Bryan Ganaway Brings World Affairs to Life for Students

The following is a first-person account written by Honors College Faculty Fellow and Director of the International Scholars Program Bryan Ganaway. Versions of it originally appeared in the College of Charleston Magazine and Momentum .

Ganaway (right) with students in the International Scholars Program.

In the spring of 1989, when I was 17, two of my uncles took me to China. Engaging China and its thousands of years of history was awe inspiring. Westerners were still a novelty in the late 1980s, and we had the opportunity to meet many people who were invariably kind to us. Every meal was a culinary adventure, a sensuous experience that lasted for hours. I did not need to go to China to discover how much I loved food (I already knew that), but I did learn that cooking was a statement of love for your fellow man and that a communal meal was an important social experience.

However, none of those things constitute my central memory of that trip so many years ago. On the day we came back from the Great Wall in April 1989, we had to pull to the side of the road and wait for a student demonstration to go by. They were commemorating the death of reformer Hu Yaobang. Within days this small demonstration had grown into a movement with thousands of students occupying Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing.

Going to China and seeing those students revealed to me that I was part of an interconnected planet. Travel changed my view of the world. This is why study abroad is such an important part of an undergraduate education. At the College, we wish we could make it available to all of the undergraduates.

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We have applied these insights to the International Scholars Program. A collaborative venture between the School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs and the Honors College, this program seeks to identify nationally competitive undergraduates and bring them to the College. All of the fellows are double majors (international studies and another discipline of their choosing). During their freshman year they share a living-learning community and take the Introduction to International Studies as a group. As sophomores, they enroll with me in Honors Western Civilization, a team-taught interdisciplinary course that focuses on “big ideas,” such as religion, democracy, technology, warfare, gender and race.

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The students receive invaluable professional mentoring from the LCWA advisory board. Each freshman cohort also receives a paid “MayAway.” The first group went to Cuba in May 2013, the second group to Paris. The third group will go to India in 2015, and the fourth is scheduled for Estonia.

Study abroad accomplishes great things. The job market in the 21st century will be increasingly globalized. Our students will be able to navigate these networks, find their calling and create fulfilling lifestyles for themselves and their families. At the College, we are working hard to make sure that our students have the tools they need to thrive as responsible, democratic citizens in an increasingly interconnected world.