Valparaiso University holds service as one of its core values, and recently, students from across campus lived that value across the country and internationally by taking part in spring break service trips. These trips let Valpo students apply their education in a real-world setting while spreading the kindness and generosity of Northwest Indiana to a global community.
One group of students put their skills in engineering and education to work in the town of Baitoa, a community in the Dominican Republic, as part of Valpo’s Working Across Vocations Everywhere through Service, aka WAVES.
“We took our community of learners and helped them apply their scholarship to action through building a UV water filter and teaching about the filter in a school in the Dominican Republic,” said Selina Bartells, Ph.D., assistant professor of education.
A senior design team at Valpo’s College of Engineering began designing and prototyping the UV filtration system over the fall semester and, once in the Dominican Republic, it was up to the engineering half of the WAVES team to replicate that design as best they could. It was a process that put their classroom-learned problem-solving skills to a real-world test.
“The local hardware stores had a lot of what we needed, but there are always a few items that prove difficult to find,” said Jay Grossman, Ph.D., assistant professor of civil engineering. “In the end, we had to get a little creative to find workarounds for parts that weren’t unavailable.”
Meanwhile, Valpo’s future educators were assisting and observing elementary school classrooms. After the completion of the filter, education students ran hands-on science lessons to teach the children of Baitoa just how the new system made their water safer.
While engineering and education students worked to improve the lives of people in the Dominican Republic, students from the College of Nursing and Health Professions made their way to Agadir, Morocco, to observe medical education and practice in a foreign environment and to learn about how they can be better health care providers at home.
“This experience will help me be culturally competent and aware of others when treating patients,” said Rebekah Pike, class of ’24, a member of the Physician Assistant program. “Not all patients have the same beliefs and it is important to recognize them and respect their wishes.”
Rami Musleh, MS, PA-C, clinical professor of physician assistant studies and coordinator of the Morocco trip, encapsulated just what these trips can mean for Valpo’s future servant-leaders.
“I hope that this will give our students a greater appreciation of how big this world is and how important diversity is to a functional society,” he said. “Even though we all come from different backgrounds, speak different languages and have different colored skin, we all have a common goal to try to make this world a better place.”
Wherever the students go, the opportunities they have to live out the generosity of Northwest Indiana and Valpo’s mission of creating servant-leaders are only possible through the immense support of the community.
For more information, please visit valpo.edu.
