, president of the African American Student Association at USC Beaufort, she summed up the trip quite succinctly, calling it "an experience of a lifetime and one that will never be forgotten!"

8/06