Date:
11/14/2003
Contact: Wendel Sloan at 505.562.2253
Reporter: Britt Hochhausler
PORTALES--The College of Education at Eastern New Mexico University will present a forum on intercultural perspectives on Thursday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. in the Pecos Room of the Campus Union Building .
The forum will focus on the recent Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad program to Ghana . This summer, public school teachers, through ENMU, were awarded a Fulbright-Hays Group Abroad Project grant. Eighteen teachers participated in the project, which allowed them to travel to Ghana for 29 days to study teaching and cultural customs.
The forum will begin with a presentation on the background information about Ghana and the project by Dr. Vanetta Perry of Socorro and Dr. Caryl Johnson, assistant professor of family and consumer sciences at ENMU, the authors of the grant. They provided a six-hour course titled Ghanaian Area Studies in Diversity Globalization: An Intercultural Perspective of Rural Ghanaian Villages.
"We had both been to Ghana , and we had a good working relationship with the teachers there," Dr. Johnson said. "We knew what to expect."
Most of the teachers were from rural areas in New Mexico and were enrolled in extended learning family and consumer courses at ENMU for the project.
Two teachers from Barry Elementary in Clovis , Terri Dixon and Barbara Parson, will present a comparison of daily lives between the two cultures.
The teachers used the knowledge and cultural lessons they learned in Ghana in their own classrooms.
Four of the teachers involved in the program work in Clovis at Barry Elementary and Highland Elementary. In October, these teachers presented a Durbar (a celebration to honor guests and visitors) and an African Market Day.