Amin, Julius A.: "African Immersion: American College Students in Cameroon."(Book review)

• Author: Nti, Kwaku

Amin, Julius A. African Immersion: American College Students in Cameroon. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015.

The publication of Julius Amin's African Immersion: American College Students in Cameroon takes the emergent scholarly research on study abroad programs to an altogether different level. Based on an intriguing variety of primary and secondary sources, the book provides an historical analysis of the University of Dayton's Cameroon Immersion Program, which aims at a relatively more deliberate and consistent introduction to interested students on aspects of African cultures. This program's uniqueness is rooted in a university-local community arrangement, with an overarching service component dating back to the university's very foundation, and spanning in time the various phases of the school, from the initial Marianist College to the present University of Dayton.

The ten-chapter book with three appendices proffers some profound meanings and relevance of the study abroad concept, drawn not only from the author's expertise but also other scholars and think-tank groups. It is variously seen as "an affirmation of the universal nature of humanity," identification of "those bonds which unite rather than divide," where participants and host country are "learning from each other" as well as "complementing each other" and "a greater ethnic sensitivity" develops alongside "awareness in multicultural practice" (p. 2). Furthermore, study abroad becomes the "exchange of values that leads to a sense of intercultural understanding and competencies" that provide student participants with a "future competitive edge" (p. 2). Study abroad not only bequeaths an international or global citizenship, but also "a continuous and integrated experience of international issues and cultures" (p. 2). This is especially important, given the scenarios of interpersonal engagement with other cultures, where participants are changed while they help to change people in the various sites of operation (p. 3). Among other valuable benefits, study abroad offers "cultural competency" for millennial students, many of whom are "over programmed and over protected' (p. 3). Moreover, these views quintessentially reiterate in diverse ways the inescapable fact that the study abroad experience is a necessity and not a luxury.

Although Amin establishes the incredible value and enlightening potential of study abroad programs, he is not uncritical of the program that from all...