Minutes of the meeting on October 19, 2004

Present: Peter Bankhart (Wabash College), Cathy Benton (Lake Forest College), Elizabeth Brewer (Beloit College), Roger Casey (Rollins College), Elizabeth Hayford (Associated Colleges of the Midwest), Anne Ledvina (Birmingham-Southern College), Sue Mennicke (Southwestern University), Blake Michael (Ohio Wesleyan University), Éva Pósfay (Carleton College), Daniel Sack (Associated Colleges of the Midwest)

Dan Sack began the meeting with introductions and by thanking the participants for coming. The Global Partners Project will wrap up in December 2005, so the task force's main task was reviewing the work to date and commenting on plans for the remaining fifteen months. Elizabeth Hayford noted that the task force has done important work over the project's history, and established good collaborative connections. She believes that the task force is at the heart of the project.

Best Practices Projects

First on the agenda items were updates from the Best Practices Projects, awarded two years ago. The three Indiana colleges (DePauw, Earlham, and Wabash) have been developing together strategies to create globally and culturally competent citizens among their students. Each of the colleges has different strengths and different resources to contribute to the mix. Peter Bankhart reported that the project has had a real impact on international education at Wabash. It has caught the board's attention and increased interest in international study on campus.

Anne Ledvina reported on the symposium on orientation and re-orientation programs, held at Birmingham-Southern in June, which attracted over thirty people from the three consortia. The program began with presentations from people who have developed good programs on their campuses. This was followed by a workshop, where participants developed a matrix for ideal orientation and reorientation courses, including goals, inputs, and tools. Anne has heard from several participants who have changed their programs as a result of the symposium; others have made presentations for other groups. At BSC she has gotten approval to require a pre-departure course for students going abroad. The symposium helped her make arguments about international education with administrators and faculty members. Betsy Brewer said the event was productive; it gave her a chance to see different challenges and different structures at different schools. Anne came away determined that international education must have an academic component. Elizabeth asked if a second symposium on this issue would be useful. Anne said perhaps. Roger Casey agreed, noting that more work on reorientation was necessary. Peter wondered how to deal with short-term courses, which often do not allow students to learn about the host culture. Faculty aren't prepared to lead such courses, he said. Betsy noted that it is often helpful for the college to take faculty members abroad as a group, to help them experience the cultural issues. Roger said that short-term courses can be done well, in Rollins' experience. Éva Pósfay suggested that a discussion of reorientation should include links with other projects, such as that at the University of the Pacific and the University of Minnesota's CARLA project (see their book, Maximizing Study Abroad). Betsy said that a second symposium should include something on experiential education. Blake Michael asked if there could be symposia based on other Best Practices projects, and Elizabeth said yes.

Elizabeth participated in Macalester's June conference on Somalis in America. She felt it was a good idea, but not fully realized. It accomplished the college's goals, bringing Somalis and community leaders together. The element the task force was most interested in, a discussion of how colleges can engage international and intercultural communities, was less successful, largely because of poor attendance. Dan noted that Michael Monahan at Macalester had worked very hard to get participation from Global Partners colleges, but only attracted a few participants. Elizabeth suggested that the summer date limited the attendance and the impact on the college, especially on students. Making connections requires resources and time, she concluded. Betsy likes the idea of using local communities as resources for study abroad. The task force wondered how Macalester could build on the conference's energy, perhaps through internships or community service on the part of students.

Workshops

Dan then described the five planned workshops. These will be small, focused discussions of particular issues in international education, with small groups of people discussing a focused topic. The topics came from brainstorming among task force and coordinating committee members, as well as suggestions from the international program directors. The goals are mixed, depending on the workshop, but they include sharing ideas and methods, building connections and collaboration, and producing resources. Some have been organized by groups contacted by Dan, while others have been taken on by a particular college.

Consulting

Dan passed around the brochures he produced to publicize the new consulting program. The idea arose after a discussion at the last meeting about disseminating and sharing the good work the task force has done over the past five years. In that discussion members stressed the value of face-to-face contact in sharing good ideas and practices. The task forces' grants and events have helped some people to become experts in international education issues for liberal arts colleges, so this consulting program will send those people to other colleges as consultants. The project will pay travel expenses and an honorarium to the consultants, and urge them to visit other campuses in a region. Dan has send fifteen copies of the brochure to each college, and a stack to each consortial office. Task force members said that the brochure may get lost in the shuffle, and so suggested multiple means of getting out this information. Publicity also needs to make clear that this service is free. Links should be included on the main Global Partners web page and on the workshop pages. Information should also make clear that the consulting has a deadline of December 2005.

Other Project initiatives

Dan also reported briefly on other Global Partners initiatives. The Strategic Briefings are designed to bring together deans-and eventually presidents-to talk about international education, particularly focused on collaboration. The deans have been encouraged to nominate other possible participants from their campuses, including off-campus study directors. The organizers hope that these participants will add valuable perspectives to the discussions. The first briefing was in January in Atlanta. The others will be October 2004 in Chicago and January 2005 in Florida. These roundtables will produce a set of papers, which will be the focus of a special meeting involving the presidents of ACM, ACS, and GLCA member institutions, planned for Minnesota in June 2005. The presidents will consider explicit steps these institutions might take to enhance the international dimensions of undergraduate education on their campuses through extended and/or strengthened institutional partnerships. We hope that these discussions may be a way of trying to get some of the task force's concerns onto administration agendas.

The Regional Alliances are experiments at collaboration, focusing the experiences of the three consortia in three particular regions where collaboration might be fruitful-East/South Africa (staffed by GLCA), East Asia (staffed by ACM), and France (staffed by ACS). Task forces made up of faculty from across the three consortia guide the work for each region. They are looking at both off-campus study and on-campus programs, identifying trends and challenges for each region. The goal is finding ways that collaboration might strengthen work in the regions. They started with a survey of on-campus and off-campus programs, identifying resources for teaching and research and trends in off-campus study. The goal is to strengthen programs, perhaps by encouraging collaboration around strongest programs.

Future Best Practices plans

The Global Partners Project will wrap up in December 2005. In the remaining fifteen months, Dan asked, are there other things the task force would like to pursue? Blake suggested reprising the orientation/reorientation symposium. Anne welcomed the suggestion and will think about some ways to build on this past summer's discussions. Betsy suggested a program on international experiential education, including ways to prepare students and incorporate it in the curriculum. She will think about possible plans. Dan then asked if the task force should plan on meeting again before the end of the grant. The group agreed that we should answer that question in the spring, depending on how the various projects and workshops were going. It may also be useful for the task force to meet with the project evaluators to review their efforts and the impact of the entire Global Partners Project