December 1999
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Scott Murr
Furman
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What would you like Santa to bring you for Christmas?
Simplifying
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A column by David E. Shi.
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InsideFurman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
An international seminar
During the summer, Marian Strobel was one of eight professors to take part in an international faculty development program funded by The Duke Endowment and coordinated by Furman’s Office of International Education. The three-year grant pays the travel costs for professors to travel abroad during a two-week period in the summer.
Participating faculty attend lectures and accumulate information that may be incorporated into the curriculum. The program could also foster student exchange and study abroad opportunities.
This year, faculty visited Canada. Upcoming trips to Prague and Jamaica/Cuba are planned.
Here is Strobel’s account of the her trip to Canada:
On Tuesday, July 20, eight members of the Furman faculty flew to Montreal to participate in the university’s first faculty summer international seminar. We were a diverse group: Paula Gabbert (Computer Science), Olof Sorensen (Art), Harlan Patton (French), Cheryl Patterson (Economics and Business Administration), Robin Visel (English), and John Barrington and me (History). Our leader was Bill Lavery, also in the History Department and the Director of the Office of International Education. We would spend the next two weeks in the Province of Quebec, studying the French Separatist movement and gathering information for course enrichment and possible future student/faculty exchanges with French Canadian universities.
Over the course of our stay in Canada, our group enjoyed a variety of experiences and traveled many miles in our trusty van. Generally, our days followed a similar pattern that included morning lectures on French Canadian history, politics, education, art, and literature. These were delivered by noted professors from leading local universities such as Magill, the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, Laval, or the University of Quebec. Often we participated in afternoon tours.
For instance, when in Montreal we visited forts, museums and art galleries, took a walking tour of ethnic neighborhoods, viewed the Old Port area, and drove to the historic old town of Chambly. In Quebec, our next destination, we visited government buildings, drove to the rural Ile d’Orleans, and prowled the Upper and Lower cities of Quebec itself. Other destinations on our trip included Le Village Quebecois d’Antan in Drummondville (a re-created nineteenth century village), the shrine of St. Anne de Beaupre, the pastoral island of Ile-aux-Coudres in the Charlevoix, the university and industrial city of Chicoutimi in northern Quebec, and the beautiful Lac St. Jean/Saguenay area.
As part of our travels we ate spectacular food, took a cable car to the top of Mount St. Anne, and toured a cheese factory and a deserted lumber mill village. We also viewed an elaborate three-hour historical pageant, took a boat cruise on a fjord, and on one occasion even managed to get stuck in a crowded elevator with a leading French separatist! Needless to say, we seemed to be perpetually in motion on this trip.
Despite the great activity, the group also had time for quiet contemplation and honest conversation about the meaning of nationalism and how the past influences the present. We could feel the passions of the French Canadians as they strive to maintain their identity, language, culture and autonomy within the much larger Canadian federation. The next few years may indeed be critical ones for Canada and North America as Quebec seeks to fulfill what she believes is her destiny.
I know that all of us on this program learned a great deal. We have new respect for Quebec and the challenges facing the nation of which it is a part. If this trip is any indication, future groups of Furman professors will have equally impressive experiences as they travel to other fascinating parts of the world.