Anubhuti Student Presentation

Keith McGuffey (Uploader) Author

05/03/2016 Added

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2016 Anubhuti Student Presentation

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[00:00:02.447]These four great brave students
[00:00:06.743]went to India for seven weeks,
[00:00:09.808]as you're all aware.
[00:00:12.269]Really not knowing,
[00:00:14.499]despite our attempts to prepare them,
[00:00:16.611]not knowing what they were getting into.
[00:00:19.282]And I will say that
[00:00:22.010]they were faced with some
[00:00:24.123]pretty dramatic challenges,
[00:00:27.177]things that we could not have anticipated.
[00:00:29.824]And they performed outstanding
[00:00:33.272]and were just terrific ambassadors
[00:00:36.023]for the University of Nebraska department.
[00:00:40.099]During probably what would be considered to be
[00:00:42.909]some of the most difficult times
[00:00:45.149]for Jain Irrigation.
[00:00:48.485]So they're going to share their experiences.
[00:00:52.475]You don't have to talk a whole lot about that,
[00:00:54.670]but I would imagine you'd say something
[00:00:56.295]about what happened
[00:00:57.978]when you were there.
[00:01:00.045]But let me go ahead and
[00:01:02.007]turn it over to you.
[00:01:04.991]So we have Rudy
[00:01:06.802]and Pollyanna,
[00:01:08.277]and Sydney and Betsy,
[00:01:10.274]and Betsy has been accepted into our MFD program.
[00:01:14.163]Are you coming?
[00:01:15.254]Yes.
[00:01:16.404](applause)
[00:01:18.877]Okay, go ahead.
[00:01:21.605]Well, I guess since we got introductions
[00:01:24.576]out of the way, and since
[00:01:26.690]Dr. Bishoff opened with a very
[00:01:30.254]very wonderful speech about all that
[00:01:32.797]we I guess did.
[00:01:34.283]Yeah, thank you for that.
[00:01:35.883]But we also wanted to thank you
[00:01:37.638]before we got started, for this department,
[00:01:39.693]for allowing us this opportunity
[00:01:41.504]to go to India.
[00:01:43.211]For the professors who worked so well
[00:01:45.405]with our class schedules,
[00:01:47.204]because some of us are still taking classes
[00:01:49.202]here, and so that was a huge help,
[00:01:51.083]still being able to be a student
[00:01:52.894]and go on this opportunity.
[00:01:54.728]So thank you guys for working so well with us.
[00:01:57.189]Yeah, and just this relationship
[00:01:59.570]that has been continuing to build with
[00:02:03.586]Jain Irrigation and the Anubhuti Schools
[00:02:06.443]has just been incredible,
[00:02:08.219]and just such a wonderful opportunity
[00:02:10.413]to get to be a part of
[00:02:12.062]that I hope continues for so many years to come.
[00:02:14.535]So thank you guys for all who have helped in that.
[00:02:18.099]So I was just gonna give you guys
[00:02:19.910]a quick little rundown on our typical day.
[00:02:23.114]Anubhuti and Jain irrigation.
[00:02:25.726]So we would wake up around seven AM
[00:02:28.943]and go to breakfast at 7:30.
[00:02:32.553]And then from there we would go to an assembly
[00:02:35.793]to where our
[00:02:37.801]teacher would give a story
[00:02:39.995]that usually had a moral behind it
[00:02:43.513]or a lesson or a kid would give a presentation.
[00:02:46.950]And then we would be picked up at nine
[00:02:49.446]from Anubhuti one
[00:02:53.196]then driven to Anubhuti two English medium.
[00:02:57.143]And then from there, from 9:20 until four
[00:03:01.474]we'd be working with the students.
[00:03:03.528]We'd work one-on-one with the students
[00:03:05.375]or in reading groups or helping the teacher out
[00:03:08.265]in any way that we could.
[00:03:10.077]Then we would go back,
[00:03:11.760]and we would do some reflection,
[00:03:14.082]anything that we'd need to catch up on our day,
[00:03:16.671]and then we'd go to snack and dinner.
[00:03:19.504]And then after dinner we would usually
[00:03:21.211]go on a walk with some of the teachers
[00:03:23.939]and just talk about our days and stuff
[00:03:28.014]and then we would hang out with the students
[00:03:30.359]and go to bed.
[00:03:31.764]That's what a typical day would be like.
[00:03:34.841]And just to explain the photos a little bit.
[00:03:38.870]This was our hostel where we lived.
[00:03:41.668]And then this was on the steps of,
[00:03:44.117]this was at Anubhuti Residential School
[00:03:46.532]and this was on the steps at Anubhuti English Medium School.
[00:03:49.435]So Monday through Friday we were
[00:03:53.065]at Anubhuti English Medium School during the day
[00:03:57.097]and then Saturdays we were either going on excursions
[00:04:00.173]to Ajanta Caves or
[00:04:02.333]participating in the classrooms at
[00:04:04.121]Anubhuti Residential School.
[00:04:06.768]Or catching up if it'd been a long week.
[00:04:10.158]So that's just kind of a general overview.
[00:04:13.827]So just kind of another general overview of
[00:04:16.497]Anubhuti English Medium School.
[00:04:20.391]Typically, we got this information from the principal,
[00:04:24.148]but about 3,000 students apply every year
[00:04:28.908]and they take 30.
[00:04:30.870]So applications come in and then
[00:04:33.703]the Gandhi Research Foundation brings in researchers
[00:04:36.838]to review the applications
[00:04:39.845]and then they do interviews with the family,
[00:04:42.178]interviews with the family's neighbors,
[00:04:43.769]interviews with the kids.
[00:04:45.417]And they go through to find the
[00:04:50.839]pretty much the poorest of the poor children
[00:04:53.718]in Jalgoan, so the ones that are
[00:04:56.958]socially and economically backward I think they said
[00:05:00.197]and typically they would choose girls first.
[00:05:04.504]So they'd narrow it down to these categories
[00:05:07.116]and decide like which kids are the most
[00:05:10.739]socially backward, economically backwards.
[00:05:13.235]Maybe they have
[00:05:15.220]like a mental illness in the family,
[00:05:18.030]drug abuse, alcohol abuse,
[00:05:21.037]maybe it's a single parent home,
[00:05:23.173]maybe the parents are working,
[00:05:24.775]maybe they can't hold down a job.
[00:05:27.097]And then because boys are,
[00:05:29.512]in the country, it's getting better in this area
[00:05:32.949]but there's still a struggle when it comes to
[00:05:35.375]educating girls, and so
[00:05:37.558]if you have a boy and a girl both in the same category
[00:05:40.391]you might take the girls first.
[00:05:41.969]So they take the girls first in the school,
[00:05:43.757]then they take the boys,
[00:05:45.151]and then of the list of 3,000
[00:05:48.331]they eventually like fill in this class of 30.
[00:05:53.208]And they say that when the kids initially come in...
[00:06:00.441]When they first begin the school
[00:06:02.833]four or five years ago,
[00:06:04.992]the teachers could hardly stay in the classrooms
[00:06:08.428]because it smelled so bad
[00:06:10.275]because the children didn't know things
[00:06:12.179]about hygiene or brushing their teeth
[00:06:14.872]or they had to teach them toilet procedures
[00:06:17.229]because they had no toilet,
[00:06:18.750]and they had to teach them proper
[00:06:20.375]water procedures because they had access to
[00:06:22.906]clean drinking water for the first time.
[00:06:26.192]Someday one of the teachers says like
[00:06:29.141]you have to provide love and care
[00:06:31.544]and support first, and then education.
[00:06:34.574]So the teachers that are hired have
[00:06:36.455]a lot of motherly instincts.
[00:06:39.764]Just to help the kids with that transition.
[00:06:41.657]So now it's not quite that drastic.
[00:06:45.139]Now with each new grade,
[00:06:46.776]because there is a reputation in the school
[00:06:50.236]of this is how students,
[00:06:52.221]this is how students are presented
[00:06:54.845]when they come to the school.
[00:06:56.598]They're clean, they have their hair combed,
[00:06:58.456]they have their teeth brushed.
[00:07:00.023]So it's educating the students,
[00:07:01.498]educating the families,
[00:07:03.054]and then empowering the families to
[00:07:05.445]help the students when they can.
[00:07:07.640]Most of the parents might be illiterate
[00:07:09.648]or have very little education,
[00:07:11.738]so they're creative in ways of
[00:07:13.816]if you can support your student by
[00:07:15.917]making sure that they have a place to study,
[00:07:17.903]making sure that they have a light at home
[00:07:19.958]to study with.
[00:07:21.316]So it's a lot of educating the whole family.
[00:07:29.768]And I guess I can explain
[00:07:31.405]a little bit about these pictures.
[00:07:33.031]So the top one right there, the big one
[00:07:34.551]is lunch time.
[00:07:36.084]So it would be first grade through fourth grade
[00:07:40.136]that would eat first,
[00:07:41.773]and then afterwards fifth and sixth would come in.
[00:07:44.165]And us three, I think Polly was the only one
[00:07:46.104]who ate with the older kids,
[00:07:47.949]we would eat with these kids.
[00:07:49.912]Go in line, there's a boys and girls line,
[00:07:52.059]and grab our lunches and sit on the floor.
[00:07:54.521]The girls and boys obviously separated.
[00:07:57.249]And then this was,
[00:07:59.408]was this your classroom, Polly?
[00:08:01.115]It's my classroom.
[00:08:02.241]It's your classroom, okay.
[00:08:03.820]So the kids you could see have mats on the ground
[00:08:05.933]cause in the mornings it's kind of chilly.
[00:08:07.419]You sit down so they have their mats
[00:08:09.149]to sit on next to their desks.
[00:08:12.028]They have the small teachers desk
[00:08:13.758]and then the chalkboard.
[00:08:15.361]And that's the general standard look of each room.
[00:08:19.587]And then just how we decided...
[00:08:22.524]Do you wanna talk about it?
[00:08:24.985]Yeah, so it was cool
[00:08:27.772]because going in we didn't really know
[00:08:30.442]what to expect, and I think even
[00:08:32.450]some of the teachers wanted to allow us
[00:08:34.691]a lot of freedom to like
[00:08:36.502]be used in ways that we wanted to be used in.
[00:08:39.103]And so that was cool because
[00:08:40.961]going in we were like
[00:08:42.133]well, I don't exactly know what
[00:08:43.584]but like I'm open to different things.
[00:08:45.209]So we spent the first couple weeks kind of
[00:08:48.194]shadowing, going around to different classrooms,
[00:08:50.365]and sitting in and observing them
[00:08:52.245]to find out which classrooms we wanted to
[00:08:54.974]stay in more consistently throughout
[00:08:56.982]the later weeks.
[00:09:00.779]And so we each got to pick
[00:09:03.101]different classrooms to go in,
[00:09:05.086]or teachers or areas of concentration.
[00:09:07.455]So for instance,
[00:09:09.184]I really connected well
[00:09:12.400]with fifth grade.
[00:09:14.432]I mentored a fifth grade student here,
[00:09:16.208]and so fifth grade to me was just
[00:09:18.252]I had that personal connection already.
[00:09:20.922]And then specifically English,
[00:09:23.140]and so I worked side-by-side with an English teacher
[00:09:26.251]who taught English to the fifth grade
[00:09:28.387]classes in the morning.
[00:09:30.280]So I would assist her,
[00:09:32.161]help teach her some lessons with that,
[00:09:34.169]do some educational English games
[00:09:36.317]with the students too.
[00:09:38.000]And then in the afternoon I'd also use that
[00:09:40.671]to observe and participate in other classrooms
[00:09:43.620]and still do some shadowing as well.
[00:09:46.278]And I know you girls can talk about it,
[00:09:48.995]but like Rudy was in fourth.
[00:09:51.700]One of the fourth classes.
[00:09:53.639]Betsy was in third.
[00:09:55.241]And Sydney was in first and a little bit
[00:09:57.482]of another fourth section.
[00:09:59.664]So, and I moved around to different
[00:10:01.812]fifth grade classes cause there's
[00:10:03.716]fifth A, B, and C.
[00:10:05.377]So I moved around to the three.
[00:10:07.490]I also wanna say about Polly
[00:10:09.092]is that she's really awesome
[00:10:10.543]and she started this reading group
[00:10:12.436]with her class, and so we all got to take part in that.
[00:10:15.164]During the inspection of the day,
[00:10:17.172]we would go with Polly
[00:10:18.415]and we would all meet in the lunch room.
[00:10:20.052]And she'd have reading groups
[00:10:21.700]during their English class,
[00:10:23.151]and we would sit with each group of kids
[00:10:24.556]and just reading with their books
[00:10:26.449]and it was really special that we got to do that.
[00:10:30.779]Yeah, the fifth C class that I worked in
[00:10:33.067]was all the slower learners,
[00:10:35.307]and so they needed more one-on-one attention
[00:10:37.466]and so I asked the other DD's
[00:10:40.358]is what the students called us.
[00:10:42.180]It's a term for older sister.
[00:10:45.118]It's a term of respect.
[00:10:46.824]And so I brought them and then we
[00:10:49.216]got them to break up into small groups
[00:10:51.120]and take turns reading and really
[00:10:52.734]working with these students
[00:10:54.255]because a lot of them didn't know
[00:10:56.809]how to read well
[00:10:59.665]as like a third grade student
[00:11:01.906]whose class I went into,
[00:11:03.636]so they were a little behind and so
[00:11:05.342]it was very cool getting to use
[00:11:07.374]our natural ability as English speakers
[00:11:10.439]to be able to help them improve their English too
[00:11:14.096]and break into small groups.
[00:11:19.634]Oh no, it's my turn.
[00:11:21.875]Now it's my turn.
[00:11:23.500]Okay, so yeah I had something to say,
[00:11:25.486]but here's one of my fifth grade classes
[00:11:27.680]and this is the fifth C class that I worked with.
[00:11:30.339]I'll go over here.
[00:11:31.639]This is the English teacher that I worked
[00:11:33.380]really closely with in the mornings,
[00:11:35.667]teaching fifth grade English.
[00:11:37.479]And then this is the fifth C class teacher.
[00:11:40.126]So each class has their home teacher,
[00:11:42.041]even though in fifth and sixth grades
[00:11:44.096]teachers kind of rotate teaching
[00:11:46.082]math and science and English classes.
[00:11:48.659]They still have a home teacher.
[00:11:51.074]And then here is just a picture
[00:11:52.990]with some of the girls during
[00:11:54.743]one of their dance periods.
[00:11:56.403]They have fun activity periods
[00:11:57.773]that I think one of the girls
[00:11:58.968]might talk more about.
[00:12:00.606]So that was just I got to observe,
[00:12:02.463]participate, and sit in on a lot of those classes too.
[00:12:05.795]The one thing I wanted to speak about
[00:12:08.930]was my biggest takeaway from my time in India.
[00:12:14.712]I had been out of the country before.
[00:12:17.254]Not for as long as a time as India,
[00:12:20.285]so I have been exposed to other cultures.
[00:12:23.361]So I knew it was gonna be different.
[00:12:26.113]But I don't think I was prepared for
[00:12:28.098]the extent to what it was different.
[00:12:32.579]You know going there, the first drive
[00:12:35.087]with Dr. Sirplatti.
[00:12:36.864]The sights, the sounds,
[00:12:38.594]the yeah, it's a white knuckle drive
[00:12:40.324]that first drive in India.
[00:12:42.216]And so just like being exposed to that,
[00:12:44.329]I noticed differences right off the bat.
[00:12:46.639]When we got to Anubhuti Residential School
[00:12:50.981]where we stayed.
[00:12:52.584]You know how there's different showers?
[00:12:54.395]We took bucket baths,
[00:12:55.892]which was different for me.
[00:12:57.274]The breakfast was different too.
[00:12:58.946]It was almost as spicy as lunch and dinner,
[00:13:01.349]and so just a lot of adjustments.
[00:13:03.578]And for me, I think what I struggled with most
[00:13:07.816]but what I also learned the most,
[00:13:10.057]the first couple weeks
[00:13:11.983]I was so focused on all the differences,
[00:13:15.026]and consumed with all the differences
[00:13:17.231]and the first couple weeks were
[00:13:18.845]probably the hardest for me.
[00:13:20.726]But then as time went on,
[00:13:22.607]the relationships with people adjusted,
[00:13:24.883]adapted, things obviously got better.
[00:13:27.982]But what was really cool about our time in India
[00:13:31.222]was we were able to attend a wedding
[00:13:33.590]and a funeral.
[00:13:35.320]And so we'll explain about that a little bit later
[00:13:38.582]but the wedding was with
[00:13:40.393]one of the administrators' relatives
[00:13:43.250]and she wanted us to have a cultural experience,
[00:13:45.966]and so we got to go to this wedding,
[00:13:48.973]and we were just invited as guests of honor
[00:13:52.108]and like we felt like family,
[00:13:54.407]we were accepted like family,
[00:13:55.962]and that was just incredible.
[00:13:57.529]Getting to experience that.
[00:13:59.399]And then the flip side, the funeral.
[00:14:01.872]We'll probably touch on this more later too,
[00:14:04.368]but as Dr. Bishoff mentioned
[00:14:07.422]there were hard times for Jain Irrigation Systems
[00:14:09.987]and so the chairman, the founder
[00:14:12.414]of the entire organization.
[00:14:14.527]This international, multi-billion dollar organization.
[00:14:17.731]He passed away when we were there.
[00:14:20.053]He was in the hospital for a couple weeks,
[00:14:22.375]and then he passed away within our last
[00:14:25.196]week of being there really.
[00:14:27.495]And so that was just hard on the whole organization
[00:14:30.142]and school system, and the whole town,
[00:14:32.708]and that country even.
[00:14:35.344]Because people just looked up to him
[00:14:37.863]with such respect, and the way that he would live
[00:14:41.113]just so selflessly and for others
[00:14:43.204]and created this school, this company
[00:14:45.073]that gave jobs to so many
[00:14:47.000]and sought to leave the world better than he found it
[00:14:51.458]was his motto.
[00:14:53.200]And so that was just really humbling.
[00:14:55.313]Anyways, after reflecting on the wedding
[00:14:57.472]and the funeral, I was thinking.
[00:15:00.014]Why were we invited halfway around the world
[00:15:03.614]as complete strangers to two
[00:15:06.412]of a person's most intimate ceremonies of their life,
[00:15:09.848]a wedding and a funeral.
[00:15:11.671]And I know it was in those moments
[00:15:13.924]when I then saw past all of the differences,
[00:15:17.174]and I saw all the similarities that existed.
[00:15:20.971]Raw joy, laughing, and dancing
[00:15:23.444]and merriment at the wedding.
[00:15:26.149]And then at the same time,
[00:15:27.949]raw sorrow, and hurt,
[00:15:30.178]and tears at the funeral.
[00:15:33.917]And so just being a part of these two ceremonies
[00:15:37.121]really opened my eyes to
[00:15:39.501]they aren't any different than we are in this room,
[00:15:42.252]and that was just, I think I had to experience that
[00:15:45.143]to fully understand that for sure.
[00:15:47.779]And then I remember a conversation
[00:15:49.427]with one of the teachers,
[00:15:50.983]Hudyaka, who told us
[00:15:53.270]beyond the country you're from,
[00:15:56.022]the language you speak,
[00:15:58.472]whatever cultural practices and religious
[00:16:01.328]political affiliations you have,
[00:16:03.464]we all belong to the human race.
[00:16:05.890]And so then she told me that
[00:16:08.224]within the first week,
[00:16:09.733]but it took over all of the weeks
[00:16:11.463]to fully understand that.
[00:16:13.216]And so that was my biggest takeaway
[00:16:15.132]from this experience for sure.
[00:16:18.847]That's a lot.
[00:16:22.342]Okay, so this is two of the classrooms
[00:16:24.989]that I kind of worked with.
[00:16:26.614]Well actually Rudy's,
[00:16:28.100]I celebrated my birthday while I was in India,
[00:16:30.736]so Rudy's classroom held a surprise
[00:16:32.907]birthday party for me,
[00:16:34.811]and they brought a cake and a candle
[00:16:36.924]which a student was showing me
[00:16:38.561]how to blow out the candle and she actually
[00:16:40.105]blew it out herself.
[00:16:41.834]And then I also worked in a first grade classroom,
[00:16:45.376]and they were just learning English,
[00:16:47.779]so I would help them with vocabulary
[00:16:50.148]and like their spelling and all this stuff,
[00:16:53.793]and the fourth grade classroom
[00:16:55.999]I mostly worked on building relationships
[00:16:58.379]with the students, finding out where they came from.
[00:17:01.200]Talking about the tragic backgrounds
[00:17:03.847]that students come from.
[00:17:05.403]One of my students, both of his parents
[00:17:07.574]were deaf and mute,
[00:17:09.351]and he had no way of communicating with them
[00:17:11.371]because sign language hasn't hit
[00:17:13.077]their country yet.
[00:17:14.923]So he said he would just talk like
[00:17:17.152]very few symbols with his parents.
[00:17:19.869]And being how close I am with my family,
[00:17:22.574]I could not imagine only
[00:17:24.536]having a few symbols to communicate
[00:17:26.603]with the people that raised me.
[00:17:28.867]And there was some other students
[00:17:31.026]that had came from very tragic backgrounds
[00:17:33.174]and that was just very hard for me to see it.
[00:17:35.717]It made me appreciate so much more where I come from.
[00:17:39.435]And also, that's one thing
[00:17:43.043]like my main takeaway was
[00:17:45.435]the importance of relationships.
[00:17:48.116]The relationships that we made there,
[00:17:50.961]made some place so foreign
[00:17:53.863]feel like home for us.
[00:17:55.802]And I couldn't imagine our trip to India
[00:17:58.531]without the relationships we made.
[00:18:00.795]And we found out so much more about
[00:18:02.687]their marriage traditions,
[00:18:04.312]their culture,
[00:18:05.740]their like all things
[00:18:09.154]just by these relationships and by talking with people
[00:18:11.987]and their openness, and we got invited
[00:18:14.123]to teachers' homes and we met their families
[00:18:16.515]because of these relationships.
[00:18:18.651]And just made the experience once in a lifetime.
[00:18:22.784]So, yeah.
[00:18:26.836]So I kind of had two main takeaways,
[00:18:29.448]there were so many things but
[00:18:31.677]two of the big things, one was
[00:18:33.604]the importance of educating a whole child.
[00:18:37.594]The word Anubhuti is translated to mean experience,
[00:18:41.848]and that was the idea behind Anubhuti Schools
[00:18:45.029]is to be experiential schools based on
[00:18:47.745]Indian culture and philosophy and values.
[00:18:49.998]And not just in your stuff
[00:18:51.948]because the chairman would always say that
[00:18:54.096]with the size of India's population,
[00:18:56.952]children need to be
[00:18:58.787]job creators not job takers.
[00:19:01.759]And so just the value that was placed on
[00:19:04.870]dance and art and music and sports
[00:19:07.900]as well as academics.
[00:19:09.804]You'd see these kids doing,
[00:19:12.254]they'd spend an hour doing dance every day
[00:19:14.402]and they'd do these incredible things
[00:19:16.538]and put each other on their shoulders,
[00:19:18.570]and there's one point there's like this
[00:19:20.567]big like seven foot stick,
[00:19:23.109]and they like all lifted a kid on top of it.
[00:19:26.349]He was like laying and they turned it around,
[00:19:28.438]it was just hilarious.
[00:19:30.040]But there was a value in that,
[00:19:32.200]but there's also, like the next day
[00:19:36.740]you go to a drama competition.
[00:19:39.178]And then the next day there would be
[00:19:41.162]an assembly and the kids would do poems,
[00:19:43.229]skits, and jokes in three languages.
[00:19:47.003]And these are the first grade students,
[00:19:49.325]who just learned English this year.
[00:19:51.055]So it was incredible just to see
[00:19:52.738]how they did put a lot of value on dance
[00:19:55.664]and music and art, but the kids were also
[00:19:58.206]very well-versed in academics also.
[00:20:02.769]And then I would say the biggest
[00:20:05.219]takeaway in general is just
[00:20:07.100]the power of having a vision.
[00:20:09.294]I would look at the faces of,
[00:20:11.882]like Putavar in this picture,
[00:20:14.785]or the kids in my third grade classroom,
[00:20:17.537]and just like the hope that was there
[00:20:20.881]because some man had decided
[00:20:23.458]as a young man that he was going to change the world.
[00:20:26.999]And I read
[00:20:28.984]a couple of his books,
[00:20:30.714]and even when he was first meeting his wife
[00:20:34.046]and they were talking about an arranged marriage,
[00:20:36.670]he pretty much said
[00:20:38.783]I'm gonna create a business that's gonna
[00:20:40.699]change the world.
[00:20:41.964]Just an FYI, are you okay with that?
[00:20:44.344]And she was like,
[00:20:45.505]yeah I want to change the world too.
[00:20:47.595]And then they did, and it took a ton of sacrifice
[00:20:50.753]and sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice,
[00:20:53.760]but just the impact that it's having now
[00:20:56.419]on kids that had no hope before.
[00:20:59.217]Because like I said, they bring in
[00:21:00.970]researchers to find the poorest of 3,000 kids
[00:21:05.045]and obviously if you're applying to that school
[00:21:07.518]you want that education.
[00:21:10.734]It's just like, that part just amazed me.
[00:21:14.194]Just seeing that and then
[00:21:16.133]you know seeing the new road
[00:21:18.954]that leads to the hospital because
[00:21:21.601]Jain said there needed to be a better road
[00:21:25.444]to the hospital.
[00:21:27.196]Or hearing the story of how
[00:21:32.327]a man went to the chairman,
[00:21:34.279]and he said the chairman would give a job
[00:21:35.939]to anyone who asked,
[00:21:37.623]and he had trouble with alcohol
[00:21:39.457]and had trouble maintaining the job,
[00:21:42.534]and the chairman paid for rehab
[00:21:44.577]and it just didn't work for him,
[00:21:46.249]and the chairman ended up having to let him go.
[00:21:49.058]Well then his wife came and asked for a job
[00:21:51.218]so she could support the family.
[00:21:52.727]He gave the job to the wife,
[00:21:54.155]and now she supports her family
[00:21:55.850]through Jain Irrigation.
[00:21:57.592]So just like as I'm gonna graduate in May
[00:22:00.901]and start graduate school,
[00:22:03.397]it's just like what vision do I want for my life?
[00:22:06.508]Like now's the time to really create that,
[00:22:09.886]and let that take me wherever I go next
[00:22:13.335]because he started
[00:22:15.773]with really humble beginnings.
[00:22:19.209]They had a lot of financial hardship growing up
[00:22:21.334]and his uncle paid for his education.
[00:22:26.540]And as a result, he could have taken a job
[00:22:29.728]with the Indian government,
[00:22:31.841]then had a lot of comfort and security in that,
[00:22:34.720]but he decided to start an agricultural company
[00:22:38.587]working for the cause of farmers.
[00:22:40.978]With a bigger focus on social good.
[00:22:43.579]And as a result,
[00:22:45.459]you have all these kids here,
[00:22:48.118]but then 10,000 community members with jobs.
[00:22:54.156]The vision continues.
[00:22:56.269]At his funeral, his four sons made a vow
[00:22:59.833]to the community to carry out
[00:23:01.992]four or five things that the chairman had
[00:23:04.593]still envisioned for the next ten years.
[00:23:06.683]Like a clean water system
[00:23:09.411]for the whole community of Jalgoan
[00:23:12.871]and the 30 surrounding communities.
[00:23:15.193]A good hospital in Jalgaon,
[00:23:17.178]like when he was sick he had to fly
[00:23:19.523]to Mumbai for treatment.
[00:23:21.509]He's like, I want people to be able to get
[00:23:23.703]good treatment here.
[00:23:27.116]And then a university based on agriculture
[00:23:29.102]in Jalgaon, and water conservation.
[00:23:32.689]So his vision is continuing,
[00:23:35.719]his vision will continue in the lives of
[00:23:38.274]the students he's touched.
[00:23:40.386]And looking globally here,
[00:23:42.732]I know my life has been changed,
[00:23:45.065]I know that their lives have been changed
[00:23:46.899]because of the vision he had.
[00:23:48.861]So it also has a global impact in that way.
[00:23:56.025]So I guess I had an expectation I think
[00:23:58.196]when I was going to India,
[00:24:00.077]that I said, well, I grew up as a minority,
[00:24:02.469]I feel like I've felt some uncomfortableness,
[00:24:05.406]I feel like I've felt
[00:24:07.414]the awkwardness I guess of being a minority
[00:24:09.597]where I grew up in western Kansas,
[00:24:11.594]the only Hispanic in my class.
[00:24:13.521]But I was very wrong.
[00:24:15.054]India really just broadened my horizons
[00:24:17.248]and sort of changed my outlook on
[00:24:19.721]what it really means to feel
[00:24:21.822]uncomfortable in situations.
[00:24:23.866]It really made me grow as a person
[00:24:26.037]and to really utilize
[00:24:28.754]what I do have and how lucky I am to be here
[00:24:33.293]and to utilize that in ways that I can
[00:24:35.638]help people that are maybe immigrating
[00:24:37.519]to the United States in a different way.
[00:24:39.249]And I've always known I wanted to work with
[00:24:40.886]underrepresented populations,
[00:24:42.302]but now I just feel so much more empowered,
[00:24:44.021]so much more skilled
[00:24:45.797]for post-grad school and going on
[00:24:47.864]to the workforce.
[00:24:49.384]I feel so much enriched by what I learned in India,
[00:24:53.286]to be able to work with a variety of families.
[00:24:55.433]And I love the sharing,
[00:24:57.872]that was one of my takeaways
[00:24:59.404]was the interchanging of ideas with the students
[00:25:01.238]and the teachers.
[00:25:02.968]I was able to utilize some of the ESL skills
[00:25:05.058]that I used here in some of my work
[00:25:07.276]in after school programs
[00:25:08.982]and sort of activities for the English
[00:25:11.165]that the children were learning.
[00:25:13.081]And make it fun activities,
[00:25:15.832]fun learning, and I was able to share that
[00:25:18.305]with them and with y'all
[00:25:19.629]and that was really nice for me to be able
[00:25:21.382]to share something really important to me.
[00:25:23.576]And also another really big thing for me
[00:25:26.095]was the home visits that we did with the children.
[00:25:28.510]Really visiting very difficult places to see.
[00:25:31.958]But it was so incredible to see
[00:25:34.710]the relationships that these kids had
[00:25:36.672]with their parents, and how much love they showed.
[00:25:39.087]And we saw so many tears from the parents
[00:25:40.979]that were like, oh my goodness
[00:25:42.431]we have visitors.
[00:25:43.882]And they would give us flowers,
[00:25:45.449]and they gave us soda, and treats.
[00:25:47.318]We got ice cream at one house.
[00:25:48.990]And it was like, oh my goodness,
[00:25:50.476]like there's so many people just coming in
[00:25:52.275]from around their houses,
[00:25:53.762]just peeking in and seeing who was here.
[00:25:56.339]It's us, hi.
[00:25:58.440]It was kind of strange because we'd get,
[00:26:00.542]hey, do you wanna take a picture with me?
[00:26:02.318]Take a picture with me.
[00:26:03.851]It was fun and it was so lively
[00:26:06.440]to be invited into their homes like that.
[00:26:09.400]It was really powerful.
[00:26:12.408]How we had some issues communicating
[00:26:14.718]with some of the parents,
[00:26:16.250]maybe because of the language barrier
[00:26:18.015]but we got communication going just fine
[00:26:20.813]by using hand signals or thank you
[00:26:23.263]or the small Hindi vocabulary that we knew
[00:26:26.792]to get across our thankfulness
[00:26:29.265]and how excited we were to be there
[00:26:31.285]in their home and getting to meet them personally
[00:26:34.107]and that was very very good
[00:26:35.895]and very powerful.
[00:26:38.391]Yeah, a funny little story about what
[00:26:40.422]Rudy touched on.
[00:26:41.549]Like when we would go to one student's house,
[00:26:43.302]the whole housing area would come in their house
[00:26:45.194]and just stare at us.
[00:26:46.866]And when we would leave, they would
[00:26:48.851]surround our bus and all wave.
[00:26:50.686]So there would be like a hundred people
[00:26:53.019]around us, it's funny.
[00:27:00.566]We can all, yeah.
[00:27:02.574]So, the majority of our time was spent
[00:27:06.197]going to the Anubhuti English Medium,
[00:27:08.657]Monday through Friday
[00:27:10.121]nine-ish to four o'clock.
[00:27:11.769]However, we were able to take many
[00:27:14.625]different cultural and typical Indian
[00:27:18.108]tourist opportunities, more towards
[00:27:21.092]the end of our trip.
[00:27:22.543]But we had some weekend excursions as well.
[00:27:24.738]The top picture with all of us
[00:27:28.615]was actually at the wedding.
[00:27:30.821]And this is Nisha Jain, she was the
[00:27:33.723]chairman's daughter in law.
[00:27:37.009]Yes, I don't know her official title
[00:27:39.030]in the school system, but she's basically
[00:27:41.293]the director of the school, so there we go.
[00:27:43.580]So she was the one who invited us to the wedding,
[00:27:46.204]and that was an incredible experience.
[00:27:48.968]I'll share that story, because that's kind of
[00:27:50.744]a fun story.
[00:27:52.044]So as I touched on, we went to a wedding before.
[00:27:54.668]So we're sitting in our room Sunday evening,
[00:27:57.617]6:30, waiting to go to dinner at seven o'clock.
[00:28:01.263]We get a knock on our door from a little
[00:28:04.119]fifth grade girl who lives in our hostel with us.
[00:28:06.638]She comes through the door and she grabs you or
[00:28:09.703]Rudy.
[00:28:11.073]She grabs Rudy, and Rudy goes and meets
[00:28:15.480]another director of Anubhuti Residential School.
[00:28:18.805]He tells her, we have a car coming to pick you up
[00:28:22.195]at seven o'clock.
[00:28:23.960]You're going to a wedding on Jain Hill's campus.
[00:28:27.165]Wear something nice and colorful,
[00:28:29.788]but basically just you have half an hour
[00:28:32.075]to get ready so.
[00:28:34.223]You're going tonight, tomorrow night,
[00:28:37.021]and Tuesday day to the wedding.
[00:28:39.193]And Rudy comes back and she's like.
[00:28:41.735]We're like, Rudy what's up?
[00:28:43.291]She's like, we got invited to a three-day wedding.
[00:28:47.644]It starts in half an hour.
[00:28:49.607]We're like, what?
[00:28:51.313]And so it was just so sporadic,
[00:28:53.659]the mentality of our time there is
[00:28:55.388]seaweed, go with the flow.
[00:28:57.292]So here we quickly got ready,
[00:28:59.568]went to this elaborate wedding.
[00:29:01.541]The first couple days were performances.
[00:29:03.841]Like the pre-wedding day's performances
[00:29:05.999]by friends and family, song and dance,
[00:29:08.101]and some professional artists
[00:29:10.493]who performed for the bride and groom as well.
[00:29:13.140]And so Tuesday the final day
[00:29:14.800]was the actual ceremony.
[00:29:16.750]And that was incredible.
[00:29:19.224]We were able to attend the intimate ceremony
[00:29:22.846]that only closest friends and family were invited to.
[00:29:25.945]The religious ceremony where the bride and groom
[00:29:28.477]circle fire seven times,
[00:29:30.532]each circle representing a promise
[00:29:32.772]of the groom to the bride
[00:29:34.584]for their marriage.
[00:29:36.163]And we were just seated up with all of the
[00:29:38.809]elder ladies who were their relatives,
[00:29:41.561]and they were explaining a little bit of it to us.
[00:29:44.696]But just the fact that we were invited
[00:29:46.867]to this ceremony where only
[00:29:48.876]20 or 30 other people were invited to,
[00:29:51.221]of these thousands who were invited to this wedding
[00:29:53.717]was just so special,
[00:29:55.702]and just an incredible opportunity.
[00:29:58.280]So if you're invited to a wedding half an hour
[00:30:00.242]before it starts,
[00:30:01.658]always say yes.
[00:30:07.114]You guys wanna share another one?
[00:30:10.184]What about those pictures?
[00:30:13.302]Well the day before we actually got to visit
[00:30:15.821]the backside of it,
[00:30:17.482]and you can see the people look like ants,
[00:30:19.792]there were so many and I guess
[00:30:21.452]it was the time of day where it's very very popular.
[00:30:23.612]And so our tour guide said how about
[00:30:25.609]we go early in the morning
[00:30:27.431]because that's a good time,
[00:30:29.219]but then we're like how early?
[00:30:32.435]But actually it was great,
[00:30:34.014]I have no regrets getting up early
[00:30:35.814]because the sun hits the Taj Mahal
[00:30:37.625]in a way that just illuminates it so nicely
[00:30:40.655]and I swear I could not take my hand off of it
[00:30:42.640]once we got there.
[00:30:44.092]I just put my hand on the wall,
[00:30:45.624]and was like, I'm touching the Taj Mahal.
[00:30:48.178]And the amount of selfies we took that day
[00:30:49.873]I think was incredible,
[00:30:51.104]but our tour guide was really really nice.
[00:30:52.985]He was really funny, and he
[00:30:55.005]had all the patience of taking pictures.
[00:30:58.105]He was like, I'll take your picture,
[00:30:59.939]I'll take your picture, take your picture,
[00:31:01.959]and he just posed us in very different ways.
[00:31:03.817]So I was really appreciative of him
[00:31:05.442]because he's all for the fun pictures like this one.
[00:31:08.902]And picture shell from Spielberg.
[00:31:12.199]Anything else?
[00:31:14.893]So it was awesome to have this,
[00:31:17.772]obviously the majority of the time in our school
[00:31:21.035]having this very
[00:31:27.292]just this awesome experience there,
[00:31:29.138]but then to finish the trip by
[00:31:30.938]hearing the story of the Taj Mahal
[00:31:32.772]and getting to tour it,
[00:31:34.409]and seeing the Agra Fort
[00:31:36.058]and hearing the story of India,
[00:31:37.869]and things like that,
[00:31:39.297]but then Ajanta Caves and the wedding
[00:31:40.981]and the funeral all
[00:31:42.687]combined to just really create this
[00:31:45.102]very holistic view of India,
[00:31:47.552]and it really rounded off our experience in that way.
[00:31:51.615]It was nice to end the trip kind of just
[00:31:53.229]being able to relax and tour,
[00:31:54.959]and just getting to like okay, we did it.
[00:31:57.629]Yeah we came to like work and participate
[00:32:00.149]and it was fun, a blast how we did it,
[00:32:02.389]but now we can really relax and enjoy ourselves
[00:32:04.862]the last couple days of the trip.
[00:32:06.975]It was very special, so thank you guys.
[00:32:08.937]And it was a great way also to debrief,
[00:32:11.538]because Rochelle and Gilbert were there
[00:32:13.349]and we had five hours to Agra one day
[00:32:17.424]and then seven on the way back,
[00:32:19.561]and that was a really fun time.
[00:32:21.755]But just to have the opportunity to
[00:32:23.682]be away from the school and still together,
[00:32:26.236]to be in India and still be having these experiences
[00:32:29.057]but to be able to be asked questions.
[00:32:32.506]What did you think of this?
[00:32:34.410]How did this affect you?
[00:32:36.267]And it was just a really great opportunity to debrief,
[00:32:39.866]and remember, and laugh,
[00:32:42.107]and talk about what was hard and what was good
[00:32:44.835]while it was still so fresh.
[00:32:47.076]While we were still out of that context.
[00:32:50.362]So processing was really good for a lot of us,
[00:32:53.717]for the good and the bad.
[00:32:55.505]To be able to relax with the feelings worthwhile.
[00:32:57.873]That was really trustful of them
[00:32:59.557]and why we feel this way,
[00:33:01.031]but it's okay for me to feel that way
[00:33:02.564]and to be able to talk it out
[00:33:03.957]I think was really important for what we did.
[00:33:10.423]Yeah.
[00:33:12.769]I kind of threw together,
[00:33:15.045]we captured a lot of videos from our time there.
[00:33:17.506]We threw together videos on the blogs
[00:33:19.445]so some of you, many of you
[00:33:20.722]may have probably saw this,
[00:33:22.730]have seen this, but we'd like to just
[00:33:25.842]kind of use it as a little closing statement
[00:33:28.361]to say thank you.
[00:33:29.812]Video shows more than words that we could tell you.
[00:33:32.692]So turn off the lights.
[00:33:35.362]If you want lights off.
[00:34:01.568]Is it up?
[00:34:09.500]It's really quiet.
[00:34:12.298]Keith, how do we work the volume?
[00:34:33.138](kids sing)
[00:34:42.878](peppy Indian music)
[00:38:24.716](crowd applause)
[00:38:31.473]Okay, what questions do you have?
[00:38:42.131]Caroline?
[00:38:43.524]I thought the images you had
[00:38:45.893]were really wonderful and they really captured
[00:38:47.936]the assembly that takes place at the beginning.
[00:38:51.163]Especially the artistic things the kids do.
[00:38:55.343]Something they do, don't they do things
[00:38:57.085]that are a little bit like chanting also?
[00:39:00.312]Like, um
[00:39:01.996]relaxed singing also?
[00:39:05.084]Before lunch they always have a prayer.
[00:39:07.325]Always a prayer at lunch?
[00:39:09.101]And then they do do some singing before school
[00:39:11.980]but that was before we would get there
[00:39:14.477]at Anubhuti English Medium.
[00:39:17.739]Well, what I was thinking about was
[00:39:20.966]in China they often begin the day
[00:39:23.649]with an outdoor exercise that children all put together,
[00:39:27.387]often to music also.
[00:39:29.384]And it seems like that kind of
[00:39:31.056]whole group experience
[00:39:34.399]is very meaningful for children.
[00:39:37.777]I was wondering if you had any idea
[00:39:39.879]about how that could be
[00:39:41.505]adapted maybe in your own teaching
[00:39:43.641]in the future, so you have something
[00:39:45.556]that's less individualistic and more of a whole,
[00:39:49.445]an emotional sort of a thing
[00:39:51.466]that begins a day or a class.
[00:39:55.460]Well the way...
[00:39:57.608]They do yoga at Anubhuti, sorry?
[00:40:01.067]They do yoga in the mornings,
[00:40:03.076]and so the way I understood it was
[00:40:04.678]a teacher was explaining to me that it
[00:40:06.338]sort of takes away the bad,
[00:40:08.254]any bad experience that the kids had at home.
[00:40:10.414]Just sadness or just feeling,
[00:40:12.572]you know it's just a good way to start the day.
[00:40:14.895]Come to school and do yoga,
[00:40:16.636]and that would kind of,
[00:40:18.111]do some meditation, help them kind of
[00:40:19.736]get a grip on the day and being at school.
[00:40:21.547]And so I was thinking about it,
[00:40:23.510]and it was just one of those things where
[00:40:25.564]in a classroom with a group like that,
[00:40:29.187]being able to do stretches.
[00:40:32.112]I remember in 4H we would do like
[00:40:34.586]a stretching exercise before club,
[00:40:37.186]and it sort of just got you in the moment.
[00:40:39.322]Loose and excited for whatever
[00:40:41.668]we were gonna do that day.
[00:40:43.734]And something as simple as that I think
[00:40:45.836]gets the group connected as an entity, as one,
[00:40:48.935]and then also individually the child
[00:40:50.932]kind of feels like okay, I'm ready to go
[00:40:53.278]for me in my own mind.
[00:40:56.099]So that's just the vibe,
[00:40:57.759]just from my own personal experiences.
[00:41:02.205]Yeah, I saw like a lot of value
[00:41:03.924]in a lot of the things that they do
[00:41:06.037]and their reason for doing that in the morning.
[00:41:08.730]How to implement that here?
[00:41:11.783]I'm sure there's many ways for sure,
[00:41:15.858]but yeah it's cool to be exposed to those things
[00:41:18.924]like you were in China, we were in India,
[00:41:21.211]just to see how effective it is
[00:41:24.136]used in this school setting,
[00:41:26.993]and can be in another too.
[00:41:38.185]Rudy and Polly
[00:41:40.391]Sydney and Betsy
[00:41:42.968]I wanna say something before I ask a question.
[00:41:45.871]I think the University is just
[00:41:48.831]so lucky to have had the four of you,
[00:41:53.348]and what you could contribute there
[00:41:57.202]and what you could bring back to us.
[00:42:00.406]I've been involved in study abroad internships
[00:42:03.773]for 40 years.
[00:42:05.480]This is maybe the most moving
[00:42:08.881]presentation I've ever had.
[00:42:11.204]And I wish there was some way that
[00:42:15.256]we could communicate this
[00:42:18.390]to the international administrative
[00:42:21.095]community at UNL.
[00:42:23.638]Because I think we could model
[00:42:26.471]something on this.
[00:42:29.257]The other thing is we just finished
[00:42:31.370]the Global Water for Food Conference here,
[00:42:33.506]and Bhavarlal Jain was honored there.
[00:42:36.769]His son Anil was there, Alicia was there,
[00:42:39.950]except in Dearborn.
[00:42:41.761]And Jeff Raikes, who
[00:42:44.350]he's more than Helen Raikes' brother in law,
[00:42:48.196]was the president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
[00:42:52.907]Very active, he's now chair of the
[00:42:55.265]Water Filtration Institute.
[00:42:57.343]Most of what he said there at the presentation
[00:43:00.559]related to our relationship
[00:43:03.206]with Anubhuti School and Jain.
[00:43:05.342]He said much more about the Anubhuti School opportunity
[00:43:08.930]that you have,
[00:43:10.915]than he did about agronomy
[00:43:14.639]or research exchanges and other things.
[00:43:17.948]So I hope that like you
[00:43:20.584]we can continue this at UNL.
[00:43:22.720]So here's my question for Ruth and Carol
[00:43:25.599]and Rich and Julia.
[00:43:29.163]Is this from what you know
[00:43:35.247]a unique experience in terms of
[00:43:37.314]what is provided to our students internationally
[00:43:40.309]overseas, in terms of the depth of their engagement?
[00:43:44.105]Can we market this, and John,
[00:43:48.517]as really something unique that we're doing
[00:43:53.322]here that we don't find in
[00:43:57.794]education abroad or internship abroad
[00:43:59.895]programs in the college?
[00:44:04.271]You don't have to all answer at once, but.
[00:44:08.510]Definitely, and compare this to
[00:44:12.178]student study abroad which usually
[00:44:15.046]the tour is probably
[00:44:19.632]two to four weeks.
[00:44:22.000]They stay a longer time.
[00:44:23.719]They build
[00:44:25.808]more personal in-depth relationships
[00:44:30.464]with the families of people,
[00:44:33.645]faculty members there and students.
[00:44:36.698]And it's that personal relationships
[00:44:38.847]that bring a lot of learning and interactions
[00:44:42.562]and exchanges that seem to me,
[00:44:47.642]create opportunities for growth.
[00:44:51.818]And in a way,
[00:44:55.085]because of the length of time to stay,
[00:45:03.023]the short term study tour.
[00:45:06.008]Once in a while we do see the life changing experience
[00:45:10.844]for all the students who are on study tour,
[00:45:14.399]but in terms of a reflective
[00:45:17.070]and being there long enough to
[00:45:19.542]recognize...
[00:45:22.677]Your takeaways are really well said,
[00:45:24.686]I'm very touched and moved.
[00:45:28.610]It seems that this
[00:45:30.932]is really geared more in-depth.
[00:45:36.590]Just one quick comment with that.
[00:45:38.873]I know that Rich, and other faculties
[00:45:42.031]invested a lot in
[00:45:44.469]providing these opportunities for our students
[00:45:47.476]to have such wonderful experiences.
[00:45:54.895]It's because of the time there
[00:45:57.565]and the timing of the year.
[00:46:00.537]Definitely all our students also
[00:46:02.708]have to make arrangements,
[00:46:05.912]in terms of their program,
[00:46:08.548]the program of their curriculum,
[00:46:10.324]the time that they graduate
[00:46:11.753]and they make progress in terms of that.
[00:46:14.249]So that, if we could more streamline
[00:46:17.557]or I don't know what those plans would be,
[00:46:20.146]but make it easier for more students
[00:46:22.271]to be able to participate.
[00:46:27.844]And I would second Leanne's comments
[00:46:30.654]in terms of impact that students
[00:46:33.521]are able to have on the communities they're visiting
[00:46:36.633]and communities that can impact them.
[00:46:40.278]In a sense, she is correct in the fact that
[00:46:45.099]all education abroad opportunities and programs
[00:46:47.906]that we offer in the college
[00:46:49.380]and across the university,
[00:46:51.087]are going to have an effect on students and things like that
[00:46:53.641]but this from what I've seen
[00:46:56.892]and what I know of the program,
[00:46:59.168]really allows for students to come back
[00:47:01.734]talk to their families, talk to their communities,
[00:47:04.334]and say this was what we've seen,
[00:47:07.388]this is what we've worked with,
[00:47:09.280]this is who we've communicated with.
[00:47:11.288]A lot of the abroad opportunities,
[00:47:13.808]it is more of a cursory view of the landscape of
[00:47:17.987]the country you're going into,
[00:47:20.100]or the location you're going into,
[00:47:21.761]but you're without the ability to invest
[00:47:25.279]at least some substantial time.
[00:47:28.935]You're just only able to go in
[00:47:32.988]so deep into the experience,
[00:47:34.787]and I think for all these students it's,
[00:47:37.794]obviously from this entire presentation,
[00:47:39.965]it's shown that it's made an impact on all of your lives.
[00:47:42.670]And opportunities do exist across the university
[00:47:47.860]as far as internship opportunities,
[00:47:50.948]long-term type of things,
[00:47:53.038]but they tend to be through
[00:47:56.370]programs that are outside the university,
[00:47:58.483]or possibly program type of providers which
[00:48:04.248]in my opinion don't contribute as much
[00:48:06.146]into a specific department, specific college,
[00:48:08.932]university as a whole in terms of
[00:48:10.836]creating relationships.
[00:48:13.762]I've been working with this program for,
[00:48:17.640]this is the second year going now,
[00:48:19.776]and the number of students that I've seen
[00:48:21.656]go over there, I think we're at seven now,
[00:48:24.535]and the number of faculty members
[00:48:26.393]who have been going over there.
[00:48:28.030]Tom, you, the Dean, Beth Dahl,
[00:48:31.490]just the investment that I'm sure
[00:48:34.300]Anubhuti has seen, that we are giving to this program
[00:48:37.376]only grows their confidence in our dedication
[00:48:41.835]and I think this is a unique opportunity.
[00:48:45.631]And the availability of this being affordable
[00:48:50.451]for students to actually partake in something like this
[00:48:53.119]I think is also just a plus.
[00:48:55.291]A lot of these programs, I think there's
[00:48:56.939]a lot of students who want to do this type of thing,
[00:48:59.412]but a little bit of subsidy always helps
[00:49:03.011]in doing something that's a little more long-term
[00:49:05.252]and being able to make it a reality and a possibility.
[00:49:09.524]I'd like to add that it's unique in the sense
[00:49:12.044]that there's four students.
[00:49:15.457]And if we looked at it in terms of the impact
[00:49:17.802]that it has on four students,
[00:49:20.101]then it may not appear to be worth the investment.
[00:49:23.491]But, no offense,
[00:49:27.299]because it is a heavy investment.
[00:49:30.109]But that's not, I mean,
[00:49:31.757]so the presentation impacts all of us.
[00:49:34.718]And you know changes us in some way.
[00:49:37.145]The impact that you're having in India is tremendous.
[00:49:42.137]I think that this is a department-wide initiative
[00:49:46.154]and it's something that we talk about
[00:49:48.325]throughout the year.
[00:49:50.508]And so it has expanded impact as well.
[00:49:54.002]And we've had a number of faculty members
[00:49:56.800]who've been able to go as well,
[00:49:59.703]and my hope is that that will yet expand.
[00:50:03.906]And so that will just expand the impact as well.
[00:50:07.957]So Tom, I think that
[00:50:10.303]while it would be nice to be able to send 20 students,
[00:50:14.250]that's not realistic.
[00:50:17.060]We're at our capacity, four students,
[00:50:19.904]as far as what Anubhuti is able to handle
[00:50:22.609]and give you the kind of experience
[00:50:24.641]that you were able to have.
[00:50:26.522]And I think that the uniqueness is
[00:50:28.229]that we're trying to make this so that
[00:50:31.027]the impact is beyond just these four students who go.
[00:50:36.042]So I agree that we need to try to find some way
[00:50:38.747]to get it beyond the boundaries of the department,
[00:50:41.650]so they can see what's happening.
[00:50:45.446]Yeah, although I actually was thinking
[00:50:47.768]of keeping it in the department.
[00:50:50.079]Just trying to get enough
[00:50:56.429]assured support
[00:50:58.391]so that everything wasn't on you and the dean's office
[00:51:02.211]to provide subsidies because
[00:51:06.971]in addition to the impact.
[00:51:09.978]The chairman always said to me that it was
[00:51:13.879]an added drip irrigation company, pipe company
[00:51:16.805]ag-research, but he always used to say to me
[00:51:20.857]that he thought that the educational relationship
[00:51:24.038]actually might be the most important part
[00:51:26.836]of the University Nebraska relationship
[00:51:29.134]with the foundation.
[00:51:32.489]His foundation and his vision.
[00:51:36.704]And anyway,
[00:51:38.910]I would like to,
[00:51:41.058]and the more we could,
[00:51:42.451]I sound like a philistine, but the more we can
[00:51:44.390]re-enforce the business relationships
[00:51:46.967]the better off we're going to be
[00:51:49.080]both in terms of academic and experiential
[00:51:52.436]learning and research.
[00:51:55.141]I think we should try and get some
[00:51:59.438]long-term money assured.
[00:52:01.657]That would be good.
[00:52:03.364]I was gonna add that this experience,
[00:52:05.686]it reminds me much more of,
[00:52:07.648]when I was an undergraduate I spent all summer,
[00:52:09.935]well two summers in an anthropology project
[00:52:12.815]in the highlands of Mexico in Chiapas.
[00:52:15.520]And I think there are some elements of this
[00:52:19.142]that are really unique.
[00:52:21.487]The beauty of the surroundings
[00:52:24.169]and the basic poverty of the people,
[00:52:27.710]yet the cultural richness of that,
[00:52:30.206]of those people.
[00:52:31.750]And then the contact with the big ideas
[00:52:34.014]that you have.
[00:52:37.950]You know the Gandhi Research Center
[00:52:39.982]and the inspiration of Jain.
[00:52:42.872]I think that those are really really big
[00:52:45.346]progressive ideas that
[00:52:47.621]kind of create a unique
[00:52:52.254]assortment or
[00:52:54.727]there's something really unique about the
[00:52:57.885]beauty of that place, the big ideas,
[00:53:01.043]and then sort of the vitality of these
[00:53:03.643]extremely impoverished but hopeful people
[00:53:07.103]that makes it transformative for you
[00:53:10.540]in all the different ways you described so vividly.
[00:53:14.870]Really glad I came this morning.
[00:53:16.252]Thank you so much.
[00:53:18.690]So was there another question before we...
[00:53:21.650]I have a question.
[00:53:23.299]You talked a little bit, especially Polly
[00:53:25.156]talked a little about the transition
[00:53:26.735]when you went to India.
[00:53:28.326]Can you talk about the transition coming back?
[00:53:38.415]Yeah, um.
[00:53:41.364]Well, I know
[00:53:44.673]Betsy talked about how we were able to debrief
[00:53:47.854]the couple days, that was super helpful.
[00:53:50.559]Just like knowing those experiences there,
[00:53:54.274]and coming back to.
[00:53:56.724]I'd always heard of reverse culture shock, I guess.
[00:54:01.832]It's a real thing, for me at least it was.
[00:54:06.615]And so coming back,
[00:54:09.065]and that was it, I think it's part of the lasting effects
[00:54:11.666]that India has had on me also
[00:54:13.883]and my perspective.
[00:54:16.229]And so coming back I found
[00:54:18.980]it was kind of harder, more difficult,
[00:54:22.417]to enter into conversations with
[00:54:25.470]some of my friends
[00:54:27.583]about things that I see as little and miniscule
[00:54:31.693]now compared to this global scale
[00:54:34.317]of these other hard things
[00:54:38.125]that I was exposed to over there.
[00:54:40.656]So for me, as much as I do want to care
[00:54:44.708]about these friendships and these relationships
[00:54:47.552]and validate the feelings my friends are going through,
[00:54:50.130]I feel like I've changed this perspective
[00:54:54.054]to where it's like it doesn't matter.
[00:54:58.408]But to them it does, so for me
[00:55:00.904]as far as coming back, my perspective
[00:55:04.015]in some of my relationships now has changed.
[00:55:07.649]Whether you call that reverse culture shock,
[00:55:09.355]or whether you call that
[00:55:10.761]India has changed my life.
[00:55:12.513]I guess, that's a little bit how it's been for me.
[00:55:15.022]I don't know if that kind of answers your question.
[00:55:18.783]Um, for me
[00:55:21.767]the debriefing was like huge,
[00:55:26.098]and just being able to process those feelings
[00:55:28.164]before going back,
[00:55:29.580]because you come back and you realize
[00:55:31.392]there's the people who say,
[00:55:32.901]how was India?
[00:55:34.074]And all they want is good or great
[00:55:36.279]or like cool, whatever, and that was it.
[00:55:39.879]It was like I spent two months in this place
[00:55:43.547]and I could tell you so many things.
[00:55:45.474]And where were the people that wanted to just
[00:55:47.750]sit down for a couple hours and hear everything.
[00:55:50.502]So just being okay with
[00:55:52.684]I just had this transformative experience,
[00:55:55.819]but this person doesn't want to hear about it
[00:55:57.944]so okay.
[00:55:59.012]But then like really valuing the time
[00:56:01.067]that I could share with others.
[00:56:03.725]And also just getting back into a schedule,
[00:56:06.187]like when we were at Anubhuti our life was
[00:56:09.960]well on one hand it was like this
[00:56:12.967]and on another hand it was like this.
[00:56:15.417]Cause we kind of knew what each day would hold
[00:56:18.156]and we knew what the purpose was of each day,
[00:56:21.268]things like that.
[00:56:22.313]So coming back
[00:56:23.532]and like finding your ground again,
[00:56:25.645]with work and organizations and
[00:56:28.176]it was kind of helpful for me so I did
[00:56:32.275]an ethnographic study for my thesis
[00:56:34.666]while I was there, so coming back
[00:56:36.408]it was helpful to process Jain Irrigation
[00:56:40.123]and their impact on society and things like that.
[00:56:43.408]And so that actually, I think for me
[00:56:46.183]made the impact easier because
[00:56:49.364]till Friday, when I ended my thesis
[00:56:50.943]and I was still thinking about India,
[00:56:54.089]talking about India, writing about India.
[00:57:01.171]I was gonna add,
[00:57:02.727]keeping in touch with these three has been awesome
[00:57:05.282]because I have the same people that we share
[00:57:07.998]long shared experiences with,
[00:57:10.552]and the ones that just want the three minute
[00:57:12.340]elevator ride with.
[00:57:13.838]With you we can all like message each other
[00:57:16.137]and say, do you remember that one time?
[00:57:17.995]And we can reprocess and relive it
[00:57:20.154]and we know exactly what we're talking about
[00:57:22.244]and what we were feeling at the moment,
[00:57:23.800]and I think that's really special
[00:57:25.959]that we were able to do that,
[00:57:27.747]and I hope we are able to do that for a long time.
[00:57:34.387]Well good, well thank you very much
[00:57:36.536]for your presentation.
[00:57:38.033]I would agree with Tom,
[00:57:39.868]that this was incredibly moving.
[00:57:42.619]And I think you did an excellent job of
[00:57:47.077]characterizing a very rich experience
[00:57:53.474]for us in a meaningful way.
[00:57:56.853]So thank you very much.
[00:57:59.094](crowd applauds)
[00:58:06.176]Thanks, and there's still some food over here
[00:58:07.998]if you'd like some food over there.

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Anubhuti Student Presentation

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