The College of Maine has been awarded a $35,000 grant from the U.S. State Division to fund the event of an ongoing faculty-led examine overseas program targeted on political science and legal justice in partnership with the Universidade Catolica Portuguesa in Lisbon, Portugal.
College students on this immersive, experiential program will examine Portugal’s revolutionary and path-defining strategy to their Nineties opioid and overdose disaster in distinction to the trail adopted within the U.S. Reasonably than strictly punitive approaches, since 2001, the Portuguese state’s response to possession of illicit substances for private use has prioritized opening pathways to therapy, discount in use and hurt discount, making certain the protection and well-being of people that proceed to make use of medication. The revolutionary strategy has grow to be a mannequin for nations looking for an evidence-based, public well being strategy to confronting substance use dysfunction.
This three-week summer time course will study the opioid disaster in comparative perspective. College students will be taught firsthand from these concerned on this various strategy, together with federal regulation enforcement; public well being, public coverage and social staff; cell outreach groups and extra.
Rob Glover, a UMaine affiliate professor of political science, and Karyn Sporer, UMaine affiliate professor of sociology, will create and lead this system in shut session with companions on the UMaine Examine Overseas Workplace and UCP.
“Like many communities within the U.S., Maine has confronted the devastating impacts of the opioid disaster, which have solely been exacerbated by COVID-19,” says Glover. “Maine is experiencing an overdose disaster that claimed a minimum of 627 lives in 2021, a 21 p.c improve over the prior 12 months. Preliminary knowledge counsel that 2022 will likely be much more lethal. Portugal’s revolutionary strategy to treating substance use dysfunction as a public well being disaster versus a legal challenge presents a compelling mannequin to analysis, perceive and emulate.”
Past its substantive deserves, this faculty-led program presents an reasonably priced various to semester-long examine overseas alternatives in dearer locations. Portugal stays considerably cheaper than different common European examine overseas locations like Eire, France or Italy. Financially, the expertise is inside attain of scholars who would discover the prices of dwelling overseas for a number of months prohibitive.
“This program will have interaction with an revolutionary and critically vital matter, whereas concurrently increasing examine overseas choices to these in any other case unable to take part,” says Glover. “Analysis has persistently proven that monetary circumstances might be an obstacle to learning overseas. Faculties with larger proportions of lower-income and first-generation faculty college students, resembling UMaine, typically see decrease charges of participation than different varieties of establishments. Nonetheless, this program will create a lower-cost alternative for a shorter length than a full semester overseas, opening up the transformative advantages of examine overseas to extra UMaine college students.”
