Professor Sara Berry has done it all — taught for more than 36 years, had her bag "stolen" by Nigerian children and guided undergraduate history majors.
Her years of travel in Africa, particularly in Nigeria and Ghana, provide her with entertaining anecdotes, real world experience and knowledge to share with her students.
Berry attended Harvard University for her undergraduate degree, though at the time it was Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She then pursued a doctorate in economics.
Her learning took a surprising turn when she visited Nigeria for dissertation research and found the abyss of cultural and historical knowledge available there.
"Economics as a discipline aims at models that will apply across different cultural contexts and periods of time so economists don't spend a lot of time studying the history, the culture, the social organization of different places where they think their models will apply," Berry said.
Her visit to Nigeria thus spurred her interest in interdisciplinary study — using history, culture and anthropology to answer the questions and solve the models posed by economics. Her intellectual horizons widened with her travels.
"I realized I had to know a whole lot more about the society, about the government, about how it had changed over time. That reshaped the way I defined my interest and led me to do a whole lot of reading in anthropology, in history, in geography and political science — things that I had simply never looked at before," Berry said.
After finishing her doctorate, Berry pursued her long developed aspiration for teaching. She taught economics at Indiana University before transferring to Boston University, where she jointly taught history and economics for sixteen years.
The spirit of intellectual stimulation and peer learning brought Berry to Hopkins. She particularly admired the seminars programs, unique from other universities.
Berry observed Hopkins encourages discussion by circulating academic papers beforehand so everyone can provide feedback, rather than using the lecture method of most seminars. As her own children went to school, Berry began a new life at Hopkins, teaching African history and utilizing the many creative outlets Hopkins offers all intellectuals.
Now, Berry's interests are focused on Ghana and Nigeria and the trends visible in Africa.
"I remain very interested in questions about how people access resources, how they produce goods and services, how they use income that comes to them in whatever way and how these processes of production, consumption, investment overtime have repercussions in the way people think and organize their lives," she said.
Berry continues to stimulate her curiosity, asking questions of economics and finding her answers through a variety of methods, especially history.
Currently, Berry is working on several projects, both focused on Ghana. Using research through history and culture, the first ties economics to family life by looking at patterns of inheritance. The other uses history to look at labor patterns, incorporating other areas of Western Africa too.
Her appetite for interdisciplinary knowledge is mirrored in Hopkins programs and teaching too.
"There are certainly venues at Hopkins that encourage this kind of thing. For example, there's an informal center in East Baltimore's History of Medicine Institute on critical global studies that looks at trends in global health for people in the anthropology and public health departments," Berry said.
Berry's expectation of Hopkins' intellectual stimulation and creativity has been fulfilled in her twenty years of teaching here.
"I enjoy working with students here. The university attracts usually a very able, smart group of students from a variety of backgrounds. It's interesting to be involved in their learning," she said.
The professor also finds discussions with colleagues pursuing different areas of study highly beneficial.
Berry participates in a wide variety of programs, but one of her favorites is a weekly seminar for faculty and graduate students participating in research on Africa.
"We get together every week to present thing we're working on and get feedback. We get many different participants — history, anthropology, political science," Berry said.
As the seminar shows, Berry works with both graduate and undergraduate students.
The course she is teaching this fall, Introduction to African History, incorporates several of Berry's travels. She regularly tells anecdotes from her travels in her lectures. For example, in a lecture about family life and differing roles in African society, Berry told a story from one of her first times in Nigeria.
"Young people respect and assist older people. Americans visiting Africa for the first time are struck by how much more deferential younger people are. Children are expected to do work, to help and to carry things. When I first began to work in Nigeria and needed to visit an adult, it was quite disconcerting to have some child dart apparently out of nowhere, grab my bag and disappear with it. Once I was invited in the house and sat down, my bag would be near the chair where I was invited to sit. From their perspective, this was polite; but from mine, it looked as if the bag was being stolen," she said, with a laugh.
"Unfortunately, with the growth of economic pressures, crime has become more prevalent. I would not make the same assumption in Nigeria today."
Berry uses such stories to entertain her classes and display changing times and various customs. Her nearly six years in Nigeria and Ghana, and conferences and visits in other parts of Africa, have whetted her appetite, and she hopes to visit both countries in the future as well as explore new places. Her studies continue in the "intersection between economic and family life."
She hopes to continue broad life learning, stressing the importance appreciating human creativity and diversity which underscores her travels and teaching.
"People come up with so many different ways of expressing themselves, of organizing their lives, of thinking about what happens in the world and why. I find it endlessly fascinating to learn more," Berry said.
