Portland State University is pleased to announce a study abroad program in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, Winter term 2001, offered as part of the Caribbean Studies Program by the Department of Black Studies and International Studies.

The 2001 program offers students the opportunities to study aspects of Caribbean history and culture on the PSU campus during the first eight weeks of winter term 2001, followed by a 12-day field experience in the island of Curacao, located off the northern coast of South America.

Archaeology and oral traditions are the focus of the program, with students based at the Dekker Institute for Advance Studies and the National Museum of Curacao. Students survey and undertake group studies of archaeological sites and historical monuments in the island and develop community-based projects under the direction of PSU Black Studies professor Kofi Agorsah.

The final weeks of winter term are spent in Portland with the group implementing service-learning projects and sharing their experiences with the Portland community.

Participants register winter term in a cluster of courses offered through the Black Studies and International Studies Departments. Dr. Kofi Agorsah, who is also Chair of Black studies Department, will teach the courses and lead the on-site portion of the program.

Professor Agorsah, a Ghanaian archaeologist and anthropologist, has excavated sites and conducted ethnographic research in West Africa and the Caribbean, including Maroon sites in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains and Suriname rain forest. He has also undertaken a government-sponsored survey of historic sites in Trinidad and Tobago in the early 1990s and consulted for the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.