INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
Faculty Travel Report

 

Name: Ronald King

Faculty/Rank: Professor

Department: Political Science

College: Arts and Letters

Office Phone: 4-1094

Other Phone: 858 565 0792

E-Mail Address: rking@mail.sdsu.edu

Title: Faculty Travel Grant to Romania

Country Visited: Romania

Institution Visited: Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca)

Dates of Travel: May 30 to June 12, 2005

Number of Student Participants: None yet. This was a planning visit.

Previous IP proposals submitted: None

Have all required reports been submitted: Yes

Other funding for this activity available/applied for: None

Proposal Abstract: To lay the foundations for a supervised, three-week Study Abroad course in Romania, to enhance the curriculum in ISCOR and Political Science, and to provide SDSU students with increased awareness of the world in which they live. The proposed Study Abroad course would include seminars on Romanian communism, the problems of democratic transition, relations among national minorities, and NATO expansion. It would also involve travel to historical, governmental, and cultural sites.

TRAVEL REPORT

I. Opening/Overview of Activity: Romania remains among the most interesting nations in Europe – with a rich, historic culture; with complex ethnic relations; and with the challenges of socio-economic and political transformation from communism. It is would be useful for SDSU students to be exposed to that society, helping them to gain understanding of other peoples, regions, and situations. The object of my travel was to investigate opportunities for SDSU students to visit Romania, to assess the quality of the infrastructure necessary for such a visit, and to win endorsement for such a visit from university and NGO officials in Romania.

II. Preparation for the Trip Abroad: I have been visiting Romania for more than ten years, including two five-month stays as visiting professor at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (Transylvania). I continue my active collaboration with the faculty there, and with the Romanian Society of Political Science, which has named the best-paper prize at its annual meeting in my honor.

Prior to the trip, I communicated with:
-- Dr. Catalin Baba, Dean of the Faculty of Political and Administrative Sciences
at Babes-Bolyai University;
-- Dr. Gabriel Badescu, Chair of the Political Science Department within that Faculty;
-- Dr. Laurentiu Stephan-Scarlat; President of the Romanian Society of Political Science
and Professor in the Political Science Faculty, Bucharest University.

Babes-Bolyai University is the principal university in Transylania and among the top few in Romania. It is also the most modern university in Romania and has taken the lead in social science education. The Faculty of Political and Administrative Sciences maintains its own, separate building in the city of Cluj-Napoca with classrooms, offices, a computer facility, and a library.

The University is fully “recognized” by the Ministry of Education in Romania. In fact, the University Rector is the former Minister and Dean Baba of the Political and Administrative Sciences Faculty is a former high-level ministerial appointee.

III. Upon Arrival/Specific Activities: As with most exploratory visits, there is some bad news but lots more good news.
The bad news comes from Bucharest. I had anticipated that an SDSU student exchange to Romania would enter and/or exit through the capital. Students, for example, could have visited the parliament and Ceausescu’s enormous and mostly empty House of the People. Unfortunately, there is little infrastructure to support student visitors to Bucharest. Prices for minimally-acceptable downtown hotels have soared. One night at the Howard Johnson’s costs $230 dollars. The Political Science Faculty in Bucharest has new leadership, and many of the smart junior professors are disillusioned and taking other jobs. The traffic, congestion, and general disorganization of the city might well overwhelm students who are not experienced travelers, and who most likely would not quite understand what they are observing. I am advised by colleagues in the city that a 25-student trip to Bucharest would be difficult to organize. I cannot anticipate that such a trip would be a good experience for our students.

By contrast, there is very good news from Cluj-Napoca. It is doing reasonably well and most SDSU students would find the Baroque architecture “quaint” and attractive. The university is flourishing and its leadership happily anticipates long-term collaboration with an SDSU exchange program. The mayor of this city of 300,000 inhabitants (a friend of mine and former university professor) expressly pledged cooperation.
The infrastructure to support a student-exchange visit exists. The Political and Administrative Sciences Faculty maintains a relationship with a local hotel that is clean, comfortable and convenient, and that gives discounted prices on rooms for Faculty functions. The hotel can provide meals for groups, as can the Casa Universitarilor (the university-run restaurant). The Faculty owns its own building and can host seminars and lectures.
The unexpected finding was that the Political and Administrative Science Faculty already is participating in a student-exchange program with a U.S. university. Hobart and William Smith College operates a semester-long course in Central Europe, in which Cluj-Napoca is one of the main stops. The Cluj visit is managed by Professor Irina Kantor of Babes-Bolyai University and Ms. Monica Robotin of the Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center, a local NGO. I had a long conversation with Professor Kantor and Ms. Robotin, and they believe that it would not be difficult to adapt this program to the needs of SDSU students.
I have also contacted Charles Temple, Professor of Education at Hobart and William Smith University, who runs their semester-long student exchange in Eastern Europe. He reports that the program has worked quite well, and that Romanians have won over his students “with their honesty and intelligence, and the country, of course has charmed them.” I am told that there was an incident, in which some HWS students got drunk and ruined a Cluj hotel room, but relations are now quite stable and feelings are positive.
The program consists of three courses – Ethnic Relations in Multicultural Societies (taught by Professor Levente Salat); The Socioeconomic and Political Transformation of Eastern Europe (taught by Professor Kantor); and Civilization and Culture in Central Europe (taught by Professor Ovidiu Pecican). All three speak excellent English. The program also involves several extracurricular activities, including meetings with local authorities and politicians, with representatives of ethnic groups (Hungarians and Roma), and an overnight stay in a peasant village. We also discussed the possibility of an organized side trip to Sighisoara (a UNESCO-designated medieval city and the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, for those who care about Dracula legends).
Regarding logistics, we could fly students in and out via Budapest, which is a beautiful city filled with tourist attractions. Upon arrival, they could spend a few days there, to get over jetlag and enjoy themselves. I have contacts at the Central European University in Budapest and should be able to arrange for a lecture or two. Monica Robotin’s NGO would then hire a bus to transport the students to Cluj-Napoca. (It is actually a shorter trip than from Bucharest). At the end of the course, students could fly home from Budapest, or could organize their own tourism to see Vienna or Prague.
For further information on the existing exchange with Hobart and William Smith College, see:
www.hws.edu/academics/enrichment/studyabroad/centraleurope.asp
www.polito.ubbcluj.ro/polisci/centraleuropean.htm

The main remaining complications concern timing and costs. The school calendar in Romania runs through late June. Any student-exchange visit would therefore most likely have to occur in July or early August, when temperatures can be somewhat high and there is no air conditioning. The participating faculty might also want greater compensation, as an incentive to delay their vacations.

There is no way to minimize the costs. Meals and lodging in Cluj would cost approximately $75 per day per student. I estimate that meals and lodging would cost $100 per day in Budapest. It would be difficult to budget a three-week student exchange under $2500 per participant, plus airfare to/from Budapest. This would include all program expenses (hotel, most meals, transport to/from Budapest and Cluj, organized seminars and lectures, extracurricular programs guided tours, etc.) Students would most likely want an additional $500 for personal items. Thus the estimated cost per student is more than $4000 for three weeks: $2500 (program) + 1200 (airfare) + 500 (personal). This is far beyond the means of most SDSU students. I will continue my efforts to seek less expensive options but in Romania there are few, especially since our students would expect a certain basic level of comfort and convenience.

IV. Conclusions, Recommendations, and the Next Step: The institution is viable for SDSU (as long as we avoid Bucharest) and the project is feasible. Our students would clearly benefit from a three-week study abroad program in Eastern Europe, traveling to a part of the world they know only from newspapers and experiencing first-hand the region’s culture, politics, and ethnic diversity. The combination of university instruction and direct observation provides an excellent model for learning.
ISCOR has a study abroad requirement and Political Science encourages international experience and facilitates the transfer of credits. I would assume most interested students would come from these two majors. The main complication is the cost, which is high. Another complication is that SDSU currently offers few classes dealing with Eastern Europe and the former communist world, and so it will take extensive advertising to attract a sufficient number of students.
If a student exchange course can be managed, I would personally lead the group to Romania to help facilitate things. We would also need at least one other person on the trip, especially someone with high-level language skills in both Romanian and Hungarian. Our students will often be in need of translators.
The next step is for me to maintain my contacts in Cluj-Napoca, especially with the Political and Administrative Sciences Faculty, and with Professor Temple of Hobart and William Smith College. I will continue to investigate lower-priced options.
Given how slowly things move in Romania and how much advance preparation must occur from the U.S. side, I am not at all certain that a program can be established for Summer 2006. I believe that Summer 2007is a more plausible target date to begin operations. This will give me a full year to make sure that the promises from Romania are firm, and to prepare sufficiently on this side to attract students and arrange for them to have a positive experience abroad.