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The
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VOLUME 96 | ISSUE 13
JANUARY 19, 2023
Faculty profile: Sociology Students’ trip to Nepal focuses on civic engagement professor Nora Hui-Jung Kim
MADISON MCCALLUM Staff Writer Over winter break, twelve students spent two weeks in Nepal on a faculty-led study abroad trip focused on civic engagement. Led by David Rettinger, psychology professor and director of academic integrity programs, and Sarah Dewees, director of the Center for Community Engagement, the group participated in walking tours, dined in local restaurants, enjoyed traditional entertainment and engaged with local schools and government through service projects. “Having the opportunity to see another part of the world so far away from home, with other peers your age, led by two faculty members, is an experience unlike any other,” said junior political science major Nathan Francis.
The students spent the last eight weeks of the fall semester in “International Perspectives on Civic Engagement: Nepal,” a course taught by Rettinger. They studied a broad range of topics related to Nepal, including its history, culture, economy and art, with a primary focus on different strategies for positive social change through non-governmental organizations. According to NGO Source, a nongovernmental organization is “a voluntary group or institution with a social mission, which operates independently from the government.” The students’ classroom experience, according to senior psychology major Tyler Clift, was meant to provide them with a strong understanding of the role external facilitators, like NGOs, play in social advancement, as well as social enterprises and the
UMW students traveled to Nepal to focus on civic engagement. Photo courtesy of Nathan Francis
INSIDE THE
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impact local government plays when in regard to preserving architecture and history through historic preservation. “A memorable moment was visiting the nongovernmental organization of Slisha, which supports women and children through micro-loans to entrepreneurs and by providing early childhood education for the children of female entrepreneurs,” said Dewees. “We got to visit their office and learn more about their programs, and then we visited one of their early childhood education centers. It was inspirational to learn about their work and see one of their programs in action.” Attendees had opportunities to gain cross-cultural knowledge through visits to local Nepali cultural and religious sites and by interacting with the community. They also visited schools, government offices and non-governmental organizations. “We had the privilege of visiting Slisha’s main office, then we went out into the city to visit one of their program sites, an Early Childhood Development Center, that provides education and resources to young children,” said senior psychology major Grace Pippin. “Seeing the success
KY HUYNH Staff Writer
Seating for Dr. Nora Hui-Jung Kim’s sociology classes fills rapidly each semester—even her 9:30 a.m., 65-seat intro sociology class held 57 students in the fall of 2022. Not only are Kim’s classes notable for their popularity, but upon walking into her classroom, many students recognize that Kim is one of the few non-white professors at this school. From cultural events to diverse clubs, the themes of diversity and inclusion are presented in many ways for students at UMW. Even so, statistics from College Simply show that UMW’s racial diversity is low, with 70% of students identifying as white and 30% as people of color. The professors at UMW, however, are even less diverse. According to College Factual, UMW’s professors are 86.2% white, 9.9% Black and 3.9% Asian. Kim, a Korean-American professor, has been teaching sociology classes at UMW for the past 14 years, starting in 2009. She was drawn in by the job announcement saying that the sociology department was looking for a scholar who specialized in race in a non-western context. Despite the promising job description, when she got to UMW, Kim faced a lack of diversity in UMW’s professors—and she is currently the sociology department’s only non-adjunct faculty member of color. “When I first came here, it was very isolating because there are not that many professors of color,” she said. “There are certain things that I cannot really share with my other professors. ... There’s a kind of burden that you carry, that you have to prove yourself—that you’re as good as others.” Being one of the few Asian professors, Kim also feels that her duties to represent her race extend beyond the classroom on campus. For example, the university often hosts diversity-related events, such as the Asian Cultural Celebration. While wellSEE NEPAL PAGE 7 intentioned, Kim said, these events can put
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Kim has been teaching at UMW for nearly 15 years. Photo courtesy of Nora Hui-Jung Kim
pressure on people of color to participate merely because they belong to the group being celebrated. “If there are any diversity-related events, then you have to kind of volunteer, even if you don’t want to,” Kim said. “There’s a term called diversity tax. So I’ve definitely felt that diversity tax—that I had to pay extra for those kinds of events.” Beyond diversity-related events, Kim has also felt pressure to participate in faculty search committees. “Kind of an unspoken rule is that you have to have one faculty member who is not white on the search committee,” she said. “And there are not that many non-white faculty members. So if there’s 30 going on, they have a really small pool of non-white faculty members to choose from. So I’ve been serving search committees so many times.” Participating in these committees is incredibly time-consuming and can be frustrating, Kim said.
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