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September 17, 2007 • VOL. 45, NO. 16 • Oakland, CA
USF leaders
see reality
of global poverty in Nicaragua
 |
Jesuit Father Stephen A. Privett, president of the University of San Francisco, visits with a craftsman in Managua, Nicaragua, during a university administration team’s immersion trip there. Father Privett and the 12-member team wanted to observe the realities of poverty and to make concrete the university’s mission of providing a global perspective. CNS PHOTO/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO |
SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) — When University of San Francisco
graduates receive their diplomas next year, they might not realize the
leather covers enclosing those hard-earned certificates came from a struggling
artisan in Nicaragua.
Members of the University of San Francisco’s leadership team, headed
by the president, Jesuit Father Stephen Privett, took an immersion trip
to Nicaragua June 8-16.
The goal was to educate participants about the realities of poverty in
the developing world to enhance classroom work and make concrete the university’s
mission of providing a global perspective.
Tangible results of this trip included a probable link between the Jesuit-run
university and a Nicaraguan leather shop.
After a visit to a leather craftsman’s home and workshop outside
the capital, Managua, Tracy Shroeder, the university’s vice president
for information technology, suggested the university could link with the
man to provide a service to students that would also help his small business.
Recalling that the university orders around 3,000 leather diploma covers
every year for graduation, Shroeder wondered if the Nicaraguan craftsman
could fill such an order.
“If that worked at USF, other Jesuit institutions might jump into
that as well,” said Shroeder. “Suddenly you see something
that could fundamentally change his business — something that is
a routine expenditure for the university but could help feed his children.”
Father Privett concurred: “Why not support an artisan co-op down
in Nicaragua for whom 3,000 stable orders would make a huge difference?”
The Universidad Centroamericana, a fellow Jesuit institution in Managua,
hosted the 12-member team during its stay.
Previous immersion retreat destinations for the University of San Francisco’s
leaders have included El Salvador and Tijuana, Mexico, and focused on
country-specific problems: in El Salvador, the civil war and the infamous
murder of Jesuit priests and their housekeeper in 1989; in Mexico, immigration
and border issues.
According to the United Nations, Nicaragua is now one of the poorest nations
in the Western Hemisphere, so the team focused on economic issues. They
also placed particular emphasis on the hosting university, working with
faculty and officials to see if new connections could be made to the advantage
of both institutions.
“The overall hope is that these kinds of experiences raise the sensitivity
and consciousness of the university’s leadership with regard to
what the world looks like,” Father Privett told Catholic San Francisco,
the archdiocesan newspaper.
It is important for university leaders to be exposed to the plight of
the world’s poor, he said, because it helps them better educate
students about global poverty, unheard of in the West.
“We talk about educating from a global perspective,” Father
Privett said. “Well, that’s really the global perspective.
It’s not about business interests crossing borders. It’s about
two-thirds of the world lacking adequate food, shelter, education and
health care.”
The team included the president; the vice presidents for business and
finance, for university life, for university advancement and for information
technology services; the associate provost; the deans of the business
and management, nursing and education schools; the dean of academic and
enrollment services; and the rector of the Jesuit community.
The participants visited the Fe y Alegria school system in Managua. With
around 1,200 students ranging from kindergarten to high school, the Jesuit-run
curriculum also features a technical program for high school graduates
focused on auto mechanics and air-conditioning maintenance. The technical
school boasts a 100-percent hiring rate.
The university group also visited an encampment of nearly 300 people who
live and work adjacent to Managua’s garbage dump. Inhabitants often
find their food by sifting through the trash. The landfill also supports
grazing cattle, whose contaminated milk is sold at markets, team members
were told.
The contingent met with Eddy Perez of Dos Generaciones, a nongovernmental
organization that works with the children of the encampment to facilitate
educational opportunities.
Nursing school dean Judith Karshmer hopes to share the immersion experience
with colleagues and students.
“If this were good for me, which it really was, then shouldn’t
I try to do whatever it is I can to make it happen for faculty and staff
in the school of nursing?” she asked.
“I’m going to try to work with some of my colleagues who are
faculty in nursing who are Spanish speakers, and some students who are
Spanish speakers,” she said, “and see if we can try a pilot
immersion experience.”
Shroeder hopes to use her university position to help groups she met in
Nicaragua.
“The organization that works with the craftspeople needs a couple
of computers,” she noted, adding that her department has a program
that donates used computers.
Anne-Marie Devine, the university’s assistant director of media
relations, said that to her knowledge the University of San Francisco
is the first and only university in the country to employ an immersion
experience with an entire leadership team.
For Father Privett, having other leaders from the school on the trip was
indispensable.
“Leadership in the university is distributed, so it’s not
enough for the president or the vice president to go and to have this
kind of education,” he said. “I’m not the supreme leader
of this university. It’s crucial that it is a shared experience,
because leadership is a shared experience.”
