Studying the Brazilian rainforest: an international partnership

By Jill Kasiewicz Caseria, M.A.'04

Asking the locals for directions wasn't a problem for Scott Falciglia '06. Understanding the answer, however, was another issue. With just six weeks of a language course in Portuguese under his belt, Falciglia found himself enrolled in Brazil's Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense (UENF), using public transportation to get across town, and figuring out how to operate the washing machine in the apartment he shared with two Brazilian graduate students.

Falciglia studied in Brazil in 2004 through a U.S.-Brazil Consortium for Environmental Studies, in which Fairfield University is one of four partners. Funded two years earlier by a $200,000 federal grant from The Foundation for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) of the U.S. Department of Education, Fairfield joined Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., to work with UENF. The program, which to date has sent six Fairfield students for the semester program and two for language courses, focuses on the interconnection of the environment, economic development, and quality of life. The grant has allowed Fairfield University to exchange faculty and to host 10 Brazilian students in four years.

The roots of the program run deep among the universities involved. In the mid-1990s, as a graduate student at the University at Tennessee, Dr. Dina Franceschi, associate professor of economics in the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) at Fairfield University and who spearheaded Fairfield's involvement with this exchange, worked with her advisor, Dr. Jim Kahn, on her dissertation on Brazilian environmental economics and mineral rights. Her research took her regularly to Brazil.

At the same time, Dr. Marcos Pedlowski (who, this year, is a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Fairfield) was working with Dr. Kahn on an environmental initiative at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Today, Dr. Kahn teaches at Washington and Lee University. When FIPSE announced the U.S.-Brazil grant opportunity in 2001, he contacted Dr. Franceschi and suggested that the two universities apply jointly, since Fairfield matches well with Washington and Lee in terms of academic program size and mission. Today, the project is in its fifth year, on an extension grant that will last through a sixth year.

Learning another culture

Students who choose Brazil as a destination are looking for adventure, says Dr. Franceschi. "Most students who go on the program are international studies majors who are looking for an alternative experience. It's a relatively uncommon country in which to study for a semester. These students are flexible and able to deal with uncertainty."

Uncertainty and flexibility are certainly among the qualities Courtney Siegert '07 uses to describe the Brazilian culture. "You can't have an 'American' attitude down there, all hustle-bustle and uptight about time," she says. "It's just better to acknowledge the fact that it may take another week to get an answer or to get something done. Once you accept that, it's really nice." Siegert elected not to study in Europe for a semester because "it seemed too easy," she says. "Instead, I lived in a city in the middle of the Amazon. It's the coolest thing I've ever done."

During the first six weeks of the program, students take intensive language courses and live with local families. "When you arrive in Brazil, you don't know anyone, so it's good to stay with a family who can teach you about the area," says Jessica Marques '07, an anthropology and international studies double major who spent the fall semester in Manaus. "The point of the experience is to learn about another culture. Living with a family, you also get exposure to real Brazilian food. My host mother made me juices everyday with fruits found only in the Amazon." Mornings are spent learning Portuguese, and afternoons include field trips to sites - such as the local market - where students can practice their new skills.

The bulk of the semester is spent taking courses at one of the two Brazilian consortium universities and conducting research. Each student participates in an ongoing project guided by a consortium-affiliated professor in Brazil. Students select projects that range from land reform and environmental issues to studying local festivals and customs. Unfortunately, faculty and student strikes are a common occurrence at public universities in Brazil and throughout Latin America, and can significantly delay classes. "Strikes have altered schedules in all but two exchanges," says Dr. Franceschi. "But to the universities' credit, faculty have met individually with students or made condensed schedules for them, so they still get a full semester's worth of work and credits done in time."

With their Brazilian professors, students take courses in urban evolution, environmental ethics, anthropology, field techniques, and other areas of interest. Class time and homework includes open conversation, presentations, papers, and some exams. Most students elect to submit their work in Portuguese.

Career implications

Economics major Mark Maestranzi '03, the first from Fairfield to travel on the program, was one of those students. The Portuguese skills he first learned through a language course at Fairfield University, which were enhanced during his study abroad, landed him a plumb position as a telephone interpreter with Bloomberg's Manhattan office soon after graduation. (Today he's an analyst.) Calls received from Brazil were directed to him, and he'd stay on the line with the caller and the Bloomberg employee, translating conversations for both parties. For Maestranzi, choosing Brazil as a destination was practically a no-brainer. "I was interested in developmental and environmental economics, as well as deepening my knowledge of Portuguese," he says. "I looked forward to learning about the country's culture and food, and as seeing the rainforests first-hand." He studied with Dr. Pedlowski at UENF, choosing courses in land reform and land distribution.

How the land is used and regarded by local Brazilians are issues of major interest to researchers on both continents. While in Brazil, Falciglia investigated how certain populations used and treated the major river running through the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Some of the locals he surveyed admitted to littering and polluting it, while others said they depended on the river for food, bathing, and other cleaning.

Surveying is a major part of research methods in Brazil, as Siegert can attest. She conducted 150 interviews, asking university students and others a series of questions to determine how knowledgeable the population was about the connection between the diminishing Brazilian forests and the decreasing numbers of the Golden Lion Tamarin, a miniature monkey that's one of the world's most endangered species. Her work was part of a larger study done in conjunction with the international Golden Lion Tamarin Association. Most people, she discovered, had general knowledge of the parallels between forest destruction and the disappearing primates.

It should come as no surprise that living in an area as different as the Brazilian rainforest - whether studying endangered species or public policies - at times can change a student's perspective, altering an intended career path. "Traveling to Brazil has changed my original thought of looking for work in corporate America for the immediate future," says Falciglia, whose plans now include the Peace Corps or a nongovernmental organization in Latin America. "Now I know what I can do to help the environment. The run-of-the-mill financial job isn't for me anymore. Studying in Brazil was the best six months of my life."

Dr. Marcos Antonio Pedlowski: Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence

He refers to it as his addiction, his studies of the major environmental factors affecting the Amazon. This year, as a Fulbright Scholar-in Residence at Fairfield University, social scientist Dr. Marcos Antonio Pedlowski has tried to get a few students to share in his pursuits.

"The Amazon is my hard liquor. Once you go in there and start talking with the people and traveling the region, it's hard to stop," says the associate professor and member of the Laboratory of Studies on Anthropogenic Space, one of four multidisciplinary units at the Center of Human Sciences at the UENF in Brazil.

He specializes in land reform, studying how policies and national projects affect deforestation - an interesting combination in a country whose educational system, for decades, did not relate coursework in social issues to coursework in environmental science. "Now," he says, "people realize this wasn't helpful. Social, environmental, and economic issues are all related." He's living proof: Dr. Pedlowski holds a master's in physical geography and a Ph.D. in regional planning.

Last fall, he taught a course at Fairfield with Dr. Franceschi called "Global Environmental Regimes." The pair investigated the treaties, agreements, and laws that regulate the use of environmental resources. This past spring, he and Dr. Edward Dew, professor of politics in the CAS, taught "Land Reform and Social Justice in Latin America." He also led a seminar on applied field research.

Social justice, Dr. Pedlowski says, is the next step. "Brazil is one of the most unequal societies on the planet when it comes to land distribution. Fewer than 5 percent of land owners control more than 50 percent of the land." It's his hope that if Fairfield University is awarded another FIPSE grant for study and research in Brazil, it will be used to examine the reasons for and the social consequences of this inequity.