Writing Program helps build new generation of scholars

http://kykernel.com/

October 13, 2009

(Post by CAAI News Media)

By Ellen Baker

From Cambodia to Kentucky, university professors are always helping each other.

Anne Mareck, the UK Writing Program associate director, was contacted by a professor on a mission to rebuild a generation of scholars.

Mareck said Jeanette Coufal, a curriculum and development specialist at Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan, contacted the UK Writing Program for ideas about how to teach composition. Mareck said she invited Coufal to talk about teaching students to write. They met on Aug. 4, and at that time, Mareck learned of Coufal’s mission.

Mareck learned Coufal was seeking assistance from the UK Writing Program because she was looking to rebuild a lost generation of Cambodian intellectuals.

The Khmer Rouge, a Cambodian Communist wave of violence led by dictator Pol Pot from 1975-79, murdered approximately 2 million Cambodians—about 21 percent of the national population. The massacre specifically targeted scholars, who were seen as subversives, effectively eliminating Cambodia’s knowledge base.

When Coufal received a Fulbright professorship to the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia, she was surprised she would teach English composition to graduate students. Coufal told Mareck Cambodian universities have never fully recovered from the Pol Pot massacres and her Fulbright professorship is an attempt to train a new generation of scholars in hopes of enriching the Cambodian higher education environment.

Upon traveling to UK to learn more about writing composition, Coufal carried $1,000 to purchase textbooks to bring back to Cambodia. However, Mareck knew Coufal’s budget would be insufficient for the books she needed.

Mareck contacted the program’s Bedford/St. Martin’s book representative, Cindy Hall, for financial assistance. Hall immediately asked her supervisors to donate textbooks to Coufal’s mission

“It was just the right things to do,” Hall said. “They needed good textbooks and they had such a paltry budget.”

On Coufal’s behalf, Bedford/St. Martin’s donated 80 textbooks and 13 personal teaching guides, worth more than $3,500. Mareck said Coufal was thrilled that her $1,000 could now be spent on other educational costs for her students.

“Community literacy is something that we concentrate on,” Mareck said. “Literacy can be used to broaden the contribution the community offers.”