Some of the latest changes to Longwood University are not in the physical construction of the campus, but the new potential courses that are being made available to students. The Brock Experiences program was started in 2016 as a way of making traveling courses that will take trips all over the United States, as well as one that will bring students to the Arctic Circle.
One of the first two Brock Experiences courses is the Borderlines class, available for the summer of 2018. The class will focus on immigration, splitting time between Richmond and Tucson, Arizona. In both locations, students will interact with and learn about the local immigrant communities.
Spanish professor Dr. Renee Gutiérrez and criminal justice professor Dr. Connie Koski. Gutiérrez held an information session on the class on Monday, Feb. 5 for any interested potential students. This meeting had a very light attendance, though Gutiérrez said at least 15 students have expressed an interest in the class.
“For the first year, we’d like to try to keep it around there,” said Koski. “It’ll just be easier as we iron out first experiences.”
Gutiérrez has held her position here at Longwood for five years. When she first arrived, she became involved with translating religious texts for a chaplain at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center near the university. She then realized what an opportunity this was for her students.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, there are hundreds of Spanish speakers two miles from campus. I could bring my students out here and we could teach English,’” she said.
These experiences with the immigration system sparked an interest in the subject for Gutiérrez. However, it was her colleague, Koski, who gave her a more detailed understanding of the topic. Koski is a former law enforcement professional, and was able to bring in the legalistic aspect to the class. Before retiring from the Ypsilanti Police Department in Ypsilanti, Michigan, she worked as a patrol officer, accident reconstructionist, crime scene investigator and a major crimes detective, among other positions.
Koski said her past work in policing helps to inform her perspectives on both legal and illegal immigration.
“I have had different world experiences, and so hopefully that also helps with questions students might have, and other perspectives they may have while they explore this controversial issue,” she said.
“I was more interested in the humanitarian aspect,” said Gutiérrez. “Getting my students to know people who didn’t look like them or act like them. Dr. Koski, because of her background, got me thinking about a whole other sort of way of doing it.”
Koski has also helped Gutiérrez with her project at the Farmville Detention Center, bringing her knowledge of the legal system to the table.
“As a result of working on that,” Koski said, “We’ve kind of had this vision along these lines. And then the university put out the call for faculty to apply for the new Brock Fellowship.”
It was then that Longwood offered Gutiérrez and Koski the opportunity to teach a Brock Experiences course in the past spring semester.
Koski has worked on courses that involve traveling before, but not ones that require leaving Virginia. She and Gutiérrez traveled on Longwood’s annual summer trip last year to Yellowstone National Park to learn how the class became a success.
Koski hopes that first year students will find this especially intriguing. Other Brock Experience classes include studying environmental damage in the Chesapeake Bay, traveling to Boston to study urban art and learning about access to water in the Colorado River.
In past faculty-led trips to Tuscon, Arizona, students worked with the Humane Borders Service.
The Sonoran desert sets the backdrop for trips to Tuscon.
