And the adventure begins...

This will all be a new adventure for me, both the journey to South America and the visiting scholar gig in Brazil. Using a website to blog and share my journey will also be a new experience for me. Many people wanted me to keep them in the loop and lots of them do not use Facebook, which is the only other social media platform I use, so here we are. In truth, the adventure really began on Wednesday, December 6, and it is alreay 10 days later...so bear with me as I do some catching up (anyone on FB will already know some of the story).

Before we get into current details of the trip, there is a backstory that many of you may not know and this explains why I am headed to Brazil in the first place. A PhD student from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Maria Alice, and her supervisor, Angela, reached out to me in August 2021 to see if I would consider being on Maria Alice's committee because of my background in constructivist grounded theory and community health. I was quite humbled by the request and it was the first opportunity for me to work with graduate students at the University of Manitoba...so I jumped at the chance. After a few interactions, I was invited to be co-supervisor with Angela and then Maria Alice came to Winnipeg for two months to do a "sandwich semester". For those not familiar with this concept, it is a low calorie academic serving of gaining knowledge from a different institution, different experts, and different education/healthcare settings. Graduate students are encouraged to do this after their proposal defence (or comprehensives) while they either prepare their research project or during it.

Then this last summer, Angela and Maria Alice came for an official visit to the College of Nursing to meet with our program Dean and many of the stakeholders in our program. Angela had already asked me if I would consider doing the visiting scholar gig at her university (affirmative!) and her goal in her visit was to pitch the idea of potentially establishing a formal partnership. Thus, my role has two components - visiting scholar work (providing presentations, workshops, and a concentrated course on grounded theory) and doing a reconnaissance. And so here I am on my journey to the south. And how am I getting there? Well...that is for another blog installment.