While many students will be spending Spring Break traveling, working and/or recuperating from midterms at home, several students and faculty members have chosen to participate in Alternative Spring Break trips and travel abroad through University academic programs.
Students and faculty will embark on various study abroad programs offered by the University over spring break, with the goal of gaining insight into different cultures and fields of study. Meanwhile, the Alternative Spring Break program will provide students with opportunities to engage in service trips and community projects across the United States, focusing on issues such as education, environmental conservation and social justice.
There are a multitude of different academic programs and trips available to students through U.Va. Education Abroad and International Studies Office. This office facilitates the different excursions, classes, logistics and faculty members needed to support students not only during spring break, but throughout the year.
According to the office’s website, this year there are several programs running over Spring Break including trips to Norway, Costa Rica, England and Ireland with each program aiming to educate students about certain political and cultural norms of the places they will be visiting.
One program hosted over spring break is U.Va. in Norway: Education Inside U.S. and International Prisons led by Batten Prof. Gerard Robinson. In this program, Robinson will be taking 18 undergraduate and graduate students to Oslo, Norway between March 8-15 to interact with those involved in criminal justice reform. According to Robinson, students will be able to converse with elected officials, nonprofit leaders at the Red Cross and scholars at the University of Oslo while also visiting a prison, re-entry center and half-way house.
According to the program website, this trip is intended to generally expose students to Norway’s political and criminal justice systems and how and why they differ from those of the United States. This trip also provides students with the rare first-hand opportunities to see the inside of Norway’s prisons and to communicate with those involved in the prison system itself including politicians and prison officials.
Another program hosted over spring break is U.Va. Commerce: Costa Rica: Management Consulting Practicum led by Assoc. Commerce Prof. Katie McDermott and Asst. Commerce Prof. Paul Seaborn who will be taking a group of students to Costa Rica to engage in experiential learning and real-world projects. According to Seaborn, who will be leading this trip for the third consecutive year, this program is designed for third and fourth year students who will be awarded class credit for attending.
“My McIntire course, COMM 4569: Management Consulting Practicum in Costa Rica, provides students an opportunity to visit three different areas of Costa Rica and to work on consulting projects with real-world Costa Rican clients,” Seaborn said.
As stated on the program website, this trip is designed to give students hands-on experience in management consulting while exposing them to the unique business environment of Costa Rica. The program also provides students with a rare opportunity to work directly with a client organization to identify and resolve the client’s issues, gaining insights into international consulting and hypothesis-driven problem-solving approaches.
U.Va. in Ireland & Northern Ireland: Policies for Conflict and Peace will be led by Assoc. Batten Prof. Paul Martin. This trip, only available to fourth-year Batten students enrolled in the spring semester class taught by Martin, investigates the long-lasting conflict in Northern Ireland as well as the institutional reforms which enabled peace in the 1988 Good Friday Agreement, the stability of this peace resolution and the effects of the 2016 Brexit vote on Irish relations. Students participating in this trip will travel across both Ireland and Northern Ireland visiting Dublin, Derry, Belfast and Ballycastle.
The programs offered by the International Studies Office, however, are not the only opportunities the University provides students with over spring break. The Alternative Spring Break student-run service organization notably offers a wide variety of community service projects for students to participate in. This year the organization offers students with several locations to visit including Utah, California, Hawaii, Georgia and Florida.
Students spend their spring break following the program’s schedule by engaging in meaningful community service projects, including conducting academic research, community cleanups and building community infrastructure.
Spring break begins Saturday and ends March 16.
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