Academic Growth and Cultural Appreciation
Shortly after the MV Explorer docked and cleared customs in Chennai, a group of Indian health care educators and medical students boarded the ship to meet with students from Stuart Schwartz' Global Mental Health class. The practicum, entitled "Traditional Healing and Contemporary Practice of Mental Health," was put together by Schwartz, a clinical psychiatrist who serves as both a counselor and psychology professor on the Spring 2010 voyage.
Dr. Raguram, an internationally acclaimed cultural psychiatrist and educator, talked to the students about the results of his recent study of traditional healing practices which suggest the value of including these practices in the treatment of certain mental conditions.
Dr. Ahalya is the chief psychologist at the prestigious National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences and an authority on family and women’s issues. She spoke to students about arranged marriage, love marriage and an emerging trend in India that is a combination of the two.
Raguram and Ahalya, who are husband and wife, are long-time friends and international colleagues of Schwartz whom they met in India in 1995 when Schwartz was studying as a Senior Fullbright Scholar. In 2001, Raguram and Ahalya spent a year at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey as visiting Fullbright Scholars.
Both presentations led to intellectual exchanges between professors and students, but perhaps more importantly, it facilitated discussions between the Semester at Sea and their Indian contemporaries. The interaction between students continued outside of the formal classroom setting. After an informal lunch onboard the ship, the Indian and Semester at Sea students went together into Chennai to continue their conversations and to explore the city.
And this is just the result that Schwartz had envisioned. He explained that in many ways the academic content of the program was secondary to the opportunity for students to engage their international peers in wide-ranging conversation and meaningful exchange.
“We created an opportunity for twenty-year old Semester at Sea students to meet and talk with their Indian counterparts. And they came back with new insight into a city and a culture.”
Academic growth and cultural appreciation – that’s what Semester at Sea is all about.