Wales and Cornwall 2027: Critical Copper Connections

Wales is an historic nation located within the United Kingdom, but with considerable autonomy. With their own cultural and environmental sector and laws, a strong and growing minority language, and a unique geography surrounded by coasts on three sides with the Cambrian Mountains running down the nation's spine, Wales offers a diverse, beautiful, and safe environment for students to gain experience in the environmental humanities and social sciences. Cornwall, however, while recognized as a minority nation by British and European governments, is also a county within England with its own language, popular coastlines, and a long history of mining.

Michigan Tech will serve as one of the ten Gilman Program Pioneering Institutions by training MTU Study Away and Abroad staff and supporting this year's faculty-led program to Wales and Cornwall. This year, students will learn about unique expressions of cultural, community, and economic change, working with a handful of industrial communities and heritage institutions. Students will visit the Welsh Parliament, six national museums, three national parks, four UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and visit at least six mines and quarries in Wales, Cornwall, and Michigan.

Through this year's theme of Critical Copper Connections, students will experience the full life cycle of copper. Historically, how did the environment shape copper production, and what environmental impacts does copper have today? How does copper continue to shape policy and politics from the local to the global scale? How did copper build communities and how have they adapted? What role do copper and other critical minerals now play within Wales, Cornwall, and Michigan? These questions will be at the forefront of our courses and guide much of our itinerary. The program ends back in Houghton (June 3-6) at the joint Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial Archeology and Mining History Association.

By the end of the program, the students will have a set of hands-on experiences (supported by a breadth of academic evidence) from which to draw upon as they question how we define community, the standards of community-based research, and how we understand the global political economy of resource extraction, use, and relations.

Wales and Cornwall: Critical Copper Connections centers how we can better contextualize our cultural understandings of community, place, and nature to bring nuance, respect, integrity, and justice into independent research and map those values onto forward-looking industrial and post-industrial careers.

Program Dates: May 3 - June 25, 2027
Travel Dates: May 3 - 24, 2027
Application and Deposit Deadline: TBD
Earn 6-10 Essential Education/HASS credits

Courses

Students enroll in 6-10 summer session credits through Michigan Technological University and pay the associated tuition costs. Students choose two or three of the following courses: SS 4551/5501 Industrial Communities (3 credits), SS 4710 Geographies of Migrant and National Communities (3 credits), and SS 4600 Industrial & Historical Archaeology or SS 6010 Special Topics in Industrial Heritage (3 credits). We will also offer two optional PE courses (PE 0167 Moving for Fitness and PE 0175- Hiking). Courses meet Essential Education Experience, Intercultural Competency, and Arts and Culture requirements and capstone, methods, and major requirements for Social Sciences undergraduate and graduate students. Additional research opportunities may also be available - contact instructors if you are interested.

Instruction will occur in the field. Students' involvement with partner institutions and personnel and within the larger group in exploration and discussion will replace the traditional lectures of the courses.

Course Descriptions

SS 4551 - Industrial Communities

Introduces advanced students to scholarly literature on industrial communities and its methods through reading and discussion of selected articles and case studies. Students will acquire skills in oral history, archival, field, and community-based research.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, in even years
Restrictions: May not be enrolled in one of the following Class(es): Freshman, Sophomore

SS 5501 - Industrial Communities

A graduate seminar covering studies of industrial communities. Introduces the methods and approaches of this field through reading and discussion of selected articles and case studies. Students will acquire skills in oral history, work with archival materials, and conduct field and community-based research.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Fall, in even years
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate

SS 4710 - Geographies of Migrant Communities

Covers the geographies of ethnic identity and nationalism, national identity and territory, borderlands and diasporas, national separatism and the variety of ways in which cultural difference asserts itself.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (3-0-0)
Semesters Offered: Spring, in odd years
Pre-Requisite(s): UN 1015

SS 4600 - Industrial and Historical Archaeology

This course is an advanced exploration of the industrial past using archaeological perspectives. It is a seminar combining scholarship from different fields and using material evidence to examine the evolution of work and production in industrial society.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-0-3)
Semesters Offered: Fall, in even years, Spring, in even years
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Class(es): Junior, Senior
Pre-Requisite(s): SS 2200 or SS 3200 or SS 3230 or SS 3270

SS 6010 - Special Topics in Industrial Heritage

Examines themes or topics related to studies of industrial heritage. May include such topics as advanced cultural resource & heritage management and tourism; industrial heritage field methods; international dimension of industrial heritage; government policy. May be repeated.

Credits: variable to 6.0; Repeatable to a Max of 12
Semesters Offered: On Demand
Restrictions: Must be enrolled in one of the following Level(s): Graduate

Itinerary

Students will make their own way to London, where a privately hired bus will pick them up and provide the transport for the duration of the program, dropping them back off in London where they can either fly back to the United States or extend their travels. Students will also secure their own transportation to Houghton and lodging for the June 3-6 conference.

Days	Location and Activities
Pre-trip	Safety and Cultural Immersion Preparation in-person and over Zoom.
May 3 - 9	Cardiff (St. Fagans National Museum of History, Welsh Parliament, Cardiff Bay, National Museum Cardiff, Swansea and the Hafod Copperworks and National Waterfront Museum)
May 9 - 12	Bannau Brycheiniau National Park (Big Pit Coal Mine, Blaenafon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site, Hay-on-Wye, Waterfalls)
May 12 - 14	Pembrokeshire Coast National Park (National Wool Museum, Neolithic Standing Stones)
May 14 - 18	Llanberis (Aberystwyth and the National Library of Wales stop, Eryri National Park, Sygun Copper Mine, Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales World Heritage Site, Caernarvon and Penrhyn Castles; Anglesey Island)
May 18 - 24	Cornwall and West Devon (Tavistock, St. Just, Cambourne and Redruth, Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, Institute for Cornish Studies)

Costs

Students pay a $750 deposit. Students then register for summer Track A credits with MTU as normal and pay the associated tuition. Tuition will include a "lab fee" of $1,500. The deposit will be applied to the lab fee ($1,500 overall) in addition to the instruction and tuition costs. This includes in-country transportation, lodging, activity expenses, many meals, travel insurance, registration for the MTU conferences, and program administration.

With the support of the Gilman Program, we will be offering four $650 scholarships to two students with demonstrated interest in Critical Minerals and two students with demonstrated interest in rural development (more information forthcoming).

Study Away Information

Here are some other resources that will help you with your visit:

Behavior, Expectations, and Accommodations

Students are expected to abide by the Michigan Tech student conduct code. There is zero tolerance for drug use. Violations will result in immediate expulsion from the program and no refund.

Michigan Tech has standard policies on academic misconduct and complies with all federal and state laws and regulations regarding discrimination, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. For more information about reasonable accommodation for or equal access to education or services at Michigan Tech, please call the Dean of Students Office, at 906-487- 2212 or follow the link above.

Financial Aid

You can cover all program costs with financial aid. To qualify, you must be enrolled in 12 summer credit hours.

You will receive 6-10 credit hours in Track A for this program. Michigan Tech students may enroll in 2-6 credit hours in Track B to achieve full-time status, or enroll in an additional directed readings or research courses with your program leaders. Please contact one of the program leaders if you're interested in the directed readings option.

Consult with the Michigan Tech financial aid office or the financial aid office of your home university, if you are not a Michigan Tech student, for more information about how to fund your study abroad.