Smith Students Want to Make an Impact
By Jan McCoy Ebbets
It has been
more than three years since the terrorist attacks of Sept.
11, and two years since the war on Iraq began. As global
issues and tensions continue to dominate the news, Smith College students
in increasing numbers are making their way into classrooms to study international
affairs.
On a bright Tuesday afternoon in a small
classroom in Wright Hall, six undergraduates taking a seminar
in international politics taught by Jacques Hymans, assistant professor
of government, wrestled with the ethics and realities of weapons of mass
destruction that faced the two scientists who developed nuclear power -- Dane
Niels Bohr and his German protégé Werner Heisenberg. In a free-flowing
two-hour discussion, the students, all government majors, flipped through their
well-worn copies of Michael Frayn’s award-winning play Copenhagen, their
reading assignment for the week, coaxing example and analysis from various
lines.
They wanted to understand why the two scientists
stopped communicating with one another after a clandestine meeting in
Copenhagen in 1941. More important, they wanted to understand the motives
of those whose contributions led to the development of the atomic bomb
that caused so many deaths at the end of World War II.
Relative new seminars like the one taught by Hymans reflect the surging interest
in international studies and the international relations minor. It is apparent
in the large turnouts for such courses as foreign policy and international
politics and the high demand for opportunities to study abroad and to intern
with companies and organizations all over the world, college officials
say.
“International relations is in
the hearts and on the minds of many Smith students these days,” Professor
of Anthropology Elliot Fratkin notes. “And
Smith’s curriculum is already strong with a very rich body of offerings
in global studies and international relations.”
From the Smith alumnae
who served as ambulance drivers in post-World War
I France through today’s increasing popular Junior Year Abroad program,
which was established at the University of Paris in 1925, Smith has long
supported students’ enthusiasm for studying and experiencing other
cultures. A 1996 campuswide self-study defined the college’s goals
for the 21st century, determining that “Smith graduates will thrive
personally in an increasingly multicultural world and will be well prepared
to succeed in a global economy.”
Embracing the importance of international
studies, Smith is now taking steps to establish a new Center for International
Affairs to better coordinate the myriad offerings on campus with an international
focus. The center, which is currently under development, will serve as
a headquarters for students interested in international studies and
global affairs and will coordinate speakers, programs and international
exchange efforts for students and faculty. It will also integrate
such programs and services as those offered by the Office of International
Study, which administers Smith’s Junior Year Abroad programs
as well as independent study abroad and international fellowships,
and the Office of International Students and Scholars, which supervises
and supports the experience of international students and visitors
on campus.
“What often drives students,” says
Elliot Fratkin, anthropology professor and director of
the African Studies Program, “is the question ‘How do
I make an impact?’ They
want a global understanding and they want to change the
world situation.” Photo by Jim Gipe.
Today Smith offers more than 400 courses
with international dimensions through several departments
and programs, including eight language and literature departments,
three transnational area studies programs -- African,
East Asian, and Latin American studies -- and opportunities to
study 12 languages. Students can also take advantage
of a rich diversity of minors in such fields as Third World development
studies, political economy, and environmental science and policy.
Also available are Five College Certificates in such areas as Asian/
Pacific/American studies and Middle East studies.
More specifically,
the international relations program is a formal field
of study through the government department, offering
a minor degree. Its interdisciplinary scope is broad, drawing from
the humanities, sciences and social sciences, with courses from numerous
departments including government, economics, anthropology, comparative
literature, environmental science and policy, and history.
Likewise,
the scope of the global representation among Smith faculty
members is broad, says Fratkin, who is director of the
African Studies Program. They bring to the college a
collective expertise encompassing much of the world,
either through their countries of origin, the languages
they speak, or their areas of study and teaching. Many
faculty members -- such
as government professors Catharine Newbury, an internationally
recognized expert on the Congo and Rwanda, and Donna
Divine, an expert on the Middle East and Morningstar
Family Professor in the Field of Jewish Studies; as well
as David Newbury, the Gwendolen Carter Professor of African
Studies and History -- travel
the world conducting research on topics in all areas of the natural sciences,
social sciences and humanities. (See sidebar on the
University of Sarajevo Partnership.)
Add to that strength, the college’s frequent hosting
of guest lecturers, visiting scholars and faculty exchanges, “and we
usually have quite an international community of scholars on campus,” Fratkin
notes.
A heightened awareness of globalization
and the shifting order of world power is drawing students
to the study of international relations, notes Mlada
Bukovansky, associate professor of government. Photo
by Jim Gipe.
“We are in
a time when students are being challenged to consider
and reflect upon the United States and its place in the world, and
the shifting international order of power,” says Mlada Bukovansky,
associate professor of government and director of the
international relations program.
“A heightened awareness of
globalization has played a big part in drawing students
to international relations,” she adds. Bukovansky attributes
the steady, growing interest to not only the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
but also to the tensions in Israeli-Palestinian relations and the
Middle East. “But
even before 9/11, students started paying attention to the issues of globalization
and its relevant economic components back in the ’90s,” she comments. “Students
have always shown an interest in developing countries, and a lot of students
focused on the emergence of anti-globalization protests in Seattle against
the global institutions -- IMF and World Bank, and the debate over NAFTA.”
Like
other faculty members, she says her teaching changes often to reflect new
global perspectives and realities. “Although Gov 241, the basic
international relations course, consistently covers general issue
areas such as international security and political economy,” Bukovansky
notes, “the emphasis
changes year to year. Before 9/11, terrorism was not a major focus, but
of course that changed after 9/11. Similarly the conduct of the Iraq
war, and the varied global responses to that war, has also entailed
changes in emphasis and the types of readings assigned in the course.”
What’s
more, students’ career interests are changing, says Greg
White, associate professor of government. “Back in the ’90s,
the students I advised were interested in career options with a globalization
hook, working for a bank or a large international corporation. Now in post
9/11, more students are applying to work in defense- or intelligence-related
fields and diplomacy work.”
White encourages his students to dip
into the course offerings across all fields and avoid
concentrating their studies too narrowly in the government and international
relations areas. “I
tell a student it doesn’t matter what she majors
in. It doesn’t have to be a major in government or a minor in international
relations,” he says.
“Students don’t immediately realize
that they can do a Latin American studies major, spend a year studying
in Nicaragua, declare a minor in economics, and graduate with a solid
background and a strong résumé for
all kinds of careers in international relations,” notes White, who
teaches courses in international political economy, labor migration and
politics of the global environment.
Students’ career interests are
changing. In the post-9/11 era, more students are seeking
work in diplomacy and defense- or intelligence-related
fields, says Greg White, associate professor of government.
Photo by Jim Gipe.
Regardless of what career a Smith graduate
aims for, says Bukovansky, “I
think it’s critically important for a Smith student to be able
to evaluate competing world visions and to be able to be reflective
about her own biases and assumptions.”
“By the time she
graduates from Smith, a student should have a sense of the world and
what she wants to do in it,” she insists.
When senior Rosalyn Epstein ’05
from Salt Lake City, Utah, first arrived at Smith she says she knew
little about global issues. “It
was through my classes I learned about the global economy
and the way that it works -- sometimes taking advantage of developing
countries -- and also how women are particularly affected in
those developing countries.” Studying for a major in women’s
studies and a minor in Third World development, Epstein
hopes to work with an international nongovernmental
organization (NGO) that focuses on promoting women’s sexual
health and economic development, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
With
dual citizenship in “two wealthy countries,” the United
States and the United Kingdom, she says it is her responsibility “to
create change in the way that these two powerful and
rich countries affect the development and success of developing
countries. The U.S. has incredible power in the World Bank and
IMF, and these institutions are responsible for some of the poverty
and suffering in developing countries.”
Like others hoping
for international careers, Epstein used an internship
stipend provided by Smith for a summer internship overseas.
She worked with the Bwafwano Home Based Care Organization in Lusaka,
Zambia, a nonprofit group providing home-based care for HIV patients
and their families as well as peer education and voluntary counseling,
testing, and skills training for AIDS orphans and widows. “It
was important for me to work for an organization like that because
I did not want to be part of an international aid organization that
was pursuing projects not helpful or important to the local people.”
Some
students taking classes in international studies are
doing so simply because they want to know more about
global politics and the effects of globalization on other cultures.
For some international students, that can also mean trying to understand
what’s going on in
their own countries.
“The classes I’ve taken
at Smith -- namely
Economic Development, International Politics and currently
Anthropology of Development -- have basically
reaffirmed the idea that education and a strong government are crucial if a
country is to develop, and the lack thereof contributes
to political instability,” says
Arpana Pandey ’07 of Kathmandu, Nepal.
While Pandey isn’t losing
sleep over the difficult political situation with the government in her home
country, she is trying to understand the Maoist uprising that has caused
havoc and further divisions between the Nepalese monarchy and the
parliamentary government. It is “partly the result of inept
politicians and lack of access and availability of education to the
general public. And the unrest has pushed Nepal back 20 or 30 years.”
She
observes, “From Gov 241, it was clear that the power and self-interest
clearly dictate how one country interacts with another and that the international
community, if it wants to, can really help resolve tensions in a country
by merely acting as a mediator.... I think that the people of
Nepal had hoped that the international community would intervene,
but when that didn’t
happen the only alternative was the king taking control.”
Each year more than half of Smith juniors
study abroad. The programs available to them include
Smith’s Junior
Year Abroad programs (JYA) in Florence, Geneva and Hamburg,
as well as Paris, which has long been a hallmark
of the Smith education. Now, students can also arrange
to study in more than 100 approved programs in Africa, Asia, the
Americas, Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Middle East,
and the South Pacific. Most students are attracted by the direct
experience of living and learning in another country and culture.
Later, many realize the experience has become an essential part of
understanding the larger global realities they will face for the
rest of their lives.
“Students who return to Smith
after studying overseas their junior years are totally engaged and
have remarkable ways of enriching our international relations classes
and seminars,” observes
professor White. “I have never spoken
to any student in any of my classes who has not seen this as a major experience
in her life.”
“What often drives students,” says
professor Fratkin, “is the
question ‘How do I make an impact?’ They want a global understanding
and they want to change the world situation.”
A government major with
an interest in international relations, Jessie Rubin ’06
of Sacramento, California, has linked her academic studies to a concern
for such issues as human rights and fair labor practices.
While a Smith
student, she has traveled to Nicaragua with a delegation of United States
citizens organized through the nonprofit organization Witness for Peace,
and she hopes to go again this year with funding from a Smith grant through
the Office of International Study. Last fall she spent a semester studying
at the Universidad de Chile, after receiving a prestigious Boren Undergraduate
Scholarship, and observed firsthand the opposition -- as well as lingering
support -- for the ousted former dictator, General Augusto Pinochet. “I’ve
been adding to my repertoire about international relations,” she
says.
Then her priorities started to shift. “I’m
beginning to think I can do more good working on individual cases,
one person at a time, within the American system.... There are
third-world conditions right here in the U.S. that are not being
addressed -- housing
segregation, equal access to education and information. These systems
are perpetuated to disallow minorities in our country.... I’m
feeling more passionate now about correcting issues at home. Since
the U.S. has become a dominant world power, any work I do here will
have an effect on the global community anyway.”
“Even
if it’s one person at a time,” says Rubin, “I want
to be the spoke in the wheel that makes change happen.” | 
