An Introduction to Our Staff...

An Introduction to Our Staff...

Today was the first official day of our Summer Start program. And wow, are we exhausted!!! The past few days we have definitely been putting in a lot of hours, but it feels great! We will have to talk later about how our first day went because we first must mention what we have been up to over the last week.

Liberia has two universities-- Cuttington University and the University of Liberia. Cuttington University is a private university about 3 hours outside of the capital, Monrovia, while the University of Liberia is the public university located in and around Monrovia. The purpose of our summer program is to prepare incoming freshman and sophomore students to these universities for the coming school year, as well as excite them about their career possibilities. The focus is on engineering and agriculture students since engineering and agriculture are underpinnings to development. This intensive program lasts 4 weeks and will be reaching 80 students. It is being held at the campus of Cuttington University. Students will be learning mathematics, physics, botany, and English. Furthermore, the three of us will be teaching life skills, computer skills, and an application lab. In the computer skills lab, we will be teaching OpenOffice and Google Sketchup. In the application lab for the engineers, we will have them build a bridge from tongue depressors, make a catapult contraption using rubberbands or a mouse trap, and power a small generator buy building a mini wind or water turbine. This will be my first official experience at teaching; I hope it will show me whether or not I would like to continue to teach in the future.

SummerStart is a part of a greater United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program called Excellence in Higher Education for Liberian Development (EHELD). This program is a five-year program being coordinated by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI). Aspects of the program are being partnered with American universities, namely the University of Michigan, Rutgers University, and North Carolina State University. The University of Michigan is charged with improving the engineering program at the University of Liberia, while the other two American universities will be working with Cuttington University and their agriculture program. We came to be involved with this project through the University of Michigan College of Engineering.

Jose arrived in Monrovia last Sunday. While there, he spent most of the time finalizing details with the EHELD office and purchasing supplies. Lauren and I arrived that Wednesday and enjoyed our first dinner of pizza and Club Beer (the Liberian beer brand) on the beach. The following day, we left for Cuttington University!

We arrived to Bongatown that evening to our hotel. Bongatown is about 20 min outside of Cuttington. We are supposed to be staying on campus in a guest house; however, that guest house will not be finished until this Sunday. On the first day, we traveled with two other people: an EHELD employee named Yark, and an agriculture professor from Ghana named Armstrong. Yark was to stay in Bongatown for the next week and help us with the rest of the logistics for the program; Armstrong is a professor from Ghana that was hired on to the EHELD program to be the agriculture curriculum advisor to Cuttington.

The first day was spent at Cuttington University preparing for the SummerStart program. To begin the day, we met the Provost, and to our shock, he was surprised to realize that our program would be starting in only two days! Everyone we met with that morning seemed to feel as though the date on which our program would begin was not communicated to them--what a way to start our time at Cuttington!!! Luckily, things were worked out quite quickly and by the end of the day, everyone at Cuttington was ready to help. While the end of the first day turned out well, I really became nervous about the next day.

The next day was when we would meet the teaching assistants and the instructors. The goal of Saturday was to inform all of the staff about the program and the way it would function. The three of us developed expectations for instructors, teaching assistants, and students. We were nervous about how those expectations would go over with everyone--especially the instructors. But everyone was receptive. And even more so, everyone was contributing to each other to make it better! I was impressed with all of the instructors and the teaching assistants. We have 4 instructors for the physics, mathematics, English, and botany course along with two SummerStart directors (one from each respective university). On top of that, we have eight teaching assistants, all top senior students from each university.

We played a goofy name game as an ice breaker and then went into a "complex systems" team exercise where we tried to make everyone to think about how the development of Liberia is complex and every issue or sector of society pulls and contributes to every other issue or sector--especially with regards to those professions held by engineers and agriculturalists. During this exercise, it was great to see that we did not have to do very much to spur conversation, all of the groups' discussions took off. Everyone had much to say about Liberian development and need for cooperation amongst sectors and professions. Furthermore, everyone in my group believed this was a message that needs to be heard amongst this generation of students. At that point, it was quite clear that we have a wonderful staff to work with over the next month.

By the end of the day, we were feeling so excited for the SummerStart Program to begin!

Then finally, Sunday came…the day the students arrived. In the morning, we went to a church close to Cuttington that was actually co-founded by Yark. Then we began preparing the students for their arrival. Of the 80 students accepted, only 58 showed up the first day. For the University of Liberia, because they were waiting on entrance exam results, the accepted freshman students did not even know about their status until two days before the program began! Luckily, we had convinced the University of Liberia to hire a bus to bring their students to the Cuttington campus so 12 of the 20 freshmen showed up. Their were some students that showed up that were not on the list that we had to turn away.

All in all, the registration and the staff training went really well. It was such a relief to use since we were nervous the whole program could fall apart within the first few days. But it didn't, and the instructors seemed excited, the TA's seemed excited, and most importantly, so did the students!

-Sara Rimer