FACULTY
Sowing
Seeds for Change Graduate Students Experience a Transformational Two-Week Trip to Ghana By Donna Birch Trahan
G
raduate student Rachel Riojas wasn’t much of a traveler.
She had never checked a piece of luggage, owned a passport or flown in an airplane. Her studies, work and motherhood kept Riojas — who is pursuing a master’s degree in social work at Stanislaus State — extremely busy and close to home in Turlock and Modesto. But that changed last spring. That’s when Riojas took a trip for the first time in her life, and she went big. As in international-travel-acrossseveral-time-zones-to-anothercontinent big. Last May, Riojas was one of nine students and several faculty members in Stanislaus State’s Master of Social Work program who traveled the Republic of Ghana in Africa. The group spent two weeks there as part of the International Social Work course led by Associate Professor Sevaughn Banks. “I don’t think our department has ever had a study abroad program that was developed by a faculty member from the ground up,” Banks said. “Our faculty have participated in international studies, but it’s usually been a part of another STA N M AGA Z I N E
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