It's tough to take one of Dr. Sabita Manian's classes and come out unchanged. She opens students' eyes to genocide, sex trafficking, brutal dictatorships, and our collective failure to do enough about the human misery index.
Her classes in international relations have spawned significant activism on LC's campus in recent years, with students forming a local chapter of Amnesty International and a student anti-genocide coalition (STAND). They line up to take a one- or two-credit course that prepares students for the National Model United Nations conference in New York City each spring. Dr. Manian is faculty sponsor for all three, and has seen the majors in the Department of Political Science and International Relations climb to nearly 90, of which 61 are international relations majors.
"That's made my life here at Lynchburg College very satisfying," said Dr. Manian, a native of India who truly brings a global view to campus. "I have loved working with my students and appreciate the community aspect of this College."
An associate professor of international relations, Dr. Manian came to LC in 2001 and shifted her academic emphasis from Europe to Asia and the Caribbean. But she stays up on happenings worldwide, from the Gaza Strip to Somalia.
She has taken students to study abroad in Argentina, India, and St. Lucia, where she will be again in May and June with a group of 23 students and three other faculty members to do educational assessments and curriculum development on that Caribbean island with many ties to LC.
Dr. Manian said she also enjoys teaching in the Westover Honors Program, which allows her to collaborate with colleagues from other disciplines, including communication studies, sociology, philosophy, and political science.
When she's not teaching, Dr. Manian is doing scholarly work for conferences or her own independent research. Two summers ago she received a grant to study the children of sex workers in India, and she hopes to turn that research into a book. She and Dr. Kim McCabe, dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, are editing a book, Global Sex Trafficking, which should be out later this year.
In her rare spare time, Dr. Manian enjoys drumming with a women's circle and reading, but she's already planning her second study abroad trip to India in January 2010. Students will help with ongoing rehabilitation in southern India, where a devastating tsunami struck in December 2004. Dr. Manian is also hoping her students will have a chance to work with children of sex workers. The trip promises to be another eye-opener.