NEW COURSE ON CARIBBEAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Professor Thomas Klak is a new, in-coming member of the Department of Environmental Studies. In recent years he has been offering a course that takes students to the Eastern Caribbean for first-hand engagement in grassroots environmentalism and sustainable development. The course convenes mainly in the Commonwealth of Dominica, selected as a site because of its welcoming people and its relatively unspoilt natural environment. Dr. Klak and his students have been cultivating civic engagement relationships with citizens of the Commonwealth of Dominica. This has been an effort to create opportunities for learning and scholarship through partnerships with people in the Global South who are working for community empowerment, progressive change, and sustainable development. For our Dominican counterparts, benefits include financial inputs, manual labor, relevant research projects, and an outside interest in contributing positively to ameliorating their community challenges. The base of the University-Dominica relationships is trust, long-term commitment, and mutuality, so that the benefits go back and forth in myriad ways. The result has been a set of relationships across international borders and cultural differences that is more fulfilling for both sides than typical study abroad, research, or ecotourism encounters in the Global South. Dr. Klak will offer the on-campus portion of this course during Fall 2011 semester, and the field study portion in early January 2012. For more information, please email Dr. Klak klakt@muohio.edu or see: -- a 2 minute utube video on the course -- http://www.utube.com/watch?v=28XeH4m326o -- Dr. Klak’s web site on his sustainability projects -- http://www.users.muohio.edu/klakt/ -- an article describing the course (Community Partnerships in Study Abroad) Information about the work we do in Dominica Eastern Caribbean Class information links: Syllabus Cost information Itinerary Application form (please apply right away) Photos from previous trips: http://picasaweb.google.com/klaktc   Learning about local farming by helping a local farmer plant corn and beans.  Spending a day with the Grand Fond Primary School students, starting with the morning assembly. Check out a video explaining the Dominica course