Students in new graduate program blend refugee camp fieldwork with classroom theory, seeking long-term global development solutions
nonprofit organization with a specific development problem. For Wolz and Roginsky, that meant living within the refugee settlement in a house with no running water and for much of the time no electricity. “It was the most rustic living situation that I’ve been in,” said Roginsky, “but I kind of liked it.” With the help of a translator, the two interviewed s the nation of Uganda struggles to host an refugees and spent many hours studying the operation ongoing flood of refugees, the day-to-day, of the clinics. In the fall semester they came back to basic needs are staggering: providing shelter, campus to continue their coursework and to blend it food, water, sanitation and health care for more than with their fieldwork data. Now in the spring semester one million displaced people. And somehow, leaders they are fine-tuning their writing to offer GRI a report must look beyond the day-to-day to find long-term with recommendations. sustainability. That’s the thorny, real-life research “The entire class has gone through a draft that is problem tackled by graduate students Johanna Wolz like a master’s thesis, except that the emphasis is upon and Sarah Ann Roginsky. solutions,” said Hanson. The students hope to get their The pair spent eight weeks gathering data in a finished reports published in peer-reviewed journals. refugee settlement in northwestern Uganda for their Wolz, a Colorado native, will be among the first fieldwork project in PBA’s new Master of Science in graduates of the new program, earning their degrees Global Development. Wolz and Roginsky had come to this May. Roginsky, from Georgia, will graduate in help the Colorado-based organization Global Refuge December, because she has chosen the program’s International (GRI). dual degree option, the Master of Science in Global “From the time they hit the ground in Uganda they Development/MBA. She’s visited 18 countries over were open and available to conquer any challenge,” said the years. “I’ve always known what I wanted to do,” Shaunessy McNeely, GRI’s executive director of health Roginsky said: “to travel and to help people.” programs. “Since they were conducting research on Already the prospective graduates are getting job a topic never researched in that area they had to start offers from the partnering organizations hosting them from scratch.” for fieldwork, Hanson said. “We had teams who really The topic is health care as provided in clinics excelled in doing some amazing things in this past within the Imvepi refugee camp, a new settlement summer’s projects.” accommodating some 53,000 refugees. PBA nursing From the summer project in Uganda, GRI’s McNeely students also have served in that same camp, but Wolz praised the PBA team for initiative, adaptability and and Roginsky are not nurses. When they came to cultural appropriateness. “I believe the results of their Uganda last summer they were halfway through their research will help us to better serve people in refugee graduate training to build the skills of an economist, situations around the world,” she said. policy expert, entrepreneur, philosopher and even For information on the new graduate program, visit: theologian. www.pba.edu/master-global-development “The goal of our department is to put our graduate students in positions to be in managerial roles,” said Dr. Craig Hanson, Global Development program director. He pictures grads working in a variety of places, including government, mission agencies and other nonprofits. “The education that students get is both theoretical and deeply practical,” he said. The theory side happens on campus, with courses such as Global Economics, Microfinance and Cultural Concepts of Wealth and Value. Wolz and Roginsky both already had earned PBA bachelor’s degrees in cross-cultural studies, but that’s not required. Rather than look for a specific major in an applicant, Hanson said, “We care about who you are and what kind of person you are.” The practical side of the education happens in the Sarah Ann Roginsky, right, joins others in the refugee developing world, as students work with an assigned camp carrying water for their daily use.
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