Article Courtesy of with the Arkansas Traveler
Over the
past eight years, students participating in the TEXT study abroad
program at the UofA have been able to interview Tibetans living in
India, and next semester they will be able to study documentary film and
historical research using the interviews gathered by previous trips.
A
semester-long class will be offered next semester that will give
students the chance to use footage gathered by the TEXT program to
create a historical research paper and a documentary film, said Sidney
Burris, director of Honors Studies in the Fulbright College, in an
email.
The program is an “oral history
project that is dedicated to preserving the stories of Tibetans who
living in exile in India,” Burris said.
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| Courtesy of Adams Pryor |
In March of 1959, the Dalai Lama
left Tibet in exile, and many people followed him to northwest India
after more than 1.2 million Tibetans were killed as a result of Chinese
occupation, according to the Central Tibetan Administration website.
The TEXT program exists to allow
students to interview the Tibetans who were able to escape the country,
in order to preserve their culture. The students on the trip interview
those Tibetans and Tibetanswho were born in exile, Burris said.
The part of the program that is
the most unique is that the students conduct the interviews themselves,
Burris said. He helps the students with initial work on the interviews,
but it is the students who speak with the Tibetans, whether directly or
through a translator.
Geshe Thupten Dorjee, a clinical
assistant professor who has been teaching at the UofA since 2006, is the
reason UA students get an insider look into the lives of these
Tibetans, as he grew up in the area to which the students travel.
Because of Dorjee’s connections
and experience, students are able to stay in monasteries and meet the
monks living there, that Bobby Howard, who had previously been on the
trip, described in an email as “the kindest, gentlest and most
compassionate people.”
But the insider experience is not
the only thing students get out of the trip. Students come back from
the trip and say that their problems are nothing, Dorjee said. They also
learn about the Tibetans’ principles of nonviolence, which are the core
of their beliefs.
“We were serving an exiled people
group, learning from their experience and history and soaking in the
wisdom of the Tibetan Buddhist culture,” Howard said in an email.
“They're a people whose only advocates are the Dalai Lama and people
like us, and they're up against huge economic and political powers.”
The trip takes about 15-17
students, and these groups of students go every other year, except for
2008 and 2009, where they did not skip a year, Burris said. This is
because of the time it takes to process the video interviews the
students conduct, as the program has no staff besides a single graduate
assistant.
The trip costs about $2,750 for
students and nothing for the university, Burris said. This covers six
hours of course credit, transportation and accommodations, but the
exchange rate determines how expensive the latter two costs are.
Howard stressed that the difference between the program and other study abroad programs is that it is service-learning based.
The TEXT program was one of the main reasons the Dalai Lama came to campus in 2011, Burris said.
The TEXT program is being offered
this year, and the additional class will be offered next semester,
although it is not mandatory for students participating in the TEXT
program.
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Don't miss out on your chance to study abroad!
Find out more about the U of A Faculty-Led: Tibetans in Exile Today (TEXT) India program at https://studyabroad.uark.edu/textindia
Search for additional study abroad opportunities in over 50 countries at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/
Find out more about the U of A Faculty-Led: Tibetans in Exile Today (TEXT) India program at https://studyabroad.uark.edu/textindia
Search for additional study abroad opportunities in over 50 countries at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/
