The Trail Less Traveled

Neva Hassanein is a Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Montana. For this episode, she interviews her mentor, friend and professor whom she studied with in East Africa. Paul’s formative years were spent in the Belgian Congo—ay a time when most of Africa was the possession of one or another of Europe’s nations.  For more than four decades, his life experiences were largely centered in Africa where he lived, worked, and together with his wife, Margie, raised three children. Then for 15 years, he directed a global service learning program at Wheaton College, where his Africa experience was been enlarged to include much of what is being called “The Majority World.”  His journey in scholarship really began at Northwestern University, where he studied history and was awarded a Fulbright to examine the vulnerability of African communities to protracted drought in the 1970s. His PhD research brought together archival investigation in the U.K. and Kenya, and livin