South Africa Study Abroad Program
Our South Africa Study Abroad program has been expanded to a semester-long experience beginning in Spring 2011
Since 2000, our students have participated in a five-week summer study abroad undergraduate program in South Africa. Now we are also offering a semester-long (13 weeks) program, built around five courses, called “Human Rights in Transitional Justice” which will start in spring 2011.
The program is a transdisciplinary examination of fragile states in transition from a military dictatorship to a pluralistic democracy. Students learn about peace building and social healing from South African scholars and officials who served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the organization that offered amnesty in exchange for full disclosure of involvement in Apartheid human rights abuses. As such, the course is applicable to our Certificates in both Human Rights and Sociolegal Studies.
Teri Murphy, faculty associate, has been leading student groups and teaching in South Africa for over a decade. She is completing her Ph.D. in Social Psychology with research in memory, narrative and social healing at the University of Cape Town. “We believe that a semester-long program will offer a deeper level of intellectual, cultural and socio-political understanding,” Murphy says. “By staying longer, students have the opportunity to move past the usual ‘culture shock’ … and begin to explore and analyze more deeply the political climate, history, challenges and opportunities that South Africa faces.”
Students come away from their South African sojourn fundamentally changed. “I saw anguish, I saw poverty, I saw wretched disease. I also saw joy, togetherness, family and love. That is the common thread of all humanity,” says Sara Norman, student.
Another student, Leticia Martinez, says, “It changed my life, my views about the world and my views about forgiveness and human rights. It was a profound experience and difficult to put into words.”
The summer and new spring study abroad program are run jointly with ASU’s Religious Studies and School of Politics and Global Studies..
