Break on Through to the Other Side: Integrating Intercultural Experiences into the Liberal Arts Tradition

Lawrence University and Southwestern University

Partners Project Progress Report and Request for Extension of Funding

This project was conceived in order to fill a void in the study abroad literature. At the heart of our work is an engagement with the slippery nature of intercultural experience in conversation with liberal learning. It is the group's hope that our engagement with this topic will contribute a philosophically based voice to the literature on intercultural learning, which is, in large part, polarized to either the theoretical or the practical. By definition, our subject matter is a "moving target," but it is this dynamic sense that has given real vitality to our exploration.

We have followed the outline/timeline originally submitted with the grant proposal. We have found that communication costs have been low and have been absorbed by budgets housed at our respective institutions. Other expenses have been on target with our initial budget outline.

The group gathered in December at Southwestern to flesh out our initial conversations. An all-day meeting allowed us flexibility in the structure of our work. We were able to allow ourselves the latitude to discuss our personal connection with the project, and to uncover how each of our areas of expertise lends an important facet to our discussions. Ultimately, the group developed a general outline, and each group member took responsibility for expanding an area of the outline in preparation for our next gathering this summer, which will again take place at Southwestern.

Our principal challenge has been narrowing the scope of the project sufficiently to make the task manageable, while likewise allowing enough intellectual space to explore a diversity of conceptualizations of the intercultural experience. Through subsequent conversations, we have begun to refine our approach to the project. Following the meeting this summer, we plan to have a finished product that will be useful to a variety of people working in intercultural education. Our hope is not to produce another "how to" document, but rather to offer an accessible piece which invites reflection and engagement on the part of the reader. The document we produce will lay the foundation for the project described in the request below for further funding.

Request for Further Funding

In the next phase of our project, we would like to gather a small set of administrators and faculty (8-12) from 3-4 campuses to respond to the document that we will complete in the first phase of the grant cycle. This mini-conference/workshop (planned for spring 2003) would require that participants read and engage with the document before gathering so that the 1-2 days we spend together would consist of informed conversation and designated time for creating written responses. These written responses would be compiled into a "working statement" on the integration of liberal learning with intercultural and experiential education, and would then be made available to the institutions of the GLCA, ACM and ACS.

Report by Andrew Law, Lawrence University, and Sue Mennicke, Southwestern University, June 26, 2002.

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