Levin, William C.

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Bridgewater ReviewVolume 15 | Issue 2 Article 14Dec-1996Fulbright Fellowship: Semester of Dr. LeatitiaWirht-Beek at Bridgewater State College Fall 1996William C. LevinBridgewater State CollegeThis item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts.Recommended CitationLevin, William C. (1996). Fulbright Fellowship: Semester of Dr. Leatitia Wirht-Beek at Bridgewater State College Fall 1996.Bridgewater Review, 15(2), 23-24.Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol15/iss2/14________________ L _Fulbright FellowshipSemester ofDr. LeatitiaWirht-Beek atBridgewater StateCollegeFall, 1996William C. LevinPeople who teach and conduct re-search for a living must constantlyrenew their opportunities for learn-ing. Academics know that it may make fora soft life to always teach the same texts,conduct the same sorts of research andspeak to the same people, but it is deathon the life of the mind, and, inevitably thecareer. The Fulbright Visiting Scholar pro-gram is one of the best ways of broaden-ing and changing the intellectual sur-roundings of academics from around theworld.During the fall semester of 1996Bridgewater State College was host to vis-iting Fulbright Fellow Dr. Leatitia Wirht-Beek, a lecturer and researcher in sociol-ogy at the University of Suriname. Dr.Wirht-Beek's residency at the college pro-vided the mix oflearning and teaching thatis the aim of Fulbright fellowships. Thereis such a rich variety of scholars takingpart in the Fulbright program that eachof their stories deserves individual telling.Suriname is a small country (popu-lation just over 400,000) on the north-east, Caribbean-Atlantic coast of SouthAmerica, tucked between Guyana on itseast, French Guiana on its west and Bra-zil to the south. It was a Dutch colonywhich was given partial independencebetween the end ofWorld War II and 1975.Suriname's multi-ethnic population in-cludes Blacks (locally called Creoles, aterm rooted in French-Caribbean racialhistory, and referring to a mix of Frenchand any of a number ofAfrican slave tradepopulations), East Indians, Chinese, In-donesians and a strong, remaining, Dutchinfluence. Dutch is the official language,although English study is required afterthe seventh grade, and the nativeSurinamese is the language of the street.Given its geography, there is also goodadvantage to speaking Spanish and Por-tuguese. Dr. Wirht-Beek's career and in-terests reflect the complex mix of forcesat work in the development of such acountry.After WWII the Dutch began prepar-ing Suriname for its eventual indepen-dence by granting the people partial inde-pendence and creating a national planningoffice staffed by Surinamese. After gain-ing its full independence, Suriname's firstelected government was still heavily in-fluenced by its recent colonial past. It wasconservative by the standards of aSurinamese population eager for thechanges they associate with indepen-dence. The Surinamese military wasamong those segments of the populationagitating for improved working condi-tions, including worker organization. In1980, when the government failed to re-spond, the military allied with a segmentof the socialist movement in a bloodlesscoup. The newly formed government23sought the participation of a wider rangeof Suriname's citizens, including moreyoung and female people. Letitia Wirht-Beekjoined the new government as ajun-ior staff member in the National PlanningOffice, a position she was to hold for fouryears.In this position Dr. Wirht-Beek wasin charge of the data base on relations be-tween Suriname and the Netherlands. Sheand a small staff responded to daily re-quests from government offices for edu-cational, cultural and economic data usedin the planning process. She was, there-fore, in an excellent position to study howthe planning process worked and did notwork in a developing country as her newgovernment conducted relations with theDutch government and her South Ameri-can neighbors. At the same time she wasdeveloping her research skills. Three yearsafter leaving this position (in 1984), shewould use what she learned in govern-ment service to earn a graduate degree insociology.After this first job in government, Dr.Wirht-Beek took a high school teachingjob for its superior pay and security. (Thisis another clear difference betweenSuriname and the United States worthnoting.) For two years she taught sociol-ogy and conducted research, (not nor-mally a part of an American high schoolteacher's job) mostly in the area of schoolenrollment. For example, she tracked theschool enrollment rates of the variousSurinamese ethnic groups, documentingthe strong increase in the late 1980's ofEast Indians in the educational systemgenerally, and of Creoles and females inhigher education specifically. During thistime she also prepared to do the graduatestudy that would lead her to her presentuniversity position.Dr. Wirht-Beek's 1987 Doctoral Dis-sertation, a study of the creation, opera-tion and fate of her country's planningoffice, drew on her four years of service ingovernment. Examination of the opera-tion of the planning office in Surinameleft her with a strong belief in its impor-tance in a developing country. She ar----------------------' '------------------"'" damQ""\ geproject. damB baullietmijnB bauxietreserves+ mtemat.luchtha..,en-+ vliegveld of aIrstripOCEAAN+ berglop(hoogte In m)- ...: ~ ...:. moeras__ spootwegen (buitengebruik)______ riVler______ kanaalof the Department of Sociology, a posi-tion to which she will return after comple-tion of her semester abroad at Bridgewater.According to Dr. Wirht-Beek theFulbright semester she has spent in theUnited States has accomplished for herand for Bridgewater State College justwhat was intended in its guidelines.Dr. Wirht-Beek has learned from thepeople she has met here and from the re-sources we have, and has left with us anunderstanding of her life and career whichwe certainly would not have had without~v~ ~• hoafdstadplaats...__u_ steiltsgrens___ ._ distriktsgrens__ hoofdweg-- secondaire weTISCHE50Ikilometers58° ~SURINAMEoffice generated a number of the own ideasfor development projects. She also con-tinued to conduct the research that hadbecome a critical thread running throughher career. In this case, she focused ondiffering rates of employment amongSurinamese women and men, and on theeffects of ethnic group membership onmale and female economic well-being.In 1993 she moved to a position as afull-time researcher at the University ofSuriname, continuing her studies ofgen-der (with an examination of governmentpolicies toward women in her country)and education (with a study of educationamong ethnic groups such as the nativeAmerindians in the Surinamese rain for-est areas). After adding some lecturing toher responsibilities at the university, Dr.Wirht-Brown was asked to serve as chair.">-;IJ... ):>I'- Zr-(Jlgued that such an office could only do itsjob if it were placed very highly in the gov-ernment structure. This was because thedesign of new societies is a multi-disci-plinary task, touching on every area ofsocial and governmental life includingeducation, the economy, transportation,health and so on. Subordinating a plan-ning office to the influence ofvarious gov-ernment departments would not onlylimit its access to information, but alsosubject it to the narrower interests ofvari-ous departments.Since completing her doctoral degree,Dr. Wirht-Beek worked again in govern-ment as a staff member of the Social Plan-ning Division of the National PlanningOffice. There she was responsible for re-viewing proposals for developmentprojects in the areas of education, health,housing and social services, with a spe-cial focus on womens' and population is-sues. One example of the kind of projectproposal she reviewed was a request forfunding (from the Dutch), for construc-tion of a rural school in a previously un-served area of the rain forest. Dr. Wirht-Beek would be called on to evaluate theneed for the new school and the feasibil-ity of its successful operation in light ofissues such as transportation, teacheravailability, impact on the local economyand culture and so on. In addition her24

Fulbright Fellowship: Semester of Dr. Leatitia Wirht-Beek at Bridgewater State College Fall 1996

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Fulbright Fellowship: Semester of Dr. Leatitia Wirht-Beek at Bridgewater State College Fall 1996

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