A group of Chadron State College students and their professors left for London on Sunday, the 37th straight year the school’s Justice Studies program has made the Study Abroad trip. They’ll return home in two weeks.
In recent years, a group from other CSC programs have also made the trip, but this year’s tour is just Justice Studies professor Dr Tracy Nobiling and 10 of her students.
The late Dr George Watson began the trip with the goal of showing his students some of the differences and similarities between American, British, and international law and their courts systems. The students also have the option of cultural sidetrips .
Because of the relationships Watson developed early on with officials in the British courts and at New Scotland Yard, the CSC students have always been able to visit places generally off-limits even to educational groups.
One interesting twist this year is that one of the students, 26-year old Chloe Titus of Lander, Wyo, is the first fully online justice studies student to take the trip.
A transfer student who earned her associate degree in criminal justice from Casper College in 2008, Titus is a paraprofessional with special education paraprofessional working with first-graders but looking to use a CSC degree to work with juvenile delinquents or possibly go to law school.
She says family and friends, especially her brother, have been very supportive of her returning to school to work toward her bachelor’s degree and going on the London trip.
While doing most of her classwork, including Power Point presentations, on her own online, Titus participated in a video conference every Tuesday that also included one of the hosts of the London trip, Constable Richard Watson, and let everyone see each other and communicate directly.
Titus has also become friends on Facebook with most of her classmates, including the women who will be her roommates, but didn’t meet them face-to-face for the first time until just before the flight to London departed.
Dr Nobling says technology not only made it possible for Titus and Constable Watson to participate in class discussion through videoconferencing, it’s made planning the trip much easier…eliminating the need for early morning phone calls “to catch someone in London who is 7 hours ahead in their work day.”
Nobling is also requiring all the students on the trip to post a blog as a way to share their experience instantaneously with friends, family, and CSC alumni. The blogs can be read on the Justice Studies department web page: csc.edu/justicestudies.
She thinks blogging also gives the students a greater appreciation of what they’re seeing and learning on the trip because “reflecting on a day’s activities helps the students pause and give thought to what the experience means to them, to their academic career, and ultimately to their professional careers.”
Four of the students on the trip are Nebraskans: Cierra Herrmann of Scottsbluff, Michaela Linders of Rushville, Jordan Staman of Crawford, and Nick Yardley of Gordon.
Three are from Wyoming: Titus, Jamie Henry of Torrington, and Mary Miller of Saratoga. Rounding out the group are: Jessica Orose of Rapid City, Charlotte Carlson of Falcon, Colo., and Josh Keating of Romeoville, Ill.,