Anand Giridharadas discussed his book, The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas, at the Community Reading Project (CRP) lecture March 23 in the Russel H. Kirkhof Center before hundreds of students, faculty, and staff members.

In The True American, Giridharadas writes about an incident following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and said today’s America is just as contested and divided as it was nearly 16 years ago.

Giridharadas said his book starts with a simple question: “Where are you from?” That question was posed by Mark Stroman, an avowed “American terrorist,” to a Bangladesh immigrant, Raisuddin Bhuiyan, in late September 2001. Stroman didn’t like the answer Bhuiyan gave, so he shot and nearly killed him.

“After 9/11, Mark became possessed by the idea that he was going to fix this country,” Giridharadas said. 

The True American follows the paths of Stroman and Bhuiyan. Stroman lands on death row in Texas for killing another store clerk after shooting Bhuiyan. Bhuiyan publicly forgives Stroman and wages a legal battle to free him from execution. For Giridharadas, a journalist, the two men represented a divided America.

“We often tell the story of our country as a nation of immigrants who were fleeing persecution,” he said. “Raisuddin was on the good path. He was an Air Force officer in Bangladesh, but something in him found a trajectory ahead of him that he wanted.”

Giridharadas said through his investigations, he learned Stroman was “failed by the systems,” his parents, schools, and prisons. Stroman turned toward white supremacy in the prison system, Giridharadas said.

“The question of who is an American is as contested as it has ever been, in terms of race, gender status, and sexuality,” he said. “And sadly, this book has come back to life today.”

The CRP selection for the 2017-2018 academic year was announced: All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, by Rebecca Traister. Traister will give presentations in Holland on March 12 and at the Allendale Campus on March 13, 2018.

Established in 2008, the CRP is sponsored by the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, University Libraries, Herrick District Library, and the Grand Rapids Community Foundation. The coordinator for the program, Jennifer Jameslyn, is the director of integrative learning and advising for Brooks College.

As Grand Valley’s number of students is increasing, so are the number of students studying abroad. A new record was set in 2015-2016, as 854 students studied abroad. 

GVSU was 10th for the number of students from master’s level institutions participating in study abroad programs, according to the Institute for International Education’s 
(IIE) Annual Open Doors report. In addition, about  14 percent of GVSU bachelor-level graduates study abroad at some point in their Grand Valley career. 

A new endowment fund created in Fall 2016, the Global Programs Scholarship Fund, encourages support for a  fast-growing segment of the study abroad participation: faculty-led programs and overseas internships. In 2015-2016, there were 28 faculty-led study abroad programs compared to the previous year, when there were 23. 

The number of international students attending GVSU also has increased. The collaborative effort, led by the university’s Admissions Office, resulted in 430 students from 82 countries enrolling full-time at Grand Valley. 

All units on campus support Grand Valley’s goals to internationalize the campus community by increasing both the number of students studying abroad and international student enrollment, as well as ensuring all students have ample opportunity to study global issues through courses and extracurricular opportunities. Central to this work is the Barbara and Stuart Padnos International Center, housed in the Brooks College  
of Interdisciplinary Studies, whose staff prepares  students for study abroad, supports international  students studying on campus, and advocates for  
global learning across campus.

Kortney Ondayko, a women, gender, and sexuality studies (WGS) major, was the recipient of the first Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies study abroad scholarship in 2016. Ondayko participated in the six-week South Africa service learning trip sponsored by the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department. About the experience Ondayko said: “The trip was the most rich and challenging educational experience of my college career. Not only did it give me confidence to step out of my comfort zone, but it demanded that I re-examine my own notions of the world and push myself to continuously decolonize my own life and mind.” 

The Brooks College Scholarship for Study Abroad is an endowed fund that awards one scholarship a year to a Brooks College or Frederik Meijer Honors College student who wants to study abroad. Preference is given to students whose study abroad program includes a service- learning component. 

“With the generosity of the Brooks College, I was able to feel supported and much more at ease when figuring out the finances of my trip! I financed this trip on my own, so having the scholarship took an immense burden off of me (and my loans) and allowed me to enjoy preparing for my trip that much more! I was not sure if I was going to be able to finance my trip without a scholarship, so the Brooks College really ensured my ability to study abroad,” said Ondayko.

The 2017 study abroad scholarship was given to Courtney Holland, an African/African American studies minor. 

Holland also will participate in the South Africa WGS trip. “This scholarship means so much because I am funding my study aboard trip on my own. This scholarship will really help with financing it. I am so humbled and thankful to receive it,” said Holland.

Peter Wampler, faculty-in-residence at the Frederik  Meijer Honors College, led Grand Valley’s first study abroad trip to Haiti in 2016 and led another group of students in May 2017.

The multidisciplinary groups of students contributed their energy and ideas while exploring real-world problems in Haiti, said Wampler, associate professor of geology.

He said the trip’s first week was devoted to hiking and acclimatizing to the mountains of Haiti, while visiting urban Port au Prince and remote mountain villages. The last three weeks were spent traveling to remote towns for service-learning opportunities.
During the first month-long trip in 2016, students installed three new filtration wells and assisted in monitoring the quality of water. Students taught children at a local school how to dance, presented mental health information to nursing students, and showed Disney’s “Finding Nemo” to young patrons at a library.

Wampler deemed the trips “adventure-based learning” and said he shared experiences from the inaugural Haiti trip with Meijer Honors College students. “I use the experiences to illustrate how science is used to solve  real-world problems in a place like Haiti,” he said.

Geology major Hayley Schram turned the 2016 trip into a research project after collecting samples from 20 hand-dug wells in Haiti and testing them for safe drinking levels. Her poster presentation, with Wampler as co-author, won first place in the student competition at the Geological Society of America conference in Denver.

A study abroad experience in Nicaragua started Rachel Travis on a path to complete a certificate program that has benefited her while at Grand Valley and will likely give her an advantage when competing for jobs after graduation.

Travis earned an intercultural training certificate (ITC), which is designed to give students the skills needed to interact effectively and sensitively with diverse populations. The certificate program is offered through Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies and is open to all students.

Travis is a Meijer Honors College student with a double major in supply chain management and marketing. She said she hopes to someday work internationally. “The ITC program gives you a perspective of other cultures and helps you understand the globalization involved in the business world, even among local companies,” she said.

The study abroad trip Travis took to Nicaragua fulfilled the ITC’s practicum requirement. While there, Travis and other students hosted a workshop on social innovation for residents, which she said focused on solving a problem specific to the area.
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“The overarching topics were global warming, clean water, and medical improvements, so we helped people create and mock up products dealing with these topics,” she said.

Travis successfully applied to be an American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS) scholar and gave a poster presentation on increasing supplier diversity at the association’s conference in Washington, D.C., in late September, 2016.
Her APICS presentation stemmed from Travis’ ITC Capstone project, which was a plan that business owners can incorporate to increase diversity in their supplier base. 

Next summer, Travis will work with Jaideep Motwani, chair and professor of management in the Seidman College of Business, to develop case studies with local firms on supplier diversity. “Based on Rachel’s interviews and findings, we plan to develop a framework that organizations can utilize to take their supplier diversity programs to the next level,” Motwani said.

Motwani said he is a strong proponent of intercultural training and education and often stresses that to  
his students.

“In today’s world, every organization’s supply chain is global. Understanding and appreciating cultural diversity is crucial and essential,” he said.

A professor of religion at the University of Chicago brought firsthand accounts of religion and censorship during a keynote presentation on campus in November.

Wendy Doniger, scholar and author of The Hindus: An Alternative History, gave a presentation at the Mary Idema Pew Library Learning and Information Commons before more than 150 students, faculty and staff members, and community members.

Doniger’s book was withdrawn from publication in India because it offended a group of right-wing nationalists. The Hindus was published in India in 2010 and became the target of lawsuits, stating that it violated the country’s law of deliberately offending a person’s religious sensibilities. In 2014, Penguin Books India announced it would not publish the book in India, an announcement that drew calls of censorship.

“We really value having intellectual conversation that engages people across the university.” — Sarah King

The prolific author of more than 40 books discussed the challenges of discussing sensitive topics in religion, especially Hinduism. Sarah King, associate professor of liberal studies and program coordinator for religious studies, said students enjoyed the presentation.

“We really value having intellectual conversation that engages people across the university,” King said. “The debates around Wendy’s work remind us that what we scholars talk about, and how we talk about it, is important not only in the intellectual sphere, and in the classroom, but also in larger public conversations.”

After the presentation, Doniger was a guest at a luncheon with religious studies faculty members and members of the program’s advisory board.

Abhishek Ghosh, assistant professor of religious studies, studied with Doniger as a graduate student. “Wendy may be very controversial in India, but these controversial ideas are also very important to understanding alternative perspectives on Hinduism,” Ghosh said.

The presentation was sponsored by many campus units and programs: Area and Global Studies, Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies dean’s office, Frederik Meijer Honors College, human rights, Kaufman Interfaith Institute, Liberal Studies Department, religious studies, Sociology Department, and Anthropology Department.
 

The setting for the Black Lives Matter course was like any other classroom at Grand Valley. Yet, students in the course said it was unlike any class they have experienced.

Offered as a one-credit course through African/African American studies, it was taught by Louis Moore, associate professor of history, from September 12 to October 14, 2016.

Chas Willis, one of 13 students who enrolled in the course, said the class provided a unique experience by blending modern news topics with historical events.

“A lot of the stuff that you hear about today when talking about race is not new,” Willis said. “We looked at events that happened in the 1920s, and they sounded strangely familiar to what you hear going on today.”

The class spent a lot of time discussing current events. Moore said he could often tell there was something the students wanted to talk about.

“I remember one time I was lecturing about a group project, and you could see that there was something going on, that everyone wanted to talk about a recent police murder,” Moore said.

The class created a “StoryMap” project that outlined the history of racism in America.

Joe Cadreau, a junior majoring in public, nonprofit, and health administration, said he enrolled in the course because he wanted to be more educated. Like Willis, Cadreau said he sees history repeating itself when 
it comes to racism, and he wanted to get better at communicating those ideas.

“A lot of people are ignorant about this history or just do not care,” Cadreau said. “I want to be able to do my part  in this community by knowing what happened and how  it still impacts us today.”

Willis said going to class was fun because it did not feel like a traditional lecture. Since the course was discussion-based, he had the ability to speak his mind and have fruitful conversations with classmates. “I really think classes like this one could be implemented throughout  the curriculum,” Willis said. “We did not just learn from Professor Moore, we learned from actually talking to one another and having a conversation about race.”

Moore said it is unclear if the class will return, but he sees the value of hosting it at a university.

“This class gave students the opportunity to explore something in real time and get historical context,” Moore said. “Being able to come to class and speak freely about what’s going on in society and on campus is really helpful.”