From the prisons of Mexico to the waters of the Amazon River, WTAMU students are experiencing education in a variety of different ways through Go Global.
Go Global is a study abroad program created seven years ago by faculty members of the College of Education and Social Sciences department. Though connected to the Study Abroad program at WT, Go Global is not the traditional study abroad experience.
Dr. Eddie Henderson, dean of the COESS, said that rather than offering semester long trips overseas, Go Global offer students short term trips, anywhere from two to four weeks.“Many of our students work fulltime, they have families, they haven’t traveled extensively and therefore being gone from home for a semester is a little daunting,” Henderson said. “So we found the short term experience allows them to manage the time.”
In the beginning, changing demographics of the area meant an increase in school population. Teachers and school administration faced an increase in the number of students from Mexico, so the education department at WT decided to help narrow the cultural gap.
“We were trying to determine the best way to prepare those school administrators to address the needs of children coming directly from Mexico,” Henderson said. “We decided the most effective way to prepare was to take them to Mexico and have them visit and work in Mexican schools with Mexican children and Mexican families.”
Aside from quick trips, Go Global is also a faculty led program, meaning professors and faculty members also participate in the trip and are available for questions 24/7.
Shona Besselman, assistant principal of curriculum and instruction at Amarillo High School and former Go Global participant, explained that having a professor to ask questions and discuss the trip with is a special type of educational experience and one met by Go Global.
“One of my favorite memories is having access to my professors the entire time,” Besselman said. “We were riding down, basically, a tributary to the Amazon, listening to Dr. Henderson lecture as the sun went down and as we watched the jungle.”
Though the program began within the curriculum confines of the education department, it eventually extended to include the social work, political science and criminal justice departments as well.
In 2010, criminal justice students traveled to Mexico to learn about the Mexican prison system, including visiting a Mexican prison and police stations and were lectured by the one of the Mexican Supreme Court justices.
“[The students] didn’t become experts on Mexican culture or criminology, but they did learn some pretty important things,” Dr. Keith Price, associate professor of Criminal Justice and Sociology, said. “For instance…that the criminal law in Mexico is based on Roman civil law [guilty until proven innocent] where American criminal law is based on English common law [innocent until proven guilty].”
Aside from shorter trips, access to faculty members and hands-on projects, Go Global also offers a significantly lower cost to travel than traditional study abroad programs, according to Henderson.
For Besselman, the cost of the program is something students need to look into before concluding it’s too pricey just because it’s Study Abroad.
