Westminster University - Utah
AC-5: Immersive Experience

Westminster offers many courses during the one month May Term that allow students to go on immersive trips. Several of the trips focus on sustainability.

Courses offered in the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, 2015-2016 academic year include:

Bhutan and Gross National Happiness
In this course students will learn about Bhutan’s culture, religious traditions, environmental challenges and how together, these shape the country’s conservation policies and the role of natural resources in rural livelihoods and national development. We will explore the diverse geology and biodiversity of the Himalayas, the adaptation by flora and fauna to unique ecosystems, and natural hazards of high alpine environments, along with human approaches to mitigate these hazards. This trip will include multiple hikes, field visits to community forestry projects and rural farms, a service learning project, and meetings and discussions with government ministers, Buddhist monks, sustainable forestry managers, and college students and professors at the Royal Thimphu College of Bhutan.

Europe on the Edge
The participants in this study experience will travel southward through Central Europe from Berlin to Venice, paralleling important historical and cultural borders including The Iron Curtain, The Eastern Front of World Wars I and II, the border between Slavic and Germanic linguistic and ethnic groups, and, at times, the boundary between the Christian, Islamic, and Semitic populations. Students will engage in site visits and reflective activities geared toward developing their abilities to think across boundaries. The roles these borderlands have played in the creation of geopolitical, cultural, psychological, and environmental boundaries in history and the social sciences will also be addressed.

An American in Paris
Hemingway famously described Paris as “a movable feast” and by this he meant that the city’s culture absorbed in youth would stay with the lucky traveler for a lifetime. Our May Term Study Experience emphasizes Paris’s remarkable cultural depth at the same time it challenges our students to respond to its variety in the course of an extended residence. But as Hemingway’s own life shows, Paris is not a place for passive touring. The group will focus on the active expression of their own ideas in response to the human and natural landscape around them. Paris became the center of the Western art world with the birth of Modernism. Artists, musicians, writers and dancers from all over the world gathered in this beautiful city to be a part of its vibrant scene. Of course, Parisian culture was built on creative expression since long before this time, and its artistic vitality continues today. We will live in Paris for the month. We will visit galleries and museums, and attend performances and events. We will experience significant art in the place it was made, and we will make art of our own. This trip promises a distinctive learning experience for Westminster students because it balances visits to inspiring cultural touchstones with sustained personal creative responsibilities. In the footsteps of Gertrude Stein and Richard Wright, Benjamin Franklin and Henry James, these young Americans will enjoy the conventional aspects of a study trip and harvest the labors of an extended artistic residency.

The Sciences and History of Hawaii
This course will take a multidisciplinary approach to studying the island of Hawaii. Hawaii is one of the newest landmasses on Earth, and therefore can provide scientists with insights into how islands form and become inhabited. The fact that this is such a new natural environment does not, however, mean that it is pristine. Already this island is being adversely affected not only by the natural elements but also by commercial exploitation. An important aspect of our discussions will be not only how this island has formed, but also the responsibilities that people have for responsible stewardship of the island known as “America’s Paradise.” Hawaii’s history is also unique, and the “big island” of Hawaii stands at the center of that history. The islands were forged into a powerful independent kingdom from Hawaii. British Captain James Cook landed there, establishing European contact but meeting his own death. The islands eventually became sites for missionary activity, whaling, and commercial agriculture at the expense of the native population, whose numbers were decimated, as well as native flora and fauna, which also suffered. In the late 19th century Hawaii became one of the first targets of American imperialists, who overthrew the native monarchy and brought the islands under American control. This history raises important questions of social justice and native sovereignty.

Exploring Hopi and Navajo Nations
This course introduces students to Hopi and Navajo peoples. It includes social, educational, environmental, political, economic, artistic, health and caring aspects of their cultures. Special emphasis will be placed on the practical aspects of health care and observation in the schools. There will be a nine-day field trip designed for students to explore health issues, educational practices, and ecosystems on Hopi and Navajo reservations in northern Arizona and southern Utah. Students will visit Indian Health Services and private health care facilities, schools on reservations, Hopi and possibly Navajo families, museums, and possibly National Park sites. Students will participate in guided field and river trips. Students will also spend one day visiting related sites in Salt Lake City after the nine-day field experience.

Service Learning in Colombia: Perspectives on Culture, Global Health, and Spanish
This course provides a cultural immersion and service-learning opportunity to explore health needs of rural and urban populations as they work alongside local health care providers and foundations while incorporating public health/medical/cultural Spanish vocabulary. Students will gain an understanding of the region's health care needs as well as an introduction to components of community assessment. Students will also explore traditional medical and folk practices in an effort to understand beliefs about health, healing, and healthy and sustainable relationships with the environment. Students will travel though Bogotá, along the mountainous terrain of the Andes through cloud forests, coffee and plantain plantations, “páramos” (all high, tropical, mountain vegetation above the continuous timberline) and villages to Villa de Leyva (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site) to Armenia and to Bucaramanga where the landscape is stark, barren and dramatic. Finally, the group will visit the Caribbean in Cartagena de Indias and enjoy the natural scenery. It will be possible to snorkel near coral reefs, see the various species of the Caribbean, listen to tropical music while serving and projecting the public health program. Students will also participate in a home stay with the local population in Bucaramanga and in rural/urban hotels in order to be exposed to agriculture, conservation, cooking local food, and immersion in the culture of the local residents.