 Jared, Ngima Dawa and Seth hashing over the data. |
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Bridges to Rolwaling: Academics
Summiters: Rolwaling Mountaineering School is intended primarily as a recreational program. We do welcome the participation of those who are interested in this project from an academic or professional point of view: it will be useful to have one or more Summiters analyze the mountaineering school as a development strategy.
NOT just for students! The Bridges to Rolwaling program is open to anybody whose interests and skills are compatible with our agenda. The projects -- even the most practical among them -- are likely to be of interest to other developers and academics; this means that we must be aware, in our approach to the various problems and opportunities, of what has already been done by others; we must also be systematic and we must keep records: our results will be published.
Credit: The Bridges to Rolwaling program is rigorous and designed to the standards of independent study and internship programs at American upperclass and graduate levels. Although Bridges itself does not offer academic credit, students are assisted in presenting Bridges project proposals and rationales to their home universities in order to obtain appropriate credit for their work. [For a useful discussion of this topic, read the chapter on "credit" from the Studyabroad.com handbook -- which is actually worth reading in its entirety.]
 Interviewing Lama Sherkya |
Academic work: Required assignments for Bridges to Rolwaling participants include:
- reports by participants on pre-departure readings; the first of these reports will be posted and discussed online via Bridgesprtd, our Yahoo e-group; others will be scheduled for Kathmandu and in the field
- lectures with assigned readings; the topics are
- tectonic theory and the formation of the Himalayas
- tourism -- a tour d'horizon
- history of Nepal
- tourism in Nepal
- Sherpa history and culture
- Rolwaling
- development problems in Nepal
- organizations and agencies whose activities impinge on tourism in Nepal
- exercises in tourism development analysis
- project reports
- evaluation of Bridges-PRTD as a replicable model for tourism development
Intellectual property: It is an essential premise of our work that all research results are shared: the written reports will be published in book form and on the Internet, and any team member may freely use any ideas and data gathered by any other team member. Such communal use is considered proper if proper mention is made of the context (i.e., Bridges-PRTD ) and, where appropriate, of the individual participant responsible for the original work.