Jamaica In the 2010s, I had opportunities to organize and lead three global field experiences to northwestern Jamaica. Eastern Connecticut State University in the 2000s responded to a change in educational policy by the Jamaica Department of Education. Prior to this change, teachers were expected to complete three years in post-secondary education at a teachers’ college to earn a teaching license. The Jamaican government expanded on this requirement and expected teachers to have a bachelor’s degree. Dean Beverley Anderson, from Eastern’s Sociology Department and a native of Jamaica, organized Eastern faculty to offer general education courses and sociology classes in Hanover Parish near Montego Bay. Jamaican teachers came to Eastern in the summer to complete other courses. Over the years of this program, Eastern faculty provided professional development for over 150 teachers so that they would be able to achieve their government’s expectations for teachers.
I meet some of the Jamaican teachers when they were in Eastern, residing in a former elementary school, Noble Hall, that had been retrofitted to serve as suite living for students and special visitors like these teachers. We were invited to an evening bar-b-que at the Canterburys in August 2011 and I had a chance to meet some of the teachers and explore whether they might be open to having Eastern future teachers visit their schools to learn about education in Jamaica and to practice connecting to individual students.
During spring break 2011 (March 19 – 26, 2011), a housing director, Julisa De Los Santos, and I led a group of 7 undergraduates for a global field experiences in Jamaican schools. Information about this experience may be found starting at https://interconescu.wordpress.com/jamaica-spring-2011/.
During spring break 2012 (March 17 – 24, 2012), Professor Darren Robert, a HPE faculty member at that time, and I led a group of 18 students in HPE 410 – International Dimensions in Physical Education and in EDU 457 – then called International and CrossCultural Education Experience. This GFE is chronicled at https://interconescu.wordpress.com/jamaica-2012/ by the faculty and the students.
During Wintersession 2013 (January 5 – 12, 2013), I led a group of 10 undergraduates on this third visit to schools in northwestern Jamaica. By this time, the itinerary was structured – arriving on Saturday, visit to Dunn’s River Falls and a former plantation for lunch near Ocho Rios on Sunday, 3 to 4 full days at Bethel School – a pre-school and elementary school in Hanover, visit to other schools like St. James High, Rusea’s High School on the way to the beach at Negril, connecting to other future teachers at Sam Sharpe Teachers College, and staying at Toby’s Resort near the airport and a public beach. Eastern faculty, including Bob Wolf from the Sociology Department, had stayed at Toby’s and recommended the resort – two pools, a restaurant, comfortable rooms, within a small gated community. Toby’s arranged for Paul Clayton to be our van driver and tour consultant. We spent some time on the Hip Strip, down the block from Toby’s, and in Toby’s pools. Most of our meals were prepared by Toby’s staff, although we did have lunches at Bethel School when we observing and participating there. We did have dinner at MargaritaVille and at a new Jamaican restaurant that featured ox-tail soup across the street from Toby’s. This GFE is featured starting at https://interconescu.wordpress.com/jamaican-schools-2013-itinerary/.
Bethel School is across the parish line from St. James parish. In Hopewell, Hanover Parish, it was up the hill from Round Hill Villa, a resort where the Kennedys had stayed in the early 1960s. My memories include hundreds of students singing Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds to us in the opening an assembly, how much Eastern students enjoyed interacting with the children, crowded classrooms opening to the outside, painting of historic figures on the walls.
Paul Clayton drove the van for us twice. He is a man of great wisdom and calmness. I remember that we were stopped on the road by Discovery Bay, where Columbus had landed, by some police. Paul handled it calmly. At a Plantation outdoor buffet near Ocho Rios, Paul gave me a lesson in tipping in Jamaica. He introduced us to a lot of Jamaican singers and their songs. I also remember singing Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldiers as we drove back from Negril on the last night we spent on the 2013 GFE.
This song, Gregory Issacs’ Night Nurse, had particularly meaning to me because once I sang it to a night nurse at Hartford Hospital after a throat operation, before the memory of two vocal cords fainted. I call my beloved Night Nurse when she reminds me to take my pills.
I have fond memories of these three global field experiences, a term that was rejected during the early 2010s when I had suggested it, but is now commonly used at Eastern. In the mid-2010s, the university required that we run out GFEs through professional travel businesses that added a great deal to the costs. I felt that these tours, that cost the students less than $2,000, would be overpriced by these businesses. I explored developing a GFE but got little interest at the proposed prices by these vendors.
At the end of the pandemic, a call came from administration to prepare proposals for global field experiences. I spent some time developing a returned trip to Montego Bay and we began to schedule it for Spring Break 2024. I contacted Fabian Ford, who had been a key person in the Eastern-Hanover Foundation sociology program, and he provided a list of Eastern graduates who had leadership roles in the schools. The principal at Bethel School was very welcoming and we began to discuss what we might bring the school. In the Fall 2024, the Aspiring Educators Club invited me to speak about going to Jamaica. Nine students sent in their initial deposits to cover the airfare, although one of the group was late in negotiating the funds with her parents.
At the end of the semester, I was ready to contact travel agents for plan the trip, UNTIL my friend and mentor, Professor John Caruso at Western Connecticut State University reminded me to take a look at the US State Department Travel Advisory for Jamaica – “Reconsider travel to Jamaica due to crime and medical services. U.S. government personnel under Chief of Mission (COM) security responsibility are prohibited from traveling to many areas due to increased risk.” We needed a plan B.
I am listing lessons learned for developing global field experiences. The first for this GFE is
Lesson 1 – Always check the US State Department advisory information before you plan for a voyage.
I thought how about a trip to Jamaica – Jamaica Plains near Boston and Jamaica, New York. I informally asked some of the leaders of the group and there wasn’t enough interest. Our son Nate suggested Puerto Rico – no passports needed, part of the United States, many of the students in Willimantic were of Puerto Rico descent, President Nunez was from Puerto Rico, it would also be a warm place to get away for spring break. After informal approval by the GFE director, I polled the nine students and they responded individually that exploring going to Puerto Rico would be fine. I began to plan.
Puerto Rico One of the first things I did was find Night Nurse in Spanish –
From January to March 2024, I planned the trip with the supervision of the GFE director, our department administrator, the university travel desk facilitator, and a travel agent for the airfare. (Another travel agent refused to participate because their business requires at least 3 months to plan.) I spoke with Professor David Belles, who had brought the University Chamber Choir to San Juan several times, when the spring semester. Coincidentally, before our consultation, I had begun the process of booking the El Canario Lagoon Hotel, a hotel in Condado, a neighborhood across the bridge from Old San Juan, where his groups had stayed. Professor Belles told me that security was a concern but not a challenge. One of my graduate students introduced me to Ricardo, who had returned to St. German, PR, his hometown, after years as an engineering consultant for the US military in North Dakota and Groton. I began to study about Puerto Rico through articles on sustainability and “100 things one should know about Puerto Rico” videos. I worked on the course syllabus, including all of the new liberal arts outcomes. Then one of the nine students accidentally fell off a roof in Brooklyn, NY, and won’t be able to go with us. With 8 students, there would be two rooms of 4 women and a room for my boss and me. The El Canario Lagoon reservation fell through and I found La Buena Vida Inn in Santurce.
The group of 8 and I met on Monday evenings at 7 in Webb 213. (The first evening, students and the instructor of LAP 430 – the Bachelor of General Studies capstone course that I developed in the 2010s – claimed that they were scheduled for the room. I told them that we were scheduled in this room and that there are lots of other rooms open after 7 pm to meet. It turned out that they were mistaken.) The students started asking if we might meet online and some came to class and some connected by TEAMS. My goal was to have the group form. I explored Whats’Up with the group but there didn’t seem to be much interest. One of the group, the president of the Aspiring Educators club, created a Message group for our text messages that turned out to be useful. Nicole also created a Google document that we could edit as a group. I encouraged the group to develop initial geographic histories of places they would like to visit using Google Earth. Laila included the Robinson School on Wilson Street as a place to visit.
In February, I started trying to make connections with schools and universities. I had some moments of uncertainty when I wondered if we might use our cell phones in San Juan, whether we had to purchase an international plan. I asked some of my Puerto Rican friends, a chatbot on AT&T, and the local agent at the AT&T store on West Main Street and got different answers. The answer seems to be that although AT&T is no longer in Puerto Rico and there was a couple of years when other telephone arrangements had to be made, that our cell phones and text messages well supported our trip. I arranged to assure that I might use my office hour to connect to schools in San Juan.
I learned how to use a GPT like Bard – which became Gemini during the time I was using it – and ChatGPT to write letters in Spanish that I would email to schools to see if we might visit. Ricardo gave me some leads to a school. I called a few schools and left messages. I asked the students to see if they might connect to schools. Laila made a good connection with Robinson School and Nicole connected us to St. John’s School. Chris Drewry gave a contact at Universidad Interamericana-Metro, one of his counterparts in the study aboard programs. I persisted and got an invitation to visit the University of Puerto Rico – Rio Pedras and its Museum of Anthropology and Art. Right before our visit, a colleague in our sociology department, Ricardo told me that one of our retired colleagues, Imna Arroyo, had an exhibit at the Museum of the Americas in old San Juan. With Heather at the university travel desk, we arranged to make the reservation at la Buena Vista Inn (LBVI), assure that when we arrived on Saturday evening we would have access to the building and our rooms, learn about using pass codes that would be sent to us a few hours before we arrive, and made a reservation for the shuttle from the airport to LBVI and for a tour of El Yunque. As a group, we prepared for our adventure.
I will be chronicling our global field experience within this website. There is a sub-menu above to skip to particular days and a link at the bottom of each pages to go onto the next. I will be posting the photos I took using my iPhone – I wished I took more – and photos that were sent me. I will also be including supplemental videos to add to the narrative.
If you have any questions or comments on this website, please contact me at stoloffd@easternct.edu.
Intercultural Connections among Universities (ICU) 