NEWPORT, R.I. (Sept. 22, 2016) – On the next two Saturdays, 22 Salve Regina University students will be meeting and interviewing clients from Providence’s Refugee Dream Center, after which they will transcribe and edit their interviews, and send the finished product back to the Center for its use as part of a class project designed to expand students’ understanding of cultural diversity.
The project blends tenets of the university’s mission with experiential learning and community engagement. The students are enrolled in Dr. Chad Raymond’s UNV 101, a university seminar designed for first-semester students in which Raymond is inspiring them to take a broader look at immigration, which is one of the Mercy critical concerns. Salve Regina is a Mercy institution and the university seminar is a core requirement designed to refine students’ skills of inquiry, analysis and communication.
“The purpose of the project is to get first-semester students interacting in the community with people whose cultural backgrounds and life experiences are very different from their own,” said Raymond, who is chairman of the Department of Cultural, Environmental and Global Studies. “This interaction benefits the Refugee Dream Center by providing it with documentation that it can use to inform others about its services.”