USM-USFSP Joint Class Project -- Human Trafficking -- 29 September 2011

During the Fall 2011 semester, I collaborated with Professor Svetlana Suveica at the American Studies Center at Moldova State University to create a joint project where my students (from Women and the Law) could work together with her students.

The objective of the assignment, as we described in our handout for the students, is as follows:

This group research project will give students from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and Moldova State University to work together on research projects regarding human trafficking. We will have several videoconferences with our colleagues in Chisinau/St. Petersburg during the course of the semester. In these meetings we will discuss common readings, hear from guest speakers in Moldova (NGOs and Peace Corps Volunteers) and in Tampa Bay (non-profits, prosecutors, law enforcement officials), hold a conference to present research findings, and enjoy a celebration event at which each student will be presented an edited volume that contains copies of each group’s research paper.

While working on this assignment, students will learn about a wide range of issues related to human trafficking: the role of NGOs and non-profits in combating human trafficking in Florida and in Moldova; U.S. and Moldovan partnerships and coordination with other nations and international agencies and treaties designed to combat human trafficking; prevention programs in the U.S., Florida and in Moldova; prosecution of human trafficking in the U.S., Florida and Moldova, government agencies in the U.S., Florida, and Moldova responsible for combating human trafficking; U.S., Florida, and Moldovan anti-trafficking legislation (e.g., U.S. Trafficking Victim Protection Act 2000), and international responses to human trafficking (e.g., the U.N. Protocol against Trafficking in Persons (2003) and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings).

In addition to learning more about the issue of human trafficking, this assignment will give students the opportunity to
• foster intercultural understanding through learning and communication
• develop oral and written communication skills through the communication with a counterpart from U.S. and Moldova - across cultures and beyond borders
• make students aware of the interconnectedness of local/regional/global social issues
•expand students’ opportunities in using technology in communication, learning and research
•make students curious and interested in acquiring more knowledge about U.S. and Moldova and their peoples
•make students work virtually, outside homes, outside the country, through an on-line cooperation
•overcome stereotypes about a “privileged” American student in terms of research opportunities, non-academic cooperation, individual and group work
•make students reconsider possible preconceived ideas about big and small countries and the problem these face
•get in contact with a non-academic environment, e.g. NGOs, Peace Corps volunteers that are involved in solving the issues that are explored in the classroom
•make students share and learn from the experience of the other in terms of study and research
•overcome language barriers for those who were not able to communicate with a native speaker


Here are photos from our first videoconference on 29 September 2011. Here you can see the students at the American Studies Center at Moldova State as well as how they looked on the big screen projector in our classroom at USF St. Petersburg.

During this meeting, Professor Suveica and I discussed the research project assignment, and students introduced themselves to each other.