Newsfeed
Printer-Friendly ModeRoberts Fellows group returns from Asia early, yet fulfilled
June 8, 2009 —
Twelve SVSU students had the trip of a lifetime cut a bit short last month when the Roberts Fellows were denied entry to Japan, due to rising fears of swine flu in that nation. Still, the Fellows are unanimous in their acclaiming the experience as profoundly inspiring, even life-changing.
Japan has been particularly hardhit by the global H1N1 virus outbreak, second only to the United States in number of reported infections; with its smaller and much more densely packed population, however, the virus is being treated as a much greater threat. Though no deaths have been reported out of 370 infections, over 4,000 schools have been closed, travel bans and quarantines have been established sporadically, and plain white surgical masks have become a ubiquitous sight on the streets of Tokyo and other urban areas.
The Fellows were still able to complete the first two weeks of their trip, however — weeks that took them to Taiwan, including a visit to SVSU’s sister school Shih Hsin University in Taipei; to Hong Kong, where the group visited the world’s largest Buddha statue on top of Lantau Island; and to mainland China, where they saw some of the world’s most famous cultural sites, like the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace in Beijing.
The shock of total immersion in cultures and languages so different from those of mid-Michigan came as a surprise to several students. Melissa Reinert, a marketing senior and Roberts Fellow, said that their first day touring Beijing, everyone was taking pictures of them.
“There were almost no American or European visitors, and if we stopped to let one person take a picture of us, then pretty soon there would be 50 people.”
Elementary education senior and Fellow Ashley Nicol pointed out another remarkable cultural difference: “When she learned we were the supposed leaders of SVSU, our tour guide in Beijing was amazed at how many of us were females,” Nicol said. “She explained that in China a group like ours would only be boys.”
Not all cultural differences were so significant, however, but, extended into things more prosaic; Nicol said that the Chinese McDonald’s serves corn with French fries, “and you can buy dumplings off the value menu!”
This is the tenth year that SVSU has sent its delegation of Roberts Fellows to East Asia. Founded in 1999 by a generous grant from philanthropist Donna Roberts, former secretary to the CEO and Assistant General Counsel for the Dow Chemical Company, the Fellowship is an elite program for a select group of SVSU’s finest students. The Fellowship involves two semesters of intensive training in leadership, both theory and practice, followed by an international study experience in East Asia.
Many Roberts Fellows were surprised upon first receiving an invitation to apply to the program, having little or no knowledge of what it comprises. Although students can apply themselves, the more common experience was one of receiving an unsolicited invitation in the mail.
“I guess someone saw the potential as leaders that was in us,” Reinert said.
The application and interview process was rigorous, and several students reported being rejected from the program one or more times before their persistence paid off. Nicol said that the invitation caused her to reevaluate her previous academic plan: to graduate and get a classroom of her own as quickly as possible.
“I forced myself to stop and think,” Nicol said. “I realized that maybe this program was a once-ina- lifetime opportunity that I would be foolish to miss.”
The trip to Asia is the capstone to The Roberts Fellows Program, a program that makes demands of students throughout the year. The fellowship aims for a complete experience; students are expected to participate in all aspects of the program, including various extracurricular activities both on and off campus. The classroom workload is heavy — reading, writing, maintaining a weekly journal, and developing strong group cohesion through a variety of group projects; the subjects studied are heavy, too, including leadership training, cultural studies, international relations, comparative politics, geography and philosophy. Additionally, Fellows meet with community leaders in a broad range of fields — corporate CEOs and nonprofit CEOs, leaders in health care, leaders in the public school system, cultural leaders, even military leaders.
Fellows are even expected to be prepared, with little or no notice, to represent the University for visiting scholars and dignitaries. Fellows are also encouraged to stay in touch and to remain active with the SVSU community long after graduation.
Though the classroom experiences and the international experiences of the Fellows are extraordinary, most students emphasized that the relationships they developed this year were the greatest reward.
Angela Seeley, recent occupational therapy graduate and former Student Association president, said that it was particularly exciting to reunite with the students at Shih Hsin University, many of whom visited SVSU in April.
“Even though traveling was amazing,” Seeley said. “The program is definitely more about the relationships you gain. The experience was, handsdown, the best experience of my college life — inside a classroom and beyond.”