Our experience with developing and implementing the WATER program has taught us valuable lessons about ourselves and our students and how we can interact and learn with members of other professions and another very different culture. It has taught us that everyone – students/professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests – has something they can contribute to this type of learning experience.
Those of us who have had the privilege to be involved in the WATER program would agree that it has been a profoundly enriching professional and personal experience. It has influenced our teaching and fueled our scholarship. Each year is different because the Songhai Centre articulates different needs – this means continuous course refinement. We are looking forward to returning to Benin in Summer 2009 with our third very diverse cohort of students and the third version of our course.
W.A.T.E.R. provides real-world problems that students can address meaningfully, even as early undergraduates. From 2004-08, over 53 students participated in the interdisciplinary courses abroad or in their capstone design course. Twenty-five (47%) were women, compared to the usual 10-20% of women in “traditional” engineering programs. To date, there have been 38 graduates (14 women, 24 men) who participated in the WATER. Twelve have gone onto graduate school, 6 more have applied to graduate school and 6 went into full-time service programs (like the Peace Corps). These are 200-300% the rates seen amongst non-participants. All this suggests that for both men and women, a new problem-based, humanistic approach to engineering and health education is an important educational experience.
The W.A.T.E.R. program is open to all college students in good standing. This work is paid for by tuition, grants and donations to the program. Dr. Bradley Striebig, associate professor of engineering at James Madison University, teaches and leads the water quality portion of the program. Dr. Susan Norwood, professor of nursing at Gonzaga University instructs the epidemiology and health care portion of the program. Father Nzamujo Godfrey, founder and director of the Songhai Center, demonstrates successful strategies for sustainable development. Students that participate in the program spend 8 weeks studying issues related to sustainable development then travel to Benin for two weeks and work at the Songhai Center to develop and implement training workshops and transfer technology.
