Home » Professor and Student Team Up to Talk about Adventures Enjoyed and Perspectives Gained on the ACM Tanzania Program

Professor and Student Team Up to Talk about Adventures Enjoyed and Perspectives Gained on the ACM Tanzania Program

Professor and Student Team Up to Talk about Adventures Enjoyed and Perspectives Gained on the ACM Tanzania Program March 22, 2012

Photos of Tanzania

by Colleen Zumpf

Colleen Zumpf in the field
A market
A leopard in Tarangire National Park

On the University of Dar es Salaam campusAll photos courtesy of Colleen Zumpf (shown in the top photo)

Observing a leopard’s daily routine of hunting antelope, volunteering at a local school, and visiting the ruins of a settlement visited by Chinese traders half a millennium ago were among the stories told by two veterans of the ACM Tanzania Program during a presentation at Monmouth College last month.

Monmouth biology professor James Godde and Colleen Zumpf, a senior majoring in environmental science, gave presentations at an International Luncheon on February 23 highlighting their semester on the Tanzania: Ecology & Human Origins program. Monmouth College has posted a video of excerpts from their talk.

Godde, who led the program last fall as Faculty Program Director, spoke about some of the adventures that he and the students had, such as encounters with eels and pythons, trips to Zanzibar and the ruins of ancient Arabian settlements, and living at campsites in Tarangire National Park during the field work portion of the program.

In her talk, Zumpf focused on the new perspectives she gained from the program through a wide range of experiences and from the warm, wonderful people she met. She told anecdotes about shopping in the markets, dealing with intermittent water and power systems, gorgeous sunsets, the ever-present monkeys on the University of Dar es Salaam campus, and having classes at places such as Olduvai Gorge, site of so many important archaeological finds.

“I have to definitely say that my perspective, at least coming back to the U.S., has changed,” Zumpf said in summing up her experience. “I’m very much more aware of my surroundings.… [Participating in the program] greatly enhances what I’m taking here at Monmouth College.”

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