Today was my first day in the department. I walked
the long way, passed the music department so that I could stop in and say hi. I
also greeted the Dean at the School of Psychology and Dr. Adupo, Dean of Arts
and Sciences.
Most of the morning was consumed with a
departmental meeting and then a very big luncheon. Lunch – pineapples, ground
nuts, beans, rice, potatoes, bananas. YUM!
James is the new head of department and he chaired
the meeting. The department has faced challenges lately, but they are once
again feeling optimistic about making some progress with their goals. We spent
a little bit of time talking about their needs and articulating goals for my
visit. I will be giving a University wide lecture on research publishing next
Wednesday. Otherwise we have not programmed out next week, but we did pencil
together a schedule for this week. One thing I have learned through my work
here is that flexibility with schedules is the norm. Tomorrow morning I will
meet the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. After that, I will be meeting
with the research team and anyone else who wants to learn a bit about doing
research.
The afternoons have been designated as an
opportunity for me to work one-on-one with faculty and staff. This afternoon
that put me in contact with someone I had not met before – David. David is a
part-time professor who only joined Kyambogo University this past semester. He
has quite a lot of research experience and was very interesting. He will be
moving to a department in a new university called Busitema University on the
border with Kenya. He has not heard of action research, but his work definitely
fits that approach in style. He said that in the 2000 following the passage of
the universal primary education act in Uganda, there were some new schools
opening for what Americans tend to think of as the middle grades. These schools
were located at a distance from where children lived and so their parents would
take them to the city and get an apartment for them to live in while going to
this middle grades school. David was interested in studying the effects of
living out of the family for these youngsters. He found that it was a disaster
in terms of safety, sexual exploitation and all myriad of other problems, particularly
bad for girls. The education result was high drop-out. David labored over what
to do with these terrible findings and concluded that he should start a
boarding school for girls in the area. He proudly talked about some of the
girls who succeeded in earning their O levels and some even went on to become
teachers. This school is still going.
His more recent research interests include
examining the effects of the war on displaced families. He is interested in the
resiliency and resolution of war-effects for people as they move into peace.
Anyone interested in this kind of project should contact me so I can put you in
contact with him.
Another project David is contemplating involves a
problem at the border. Young people, men I believe, have dropped out of school
to take odd, nefarious jobs on the border. David is interested in studying this
group. He is interested in figuring out ways to address the challenges
associated with these drop out decisions because he is, of course, interested
in seeing changes in this phenomena. We spent quite a bit of time talking about
how one might go about such a study.
Today at the meeting, I was able to spend a few
moments talking with Mr. Okumu, former Department Chair, and friend. You can
see him foregrounded in the picture below. I absolutely love the way Mr. Okumu
talks, but I cannot at all express what it is like. It is not just the words,
though he is quite eloquent. He has a poetic sense of humor and a bright smile.
It was nice to see him.
I really want to know about the effects of war on the displaced families. I know some studies from my countries, which are about the compulsory immigrants in Turkey. Most of the families were forced to leave their homes and villages during the internal war. Recently, Turkey has slightly same problem with Syrian and on the border. I would like to have contact with David.
ReplyDeleteI would like to think about these issue together.
All the best,
I too would like to have contact with David, perhaps when I visit Uganda later this year, God willing. Ocan Pons Donatien has been trying to develop his school in Gulu and needs lots of financial help. I'll talk about this with you when you return, Barbara.
ReplyDeleteP.S. How wonderful to see the photo of Mr. Okumu. And yes, he has a way of drawing you in, doesn't he?
ReplyDeleteOh yes, you would definitely appreciate getting to know David. I will put you in touch with one another. I also want to hear more about the situation with Pons. It is striking how many people are concerned enough about education here that they make big sacrifices to open schools that are more accessible to students than the government ones seem to be.
ReplyDelete