An Update From Our Academic Staff

It might be a bit difficult to believe, in light of all the idyllic pictures that our students have been posting, that we are working as well as playing here in Greece. But it's true - since I last posted to the blog, we've done a lot in terms of curriculum.

Our second week in Athens focused primarily on service "in the field," and as you know by now, it was an often inspiring, sometimes sobering, and occasionally exhausting experience for all of us. It was here, too, that our classroom work interfaced with the real world. We'd heard and read a lot about Greece's economic and social problems in the days previous to service, but now we encountered them firsthand, sometimes in some uncomfortably tangible ways, particularly in the dire poverty and desperation of the Somali and Afghani refugee communities and the suspicion and hostility focused on them by some native Greeks. We also saw great examples of leadership in action in folks like Abdul of the Somali center, the directors of "the center," and Maria from Praxis. Meanwhile, we analyzed the results of the Gallup/UCLA StrengthsQuest test, which was great fun as well as deeply illuminating (I, for one, was amazed at its accuracy). Finally, work on the "Big Blue Book" increased in quality in week two; the first week, grades were not where Scott and I would have liked, and so we brought the grading hammer down a bit, and we were pleased with the resulting jump ("transactional leadership" in action...)!

During week three - the first in Crete - we focused in detail on leadership, drawing on Peter Northouse's seminal book (Scott has a master's degree in leadership and has taught Northouse before, which has been very useful). We took particular pains to link leadership to the StrengthsQuest results. Strengths might be inherent, we argued, but leadership is learned, and so we focused on the idea of matching personal strengths to an appropriate leadership style as outlined in Northouse. We talked as well about ethics, always important in leadership and especially appropriate here in Greece, where discussion of proper human behavior was a prime concern of philosophers like Plato, Aristotle et al. Beth Ann continued the theme with a lecture on core values, and the Samaria Gorge gave us a great natural venue to consider the importance of all these Big Ideas. I was also fortunate enough, meanwhile, to give a brief lecture on the Venetian occupation of Crete in front of the famous "Koules" fortress in Heraklion, adding a third great venue to my list!

Now, after a few days off for travel and fun, it's away to Santorini on Thursday, where students will write the first of their papers on leadership as well as doing more work in the Big Blue Book. I look forward to grading their work in front of the greatest sunset on earth!

Best,

Brian Allen Drake
Lecturer
Department of History
University of Georgia