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Sarah Tytler

 

Read Blog: Sarah Tytler

Vietnam may be a vacation for some, a chance to experience another culture for others, but for a team of Virginia Wesleyan professors and students the country will be the focus of research.

Batten Professor of Philosophy Dr. Steven Emmanuel, along with Associate Professor of Communications Dr. Stu Minnis and six College students are conducting research in the rural areas of Vietnam for almost four weeks. Their journey began May 15 and will last until June 12.

The idea for the trip developed more than a year ago. Dr. Emmanuel and Dr. Minnis both wanted to take a class overseas for a Winter Session course.

Dedicated to academia and research, Dr. Emmanuel applied for a summer 2007 ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Award. He was one of 14 recipients to receive the prestigious grant, worth $23,535, which will fund the once in a life-time opportunity for him and five students. Additionally, Dr. Minnis will lead another student who will be receiving credit for a new course titled Understanding Other Cultures, as part of the International Service Learning Experiences. A member of Virginia Wesleyan’s Department of Communications, Dr. Minnis will be responsible for video-taping the trip.  

The students come from all divisions of academia but they will focus on one topic – the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping children in the Central Highlands region of the country. A vast region, the team will spend most of their time in Hue and nearby Quang Tri.

With help from the Office of Genetic Counseling and Disabled Children (OGDC), including Dr. Nugyen Viet Nhan, head of the department of Medical Genetics and director at OGCDC, the students will research how politics, economics, science, religion, and social attitudes intersect, and sometimes clash, in the attempt to improve the conditions of Vietnam’s rural poor.

In a proposal written about the purpose for the trip it stated that “approximately forty-five percent of rural people live below the poverty line, sixty percent lack access to safe drinking water, and nearly forty percent of children under the age of five are malnourished.”

Dr. Emmanuel and the students will be working on different aspects of humanitarianism. Junior Sarah Tytler, an international relations major, will focus on the political economy of Vietnam, while Julie Maggioncalda, a women’s and gender studies and religious studies major, will be looking at what extent a government is responsible for the care of its people.  Lauren Perry, a journalism and philosophy major, is going to investigate poverty and lack of healthcare on two particular subcultures in Vietnamese society, and Lan Tran, an environmental science and chemistry major, will focus on the way the Vietnamese are addressing the problem of persistent organic pollutants in the environment with assistance from Tara Redding ’07. And sophomore Matt Ryan, a business and communications major, will have two responsibilities – to investigate how micro-loans are being used in Central Vietnam to fuel economic development and to assist with video recording.

Once back from the trip, Dr. Emmanuel and Dr. Minnis, along with the help of Ryan will take all the video footage and create an hour long documentary. Once complete, the documentary will be sent to film festivals around the nation. In addition, Emmanuel will also attend the 2008 ASIANetwork Conference in Texas where he will present the students’ research from the trip.

Each student had to write a proposal on research they intended to conduct in Vietnam.

For more information on the background of the Vietnam trip, please visit Dr. Emmanuel’s flash media presentations at http://facultystaff.vwc.edu/~semmanuel/Site/soundscreens.html

To keep up with the month-long trip, please read the following blog which will be updated regularly during the trip:

Sarah Tytler: http://www.fwos.blogspot.com