"But I Don't Want to Go to Cancun": Students Take Alternative Spring Break to Serve
March 4, 2002
Contrary to popular image, not all college students spend spring break partying on tropical beaches.
A number of University of Richmond students, along with counterparts at other colleges, plan to work, not play, this spring. They plan to substitute hammering or research for getting hammered and sunbathing.
Six of them will not even leave town. Working for a project called Collegiate Transformers, they will gut and rebuild four duplex homes just off Broad Street. Interfaith Housing of Richmond recently acquired the properties to be homes for low-income families.
They will be joined by undergraduates from Virginia Commonwealth, Virginia Tech, Mary Washington, Bluefield, Averett, William and Mary and James Madison. Virginia Baptist Collegiate Ministries organized the project, and the students will stay at Tabernacle Baptist Church.
Although the students will put in two weeks of hard work, the renovations probably will not be completed by the time classes resume. But, at least two units should be "well on their way to being habitable," according to Alex Martin, Baptist campus minister at Richmond. Other Interfaith housing volunteers will finish off the job.
Meredith Stewart, a junior from Morristown, Tenn., says she could have taken a more traditional spring break, as she has in the past. But, she believes she will look back and be glad she served. Stewart knows hammers and nails, having helped repair hurricane damage to properties in North Carolina a couple of years ago.
Some other students will travel far from Richmond's campus, but not to sit on the beach. Mike Davison, associate professor of music and a composer and trumpet player, will take four of his arranging students to Cuba where they will collaborate on research funded by the university's Student Research Committee. The International Education Office is paying for another student, Laurie Rhoads, to accompany them as translator.
With a semester of composing under their belts, the students in Cuba will perform and compose in the "Son" style. Son is the earliest Afro-Cuban music. Ninety percent of the music Americans refer to as salsa or Latin jazz originated in Cuba, Davison says.
Davison and his students will give eight concerts in 10 days.
Composing music in a classroom is fine, Davison, says, but jamming with Cuban musicians and listening to the music as it is played in the country of its birth will give the students an essential experience. They will "hear and feel the subtleties" of a musical scene that has not changed since 1959. Upon returning to Richmond, they will co-compose a score with Davison to be published by Walrus Music.
Will it be worth passing up Cancun?
"Cuba's a once-in-a lifetime opportunity," says violin player Christopher Gamblèe-Wallendjack, a sophomore from Staten Island, N.Y. - "maybe even greater than that."
"It's easy to listen to and play music. Anyone who took flute lessons in third grade can tell you that," adds Gamblèe-Wallendjack. "But, to be a part of music-to feel its magic-is something that doesn't happen every day, and this trip will get us there."