Winthrop Art Professor And  Student Head To Liberia To Catalog Art Work                         

 June 30, 2000

ROCK HILL – Dr. Alice Burmeister and senior art history major Erin Demery are among a team of professional educators heading to Liberia this summer to help the country recover from its seven-year civil war.

Burmeister will research, catalog and begin preliminary restoration of the remains of the Africana art collection located at Cuttington University College in Suacoco, about 150 miles from Liberia’s capital of Monrovia. Demery will assist her.

The two are part of a LEAP team (short for the Liberian Education Assistance Project) supported through the Friends of Liberia organization. The American-based group is a non-profit, non-political group founded by former Peace Corps volunteers. They will join five other American trainers returning to Liberia.

LEAP is in its second year of providing a residential teacher training workshop for K-3 primary school teachers, many of whom have had no formal training since before the war started in 1989.

LEAP was set up by Friends of Liberia after a December 1998 trip which included Dr. Frank Ardaiolo, Winthrop’s vice president for student life. Ardaiolo and Dr. Ray Dockery, a Winthrop associate professor of education, serve as the official evaluators of LEAP.

Burmeister, an assistant professor of art who specializes in African art, left in early June to visit Niger and then Liberia. Demery left June 25 and will return July 25.

Their trip makes up what is Winthrop’s first formal international service learning opportunity, according to Ardaiolo, who lived in Liberia during his childhood and serves on the board of directors of Friends of Liberia.

“This endeavor is a renewal of York County’s historic ties to Liberia,” Ardaiolo said. “It’s especially pleasing to me that Winthrop is leading the way helping fellow educators in desperate need while simultaneously enhancing the skills of our faculty and providing a student with a very rich learning experience.”

Liberia is an African country founded in the 1800s by freed American slaves, many directly from York County and South Carolina. It is attempting to rebuild after the devastating civil war which destroyed many components of its society, especially schools.

Demery looks forward to returning to Africa after traveling to the Ivory Coast last year.

“I have a keen interest in African art and culture, and as a student, I have a unique opportunity to do research here that isn’t available to many professionals,” said Demery, a Rock Hill resident.