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JHJ-front-final 12/7/07 3:17 PM Page 67 Page 67 work in India rose from 3 in the academic global Harvard by creating databases that of Overseers restructuring its visiting year ending in 2005 to 57 last year. will track all personnel abroad (for secu- committees into an integrated body that The initiative, Domínguez said, has at- rity purposes), and a Web resource that will examine international and area cen- tracted a gift for a new Mehra Family pro- will detail every Harvard international ters within FAS, the elements are falling fessorship of South Asian studies, to be initiative, so students and researchers can in place to align and administer Harvard’s used in various faculties (Sanjeev K. Mehra determine common interests and avail- two-way discourse with the world. ’82, M.B.A. ’86, and Karen Petersen Mehra able resources. Area-studies centers have Indeed, Domínguez said he sees evidence ’82 are the donors), and several other lead- also moved toward a common application of Harvard’s ability to make “vast intellec- ership gifts for a South Asia Founders Club. form for undergraduate work abroad, and tual commitments” to important research • Advancing the agenda. Behind the scenes, for graduate students whose research re- and teaching opportunities around the Domínguez’s o∞ce is underpinning quires exploratory travel. With the Board globe during the twenty-first century. Teaching—and Learning—Abroad Mollie wright ’09 expected to spend her summer in Costa Rica teaching Eng- lish. She was, after all, a volunteer for WorldTeach, a nonprofit, nongovernmen- tal organization a∞liated with the Har- vard Center for International Develop- ment that places volunteer teachers in developing countries throughout the world. But Wright, stationed in a small rural pueblo in “the northwest ‘cowboy- country’” as the profesora de Inglés of nearly teers. “They’re doing everything they can Mollie Wright had to construct not only a 100 teenage students, didn’t expect to find in regular scheduled classes,” says Sievers, teaching style but a physical classroom to secure her Costa Rican students’ education. herself a teacher without a classroom. “but also [they’re participating] in inter- The town had begun construction of a national development. They are, more Today, Kremer is Gates professor of de- new, all-purpose building next to the than simply teachers, special guests to veloping societies, a member of the eco- overcrowded school, but lack of funds provide outside understanding and sup- nomics department in the Faculty of Arts had prevented its completion. “They said, port in these communities.” and Sciences: a position he credits, at least ‘We’re missing doors, hinges, windows— WorldTeach (www.worldteach.org) in part, to his year in Kenya. “It certainly and you see that part of the roof that got its start in 1985, when Michael Kre- deepened my interest in development,” he should be meeting the wall? We’re miss- mer ’85, Ph.D. ’92, then a new social-stud- notes, “and I think it was useful to com- ing that, too!’” she recalls. After a meeting ies graduate, decided to spend some time bine the more academic study of develop- with other WorldTeach volunteers in a in a rural part of a developing country ment with the experience of working in a nearby city, Wright sprang into action. and found his way to Kenya. Before long, developing country. I’m sure that shaped She helped raise the funds to complete and much to his surprise, he was called the research I do as an academic.” the project by e-mailing friends and rela- before the head of the local village gov- Since Kremer’s serendipitous experi- tives for contributions and, along with ernment. “I didn’t know if I was in trou- ence in Kenya, WorldTeach—despite re- community organizers, her fellow teach- ble, but it turned out he was starting a ceiving no funding from the U.S. govern- ers, and her students, she worked to help school, and I was asked to teach there. I ment and no significant sustained funding make the building usable. When she left, stayed for a year, then from other sources—has with the salon nearing completion, she started to look for some- placed thousands of volun- says she “had to fight them to stop them one to replace me.” teers throughout Africa, from naming it after me. It had nothing to Kremer did not have to Eastern Europe, Latin do with me but everything to do with look far. In 1986, with America, Asia, and the being lucky: because WorldTeach put me Daniel Levy ’88 and Sydney Pacific Islands. Currently, there, that’s what allowed this opportu- Rosen ’87, M.P.A. ’95, he Harvard and non-Harvard nity to exist.” founded WorldTeach under students alike participate It’s an opportunity, says Helen Claire the auspices of the Phillips in seven- to eight-week Michael Sievers, executive director of WorldTeach, Brooks House Association Kremer summer programs in Costa that exists for all the organization’s volun- at Harvard. JON CHASE/HARVARD NEWS OFFICE Rica, Ecuador, Namibia, Photograph courtesy of Mollie Wright Harvard Magazine 67 JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL Poland, China, and South Tom Wooten improvised a Africa, while older volun- tutoring program for students in Cape Town. teers can spend an academic year in other countries, in- gether an informal after- cluding American Samoa, school tutoring program for Bangladesh, Chile, Guyana, local high-school students. Venezuela, Mongolia, the “Only one of them had a text- Marshall Islands, and Mi- book, and I didn’t even have a cronesia. The organization blackboard, but they were charges its volunteers a sig- some of the most motivated nificant fee ($3,990 for a students I could have asked summer, and anywhere up to for,” he reports. When he $5,990 for a full year)—“your wasn’t teaching, Wooten as- contribution to the overall sembled interviews for an costs of preparing and sup- oral-history project about porting a teacher in a devel- apartheid, headed by the di- oping country”—but various regional basics of the native language and culture rector of WorldTeach South Africa, study centers provide fellowships for Har- to the techniques of teaching. Each volun- Roddy Bray. vard undergraduates: the Center for Inter- teer also receives a 45-hour teacher-train- “It is amazing,” says Sievers, “to see national Development, the David Rocke- ing manual, the text for their orientation what our volunteers can do in two feller Center for Latin American Studies, training, written by interns from the months, let alone a year.” Even so, she sees the Center for European Studies, the Asia HGSE with sta≠ member Nicole Watson. the time each volunteer spends with Center, and the Committee on African Sievers hopes eventually to o≠er 125 hours WorldTeach as more of a beginning than Studies all help defray the cost of travel of training, even though the current ses- an end. “We are, at least to Harvard stu- and in-country work. sion is a respectable 65 to 70 hours. “We dents, a sort of ‘International Living and WorldTeach o≠ers an international ex- try to train them as well as we can,” she Working 101,’” she adds. “We want to perience altogether di≠erent from Har- says, “and to be as supportive as we can.” help our volunteers become dedicated in- vard’s study-abroad programs, and But what WorldTeach volunteers often ternational citizens. And I think we’ve draws an accordingly unique pool of ap- find the most rewarding aspect of the ex- been very e≠ective in that.” plicants. “A handful of our volunteers perience are their activities outside the For Mollie Wright, the di∞culties of may go on to do work at the [Harvard classroom. “We strongly encourage them teaching under a tree in Costa Rica Graduate School of Education (HGSE)],” to pursue community-service projects,” haven’t deterred her in the slightest from says Sievers, “but in general they don’t in- says Sievers, pointing to the photographs further work in international develop- tend to become teachers, even though a of enterprising volunteers covering the ment and education; a tour in the Peace non-negligible number will go on to walls of the WorldTeach o∞ces in Cam- Corps, she says, is not out of the question. work in international education.” The bridge. One volunteer raised the funds to Wooten, inspired by his work in the large majority simply “want to do some- provide mosquito nets and bed sheets for shantytowns of Cape Town, sought out thing really di≠erent, and want to do the children in her Namibian village. An- classes in MIT’s urban studies and plan- something meaningful.” other built a theater for children in the ning department when he returned for The organization is constantly consid- Marshall Islands, while a volunteer in his sophomore year, and conducted thesis ering new partnerships with host coun- Guyana provided her school with its own research on the disaster-recovery e≠orts tries, a process involving a careful consid- photocopier. Libraries, playgrounds, even in New Orleans this past summer. eration of each country’s individual a basketball court built from scratch in Even the simple rewards of being a concerns and needs. While volunteers in Costa Rica—there are few things that world citizen have not been lost on Alton Costa Rica and Ecuador focus on teach- haven’t been built or pursued by World- Buland ’04, who spent a summer with ing English, for example, the volunteers in Teach’s “teachers.” WorldTeach Poland, then worked for Namibia work to incorporate computer Professional improvisers might be a two years at the Woodrow Wilson Inter- technology into its education system and better job description.

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