• Global Education
• University Helps Fight Hunger Through Art
• Wittenberg Partners with Top Management School
• Construction Begins on New Residence Hall
• Advancing Wittenberg
• Professor Creates Artists Colony
• Three Scholars Conclude Their Wittenberg Careers
• Commencement 2005
• Wittenberg Commissions Lutheran Identity Study
• Faculty Trip to China Aids East Asian Studies Program
• Talk of the Town
• New Director of Admission Named
• Collaborative Research Leads to Presentations
• Student Discovers Rare Book at Springfield Auction
• Benjamin Prince House Day 2005

Pam Evans '06, right, met Pule Motsdari Jabu while in Lesotho. Jabu often would say "sure" amd "let's have a go" during the four-week service trip to Lesotho

Every year, Wittenberg professors and students give of themselves in service to others, and that tradition continued this summer with trips to Africa and Guatemala.

Twenty-nine students, led by Scott Rosenberg, associate professor of history and campus Habitat for Humanity (HFH) adviser, immersed themselves in volunteer work and study in the South African Kingdom of Lesotho, May 17-June 15.

In addition to taking classes at the National University of Lesotho, the group spent several days working with HFH in Maseru, Lesotho’s capital, spackling houses and digging pit latrines. The students also built playground equipment and planted 32 fruit trees for the Maseru Children’s Village, an orphanage of 35 children, some of whom are battling AIDS. Prior to the trip, the group raised $12,000 to help subsidize the cost of the materials.

“The students opened their hearts and their minds,” Rosenberg said. “They cared, and they helped.”

A former Peace Corps volunteer, Rosenberg has been volunteering for 20 years. The Lesotho trip marks the second time he has accompanied Wittenberg students to the area.

“The experience was so powerful the last time that I wanted to do it again,” he said, noting that many students asked him to lead another trip.

Religion major Pam Evans ’06 was one such student. Interested in pursuing international nonprofit work after graduation, Evans said the trip exposed her to how other people in the world live.

“There are only so many things you can learn from reading a book or talking with others who have a similar background,” she said. “But there is no limit to what you can learn from walking with a person from another country, working side-by-side with someone who speaks little or no English, hugging someone who can truly offer a hug in gratitude, or watching a small child when he or she recognizes your face.”

Forty students shared a similar experience in Antigua, Guatemala, May 21-June 19. The intensive language study program was led by Christine McIntyre, associate professor of languages and the director of global studies, and John Cantrell, adjunct instructor of languages.

Throughout the four weeks, students lived with local families and took courses at the Ixchel Spanish School, one of the leading Spanish schools in Antigua. The students also spent a significant amount of time and energy building classrooms for a rural Mayan school in Chilmatenango, which Wittenberg’s department of languages adopted. The three-week project, completed together with Guatemalans in the community, included mixing concrete by hand and digging three-foot trenches using picks and shovels.

“It made you appreciate what you were doing a lot more, and you developed a stronger sense of pride in what you were doing,” said history major Brian DeSantis ’07.

“Everybody worked for the betterment of the school,” added Cantrell, who joined the group in raising $1,300 for materials prior to the trip. “I think it was a rewarding, humbling experience.”