[by Jane Ford, UVa News Services]A recent trip to the Ghanaian city of Cape Coast provided 16 University of Virginia students with an opportunity to work with community members on economic development projects aimed at introducing tourists -- drawn to the city by its historic slave castle and forts -- to some lesser-known attractions associated with its multifaceted history and culture.

The trip was part of a January-Term course, "Community as Classroom: Urban Studies and Service Learning in Cape Coast, Ghana." The academic leaders — Maurice Cox, associate professor of architecture; Scot French, associate professor of history and director of U.Va.'s Virginia Center for Digital History; and independent scholar Gina Haney, a 1997 architectural history alumna who has worked on conservation and tourism development projects in Cape Coast for more than a decade — sought to create a program that would allow for the sharing of ideas and experiences across traditional boundaries.

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