Students
Rutgers students discuss a tragedy of war on one of world's largest stages
Rutgers first-year seminar students learn from session with Georgian diplomat
This is the first of an occasional series in which FOCUS explores a Byrne Family First-Year Seminar. The one-credit courses offer students a chance to explore science, art, politics, and other topics as they learn firsthand from professors who are deeply – and often passionately – immersed in research. In its second year, the Byrne Family First-Year Seminar Program is a central part of the transformation of undergraduate education in New Brunswick.
On the September morning that Rutgers’ dean of international programs shepherded 18 first-year students to the United Nations, headlines were filled with strife between Georgia and Russia.
Dean Joanna Regulska’s students sat around a gleaming wood conference table on the 26th floor of One United Nations Plaza, lobbing questions at a diplomat intimately involved with the ongoing conflict.
“What is being done for the people who can’t go back to their homes?” Rebecca Schwarz, 18, of Ramsey, wanted to know.
Other questions followed in quick succession for Irakli Chikovani, deputy permanent representative of Georgia to the United Nations. Most questions similarly centered on the humanitarian tragedy following the August 8 outbreak between the two nations.
That’s hardly surprising, given that the students are taking part in a seminar titled “Human Displacement: A New International Crisis.” The encounter at the United Nations last week was their ultimate field trip.
Regulska, who is also a professor of women’s studies and geography at the School of Arts and Sciences, developed the course as part of the Byrne Family First-Year Seminar Program. The seminar grew out of studies that the expert in human migration and displacement has been conducting, particularly with victims left homeless in their own countries as a result of war or natural disaster – known as internally displaced persons, or IDPs.
“Right now, if you look at some of the statistics, there are 26 million internally displaced persons,” Regulska said. “This is a pretty large number. And the numbers have definitely increased over the last several years. Obviously, the war in Iraq and other events – Darfur, now Georgia – have contributed new waves of IDPs.”
Working with a grant from the National Science Foundation, the longtime Rutgers faculty member is studying the everyday problems and coping strategies of Georgian IDPs expelled from Abkhazia during 1992–1993 strife. She travels to Georgia three or four times a year in the course of her research.
Her seminar is designed to sensitize students to displaced people of all nations, and their needs: food, shelter, protection from violence. In many cases, families are housed in old hotels, abandoned schools, and hospitals, Regulska said – places where basic human needs like access to fresh water, heat, and electricity go unacknowledged and unmet.
The seminar also explores the geopolitical context that generates these massive waves of displaced populations. Since such conflicts often remain unresolved over years, Regulska noted, IDPs have to develop strategies not only to survive on a daily basis but also to raise and educate the next generation.
The students bring to her class a variety of backgrounds and career plans. Some hope to focus on global affairs, social justice, politics, or journalism. There are sprinklings of biology and premedicine majors; others are headed for law or economics.
“Many have already traveled and have heard about forced migration and ethnic cleansing,” Regulska said. “They are interested in what’s happening to humans who are political players in the conflicts, and also in the humanitarian side of current events.”
For the session at the United Nations, the students devoured books about political strife and its aftermath, and debated over the wording of questions they planned to pose to Ambassador Irakli Alasania, Georgia’s highest-ranking diplomat to the U.N.
When they learned that a hastily called meeting had summoned Alasania to Washington, the young participants were unfazed. They headed into the face-to-face with his replacement, Chikovani, ready to apply theories they’ve learned in Regulska’s classroom to the real world of the United Nations.
Chikovani proved a skilled tutor. Although he was dealing with a national crisis and preparing for his president’s appearance the following week at the opening of the General Assembly, the diplomat was open to the students’ queries.
Since 1993, he told them, more than 30 Security Council resolutions have addressed the need to return IDPs to their homes, and his government is doing everything it can to make that goal a reality – no matter what the ultimate cessation of hostilities with Russia brings.
“We have a generation that has not seen their homes,” Chikovani said.
He noted that the latest round of conflict has left 158,000 people homeless, and saluted the U.N. and government agencies throughout the world for their relief efforts.
And he thanked the Rutgers students for the gifts they brought at Regulska’s suggestion: a pen and a keychain embossed with the university’s logo.
On the train back to New Brunswick, participants agreed that the experience was an eye-opener. “It’s made me look at the crisis in Georgia through new eyes,” said Tara Kousha, 18, of Basking Ridge. “I feel as though I have a different perspective than if I had just watched CNN.”