Article published February 03, 2009
Defiance College
When CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman delivered the commencement address at Defi ance College in 2007, he reminded students they were graduating from “one of the most globally caring, socially conscious schools in America.“
The creation in 2002 of the McMaster School for Advancing Humanity has created a model that allows Defiance students to apply academic expertise in a way that impacts humanity.
Twenty-six students and eight faculty members are directly participating in projects this year as Scholars, Fellows and Associate Fellows with additional support from dozens of students involved in campus-based efforts. During the current 2008-09 year, funding was approved for projects in Belize, Cambodia, and New Orleans.
Students and faculty members spent two weeks in rural Belize, conducting projects as varied as installing solar cells for a rural school to working with a women’s center to reintroduce traditional Maya pottery-making. In New Orleans, faculty, staff and students spent two weeks researching wetlands destruction, studying the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs for juvenile delinquents, and collecting oral histories in the African-American community for the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University. And in May, faculty and students will head to Cambodia to work with the Cambodia Women’s Crisis Center educating women and teen girls about sexually transmitted diseases, to provide equipment to a rehab program for victims of landmine accidents, and to conduct water testing for arsenic, a widespread problem. While there, they will also provide doctors and medical technicians with the latest research on effectively treating tuberculosis.
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