Dr. Sandra Jowers-Barber, Ph.D., director of the Division of Humanities and Criminology at UDC’s Community College and a historian, was selected to take part in a two-week research seminar in Dakar, Senegal, on January 3-21, 2024.

The CAORC-WARC 2024 Faculty Development Seminar is a highly competitive program administered by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) in collaboration with the West African Research Center (WARC). It will include visits to Goree Island, Toubacouta and Saint-Louis, among other locations.

CAORC offers fully funded overseas seminars to faculty and administrators at U.S. community colleges and minority-serving institutions. The purpose is to empower these institutes of higher learning to provide a global perspective to broaden students’ horizons culturally and foster critical thinking, communication and leadership skills. Each seminar includes up of 12 to 15 participants.

The seminar titled, “West Africa and the Diaspora: Continuities and Transformations,” will feature “lectures, site visits, panel discussions and film screenings on the history, culture, arts, economy and political life of Senegal, with a focus on connections between West Africa and the diaspora.”

It will have a special focus on “Senegal’s spiritual diversity and religious tolerance, as well as the region’s growing transnational movements and their impact on society and especially young people.”​

Participants are expected to develop and implement a project to increase internalization on their campus and should be implemented within a year of the seminar’s conclusion. At that time, participants are asked to submit a project report and share curriculum and/or documentation of the project for inclusion on CAORC’s Open Educational Resources site.

They are also required to contribute a short article for the CAORC blog Field Notes, which should be submitted within three months of the program.