Newswise — A project that began in the Himalayas by a student at American University in Washington, DC grew with the help of a professor, gives voice to both Tibetans and Chinese, and is expected to end up in the hands of the Dalai Lama during his visit to campus on October 10.
Sophomore Ellie Ezzell has been asked by the International Campaign for Tibet to put her multimedia independent study project into book form for the visiting spiritual leader, who will deliver a talk on Buddhism at the university’s Bender Arena.
The story of the project is the story of an enterprising student, an encouraging professor, and passionate involvement with global issues that draws so many students to American University.
Ezzell’s curiosity about the world led her to precede her freshman year with a “gap year” of cultural immersion, language study, and community service abroad. In the spring of 2008, she was in India for a three-month program when she first saw the protesters. Ezzell had been in a 10-day meditation retreat in Dharamsala, the home in exile of the Dalai Lama and center of Tibetan refugee life, when protests broke out before the Beijing Olympics.
“Basically we came down from the mountain and came directly into protest,” she recalls. “There were people crying in the streets, effigies, pictures of bloody bodies. It was very overwhelming.”
She had not, until that time, known much about the issue of Tibet. She was in India mainly to study Hindi and learn about South Asian culture. She knew only the bare bones of the conflict over Tibet.
“Politically, I didn’t know who was right or wrong,” she says. “But we saw people suffering.”
So Ezzell and a friend in the program decided to learn more by hearing directly from Tibetan refugees about their experiences. During their time in Dharamsala—and later, in Ladakh, also a stronghold of Tibetan culture in India—they collected interviews, film footage, and photographs.
Then Ezzell went off to her freshman year at American University, her friend went to another college, and the interviews sat untouched. “I was feeling guilty about that. We got these people’s stories, they trusted me with them, and I wasn’t doing anything with them.” She talked to Professor Bill Davies of the School of Public Affairs who encouraged her to do an independent project combining the photos and film she had collected.
Davies and Ezzell agreed that the project needed Chinese voices, too. So she expanded it by adding interviews with Chinese students and research on the perspective of the Chinese government.
The project ended up winning her an award as Outstanding Honors Freshman. She will also be presenting it at the National College Honors Council this month.
As for Ezzell, she looks forward to being in the audience during the Dalai Lama’s visit, and hopes to get the opportunity to present the book version of the project in person.
RSS