{"id":16,"date":"2014-02-11T18:44:37","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T18:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=16"},"modified":"2016-01-25T23:33:09","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T23:33:09","slug":"see-learn-honors-college-makes-students-service-trips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2014\/02\/11\/see-learn-honors-college-makes-students-service-trips\/","title":{"rendered":"See, Do, LEARN: Honors College Makes the Most of Students\u2019 Service Trips"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On a fall afternoon in the Honors College enclave in Strand Ag Hall, instructor Dave Kovac started a session of HC 299 by playing Blood, Sweat and Tears\u2019 1969 hit \u201cGod Bless the Child.\u201d<\/p>\n

He challenged about a dozen students to hear all<\/em> \u2014 every nuance \u2014 of the band\u2019s cover of the Billie Holiday jazz classic. \u201cThere,\u201d said Kovac, whose academic specialty is the observation and understanding of culture. \u201cRight there. Listen to just the cymbal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The class, \u201cBuilding Hope and Homes: Portugal,\u201d is intended to prepare this group of OSU\u2019s best and brightest undergraduates to give and get as much as possible next summer when they travel to Southern Europe to help Habitat for Humanity.<\/p>\n

Kovac told the students that to properly respect the local culture, do the most good, and have the most educational and transformative experiences in Portugal, they\u2019ll need to become better at noticing more layers and a wider range of information. Then he asked them to report on what they\u2019d learned from that week\u2019s homework, which was to visit some of the campus area\u2019s espresso shops as observers of culture rather than as simple seekers of caffeine. It was immediately clear that they were catching on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not much of a coffee person,\u201d said a young woman of her visit to the frenetic Dutch Bros. on Monroe Avenue. \u201cThey have all these fancy names for the drinks, and it\u2019s like they assume everyone\u2019s already been there before and knows what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the other customers seemed to be in small social groups, and they knew exactly what to say and how to behave. She was quite aware that she didn\u2019t fit in, that she was an outsider. Another student described how his visit to Allann Bros. Beanery, just up the street, produced a similar result in an entirely different atmosphere. The setting was peaceful, with most customers sitting by themselves, reading, or doing schoolwork, but he still managed to accidentally violate the local cultural norms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stood on the wrong side of the counter to place my order,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone stares at you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kovac offered techniques for \u201cdiagnosing culture,\u201d including developing the highly valuable skill of asking the locals questions in a respectful way so \u201cthey can teach, not scold you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Honors College service learning program, which started in 2013 with a trip to Romania, seeks to change the lives of its students as well as the recipients of their donated services. During three terms of the one-hour classes, students and several faculty members explore individual, group, and social motivations for service work; how Habitat for Humanity has created a successful model for mobilizing volunteers to help build simple, decent shelter for families in need around the world; and how the work they\u2019ll do in Portugal fits into the area\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

Students don\u2019t have to go on the trip if they want to take HC 299, but those planning on traveling to Portugal are expected to take the class. As for whether the program works, there is much tangible evidence available. A blog from the 2013 Romania trip is available at honorshopesandhomes.blogspot.com<\/em><\/a>, and there is this sampling of entries in the students\u2019 group journal:<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving never worked in construction before, there was a steep learning curve. Throw that in with language and cultural differences and you have a grand adventure. It was fun and difficult all the same time…”<\/p>\n

\u201c(I am struck by) the vast separation of wealth in Cluj. The restaurants we dine in are pretty nice … I would be out with my parents in restaurants like that! Then you remember that we are here because seven-person families are living in one room.\u201d<\/p>\n

(An observer\u2019s quoted comment that it seemed like \u201ca waste of intellectual ability to have our best & brightest students simply engage in menial labor,\u201d drew several responses.)<\/p>\n

\u201cOh dear. There is so much more to it than that. I would call it a waste of ability to spend four years in a classroom without going beyond. … This experience alone has done so much for the expansion of our horizons. Interacting with the very people benefitting from our labor allows us to learn peoples\u2019 incredible stories and culture … We learn the depth of the situation of poverty and housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUmm, what? How about problem solving, critical thinking, teamwork, community building, communicating and interacting between cultures, the experience of a lifetime, helping our fellow human beings, etc.? I could go on but I\u2019d get too angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story from the Winter 2014 <\/em><\/em>Oregon Stater magazine, viewable in its original form online at <\/em>bit.ly\/osuhonorstravel<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

For more on the Honors College trip to Cluj, Romania in 2013 from the perspective of one of the participants, don’t miss HC alumnus Sam Settelmeyer’s account of the experience<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a fall afternoon in the Honors College enclave in Strand Ag Hall, instructor Dave Kovac started a session of HC 299 by playing Blood, Sweat and Tears\u2019 1969 hit \u201cGod Bless the Child.\u201d He challenged about a dozen students to hear all \u2014 every nuance \u2014 of the band\u2019s cover of the Billie Holiday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5647,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205],"tags":[204555,196241,3457,911,1046,1300],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","tag-building-hopes-and-homes","tag-faculty-2","tag-international","tag-students","tag-study-abroad","tag-volunteer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2261,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/2261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}