Healthy range of choices in CHNS

From ancient traditions to modern Games

In Winter Session 2003, a group of students interested in sports science and management will have an extraordinary opportunity to visit and study at the Beijing University of Physical Education.

"We had been considering this for many years, as a way of promoting international exchanges between faculty and students at the Beijing University of Physical Education and our department at UD," says David A. Barlow, associate professor in the CHNS Department of Health and Exercise Sciences, who is coordinating the program with Kevin Sun, a supplemental faculty member in the department.

Barlow says the idea for the study-abroad program stems from his association with Jin Ji Chun, a visiting scholar at UD in the 1980s and a former head of the All-China Sports Federation, which is analogous to the U.S. Olympic Committee. After a few years with the federation, Chun was selected to serve as the president of Beijing University of Physical Education, where he recently retired, Barlow says.

The two colleagues kept in contact over the years, and Barlow has served several times as a visiting or guest lecturer at the university in Beijing.

"China will be hosting the Olympics in 2008, and Beijing University of Physical Education [BUPE] will play a major role in organizing the Games," Barlow says. "At the invitation of BUPE, we are hoping to have groups of Delaware students going over to Beijing each year--up to and including 2008--to study sports science, Chinese sports medicine, international sports management and other topics. It's a wonderful opportunity for our students."

Winter Session students will be based at BUPE, where they will attend UD classes and interact with Chinese faculty, national coaches, athletes and fellow college students. Plans call for the UD students to visit historical sites, museums and venues for the 2008 Games, all with the aim of seeing firsthand how China is preserving its traditional sports culture while moving onto the international stage as an Olympic host nation.

Academic and cultural excursions will include visits to such places as the Badaling section of the Great Wall, Yellow Mountain, Xi'an (home of the Terra-Cotta Warriors) and various attractions in Beijing, such as the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven.

"Besides all of the travel to historical, cultural and scenic areas of China, one of the greatest highlights of the trip will involve our students' direct interaction with Chinese scholars and students," Barlow says.

Sun, the program's other faculty director, is a native of China who was educated in one of the premier northern Chinese universities in physical education and martial arts. He teaches a UD course on traditional Chinese martial arts, which will be offered during the study-abroad program. The course covers the study and practice of such traditional martial arts as t'ai chi and wushu.

 

Examining ethics of health care

When CHNS Associate Dean Pam Beeman traveled to Australia a few years back, she met a number of people who encouraged her to return and bring students. Coincidentally, Heyward Brock, UD professor of English, had the same idea, so the two now have collaborated on a Winter Session program.

During Winter Session 2002, the two faculty leaders took 25 students on their first Australian study-abroad program, giving them a firsthand look at health care in that nation, as well as an opportunity to take an English literature course, attend a performance at the Sydney Opera House and tour a wildlife park. Most of the students were nursing majors, Beeman says, but the group also included students in health and exercise sciences, biology, English and education.

All students in the program took a cross-listed philosophy course in ethical issues in health care. In addition, they could choose between an English and a nursing course. The nursing students supplemented their academic courses with clinical experiences in which they saw Australian health care in action.

"We went to an extended-care facility, a small community hospital and a large urban hospital," Beeman says. "The students talked to nurses and observed the Australian health-care system and wrote a paper comparing it to the American system. The papers I got were fabulous; the students were able to gather a lot of information and make excellent comparisons."

Janet Oscar, CHNS 2003, calls studying in Australia the chance of a lifetime. "It was interesting to study in a country where everyone is covered by health care," she says of the clinical observations. "The quality of patient care is pretty similar, but the hierarchy of nursing is different."

The students had a weekend in Sydney before traveling to Melbourne, where they spent most of their time and were housed in dormitories at Trinity College. From there, they spent three days in Ballarat, learning some history of Australia's gold rush and visiting an animal park, where Beeman describes the wildlife as "incredible." The students ended the trip in Hobart, Tasmania, where they got a look at rural health care.

In addition to the academic benefits, Beeman says the students gained big-city experience in Melbourne, a clean, safe, urban area with good public transportation, and learned to make their way around on
their own.

She says the diverse collection of students also came together as a cohesive group, participating in activities and helping one another.

"It was just thrilling to be in Melbourne, living in the community within walking distance of the central business district," Oscar says. "It was very laid-back and beautiful."

The program is planned again for Winter Session 2004, with the addition of a stop in New Zealand.

On fields where soccer is king

Students interested in learning how to coach soccer will have an opportunity to do so in the sport's motherland during a study-abroad program to England next summer.

The program was organized by Steve Goodwin, associate professor of health and exercise sciences, as the result of a conversation with Jason Green, the founder of the men's soccer club on campus. Green now works for the University's Center for International Studies.

While in England, students will learn the principles of coaching soccer and have the opportunity to play against some local clubs. They will be able to interact with players and coaches from various teams, observing their offensive and defensive tactics, styles of play and coaching strategies.

An expected highlight of the trip will be watching a Premier League match and playing in or observing three friendly games with local English, Scottish or Welsh soccer clubs. Goodwin says he hopes the students also will have the chance to watch a professional training session and to attend guest lectures by local coaches.

"If you're going to learn about soccer, England certainly is one of the places you want to go," Goodwin says. "It's where it all got started, and it's a great place to see firsthand how the rest of the world feels about this sport."

In addition to the soccer-coaching course, participants will take a class in modern British history, in which they will visit Parliament, the Imperial War Museum, Warwick Castle and a number of other historical landmarks and museums.

The group, expected to number about 18 students, will spend most of its stay in and around London, traveling to Scotland and Wales during the final week abroad.

Nursing, nutrition and midnight sun

Compare maternal and child health statistics between the United States and Norway, and the difference is clear, according to Leta Aljadir, associate professor of nutrition and dietetics, and Lyn Hayes, professor of nursing.

"Norway's are far superior," Aljadir says, referring to such indices as infant mortality and morbidity. "Knowledge of the widely disparate statistics...led us to investigate the feasibility of hands-on, on-site experiences for our students in nursing and nutrition."

The result is an upcoming study-abroad program in Norway, in which CHNS students will observe that country's maternal and child health initiatives and practices. Hayes says they also will see the effects of some of the public policies that contribute to the superior health statistics of the Scandinavian countries. Norway, for example, is No. 1 in the 2002 United Nations rankings of nations for overall quality of life, and it has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world (third or fourth lowest, compared with the U.S. ranking of about 24th).

Aljadir and Hayes plan to take 24 students to Norway in June, a time when residents enjoy 20 hours of sunlight per day. Educational activities are scheduled in three cities, plus a two-day excursion to a rural town above the Arctic Circle. All students will take a five-credit course in maternal and child health care, which is cross-listed between nursing and nutrition and dietetics.

In Oslo, students will participate in a workshop on the Norwegian Longitudinal Mother-Child Cohort Study, as well as visit the National Breastfeeding Program. They will attend a workshop conducted by an internationally renowned biostatistician at the National Birth Registry in Bergen and will tour the National Fetal Medicine Center in Trondheim, one of two World Health Organization centers on fetal medicine in the world. The students will hear lectures on the major aspects of health care in Norway by physicians, nurses and midwives at the Colleges of Medicine and Allied Health in Trondheim.

Additionally, study-abroad participants will go on clinical rotations with nurses and other health professionals. In Bodo, a town above the Arctic Circle, they will look at rural health care.

The program will include field trips to museums, fish markets and cultural sites in each of the cities.

"We anticipate that each participant will have several personal and unique highlights from the experience," Hayes says. Some of those highlights, she and Aljadir say, are expected to be the midnight excursion to a mountaintop in Bodo to view the midnight sun, the chance to experience Scandinavian cuisine and the interaction with Norwegian health-care providers and students.

--Beth Thomas