A Language for Everyone to Study

With the start of the academic year comes the annual ritual of promoting the study or languages and recruiting students.  The College at the University of Chicago requires students to demonstrate competency in a second language.  This is not an uncommon graduation requirement for most institutions of higher education in the U.S.  What is unique about the University of Chicago is the number of languages one can study to meet this requirement.  The following is a list of languages one can study at the University of Chicago to meet the second language competency requirement:

Akkadian

Albanian

American Sign Language

Arabic

Arabic, Colloquial Egyptian

Arabic, Modern Standard

Aramaic/Elementary Syriac

Armenian

Assyrian

Aymara

Old Babylonian

Ne-Babylonian

Balochi

Bangla/Bengali

Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian

Bulgarian

Catalan

Chinese

Coptic

Czech

Demotic Egyptian (Hieroglyphs)

Middle/Late Egyptian

Elamite

English, Old

Frence

Ge`ez

Georgian

German

Greek, Attic

Greek, Modern

Gujarati

Hebrew, Classical

Hebrew, Modern

Hieratic

Hieroglyphic Luwian

Hindi

Hittite

Italian

Japanese

Kazak

Korean

Latin

Lycian

Lydian

Macedonian

Malayalam

Marathi

Maya, K`iche’

Maya, Yucatec

Nahuatl

Norwegian

Old Norse

Pali

Persian (Farsi)

Phoenician

Polish

Portuguese

Russian

Sanskrit

Slavonic, Old Church

Slovakian

Spanish

Sumerian

Swahili

Tamil

Targum

Telegu

Tibetan

Old Turkic

Turkish

Turkish, Ottoman

Ubaritic

Ukranian

Urdu

Uzbek

Yiddish

Study Abroad Photo Contests

Many institutions and organizations have study abroad photo contests.  I think this is a great way for study abroad returnees to show off some of the great photos that they took abroad.  Additionally, it is a great way to engage future study abroad participants in the experience.  How does your office, institution or organization organize and promote study abroad photo contests! 

 For those of you who have studied and traveled abroad what do you do with your most prized photographs you've taken?

These photos (pictured above) were taken by University of Chicago undergraduate students during their studies abroad and they are just around the corner from my office so I get to see them everyday!  You can view these photos online here!

Photo credit:  http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/

Uchicago Future Peace Corps Volunteers Facebook Group

Yesterday I decided to produce a week long series here on IHEC Blog focusing on internationalization in The College at The University of Chicago where I work.  As I was strolling through the halls of Harper Memorial Library looking for items to take pictures of I came across an interesting sign for the Peace Corps.  This wasn’t about an upcoming informational session/meeting for prospective students.  Rather, it was a sign for a new Facebook book called the Uchicago Future Peace Corps Volunteers Facebook Group.  The University of Chicago is consistently a top producer of Peace Corps Volunteers each year and I have posted to IHEC Blog about that in the past (read here).  I copied and pasted information about the group below:

 We are a group of students that are interested in community service, raising awareness about global issues, and providing knowledge and support for any member of the University who is interested in the Peace Corps. We hope to: 

*promote existing service opportunities for University students that are in line with Peace Corps values--meeting service needs and promoting better cross-cultural understanding--while also creating new opportunities to meet community deficits.

* provide all undergraduates with knowledge about the Corps as a post-graduation path, as well as the skills and resources necessary to become the best candidates for Peace Corps selection.

* reach out to current University of Chicago alums serving in the Peace Corps by grant writing and fundraising in support of their community service projects in order to promote a culture of global volunteerism.

I wonder what impact this Facebook group will have on the number of Peace Corps applicants from the University of Chicago?


Photo credit: http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/

Internationalization in The College at The University of Chicago

Today is the first day of Autumn Quarter at The University of Chicago and I am entering my eleventh academic year of work at this fine institution.  My first five years I worked in the Office of International Affairs which is the office that works with our international student, scholar and staff population.  Since 2005 I have worked in the Office of the Dean of Students in The College with the current position of Senior Adviser for International Initiatives.  


With the start of a new academic year (which brings upon a crazy busy schedule for me) I thought I would highlight the international activities here in The College at The University of Chicago by walking through three floors of Harper Memorial Library (the administrative building for The College where my office is located) and taking pictures of things I see that promote scholarship beyond our borders.  I was surprised to find many different kinds of images that highlight internationalization here on campus and I plan for this to be a week long series here on IHEC Blog.  


For this first post I thought I would take a picture (above) of the eastern wall of the great reading room in Harper Memorial Library and copy and paste text about its significance from a recent Chicago Maroon article (which you can view here):

"Dean of the College John Boyer's speech [to a group of visiting diplomats] continued with the morning's emphasis on Chicago's connections to the wider global community, focusing on international education through centers in London, Singapore, Paris, and, starting next fall, Beijing.  He explained that the screen above the reading room's eastern wall has coats of arms of international universities from Berlin to Calcutta to Tokyo, symbolizing the school;s commitment to international education.  "The iconography of this great building spans geography, and this is a wonderful symbol of the University today, "Boyer said."

As you walk through your campus or organization, building or office what images do you see around you that promote internationalization?


Photo credit:  http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/

Study Abroad Highlighted by Google, Bank of America, Microsoft, FedEx and Citibank in their 2010 Commercials

Back in January I posted to several new media and listserv outlets and my blog about the Google Search commercial featuring study abroad that aired during the Super Bowl.  This, of course, was a great way for the idea of study abroad in the U.S. to gain visibility.  Well, it didn’t stop at the Super Bowl.  So far in 2010, five major corporations in the U.S. have featured study abroad in their commercials and four of these have exclusively focused on the study abroad experience.  I have embedded the videos below for your viewing pleasure.

In addition to seeing international education featured in commercials here in the U.S. we are also seeing a new exchange student character introduced this season in the television program Glee (more here) and The Lifetime channel is planning a movie on Amanda Knox (more here).  To be sure, the having exchange students on television and in movies is nothing new and I have posted about this in the past here, here and here.

A special mention of thanks to Sarah McNitt from Miami University is  necessary for alerting me to and finding a few of these of these commercials!

IHEC Blog also has a YouTube channel you may want to visit as I have subscribed to 295 international education channels.  You can view IHEC Blog’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/IHECBlog..

I Follow the Foundation for Asia Pacific Education (FAPE) on Facebook! Do You?

Become a fan of the Foundation for Asia Pacific Education (FAPE) on Facebook at http://bit.ly/ajbx60 by October 1,2010 and you'll be entered to win a new Flip Video Camera. I really like what FAPE is doing in the international education/study abroad arena (see my July 31, 2009 post about FAPE here). Learn more about them at http://www.asia-pacificfoundation.org/.

After you start following FAPE on Facebook you might also want to start following IHEC Blog's Facebook page at http://tinyurl.com/IHECBlogFacebook (If you don't already).

Being Global 2011: Strategies and Models for Internationalizing Canadian Higher Education

Being Global 2011: Strategies and Models for Internationalizing Canadian Higher Education

Last week, I came across an announcement of a new conference focussing on internationalization in higher education on the Academica list serv last week. The conference will be hosted by the Higher Education Strategy Associates group in Toronto, Canada on January, 13-14 2011 Though you may need to consult their website for more details, proposals are currently sought on the following themes

1)  The Science of Attraction,

2)  World Bound,

3)  Internationalization Strategies: Networks, Policies, and the Bottom Line,

4)  Creating the Global Student.

On their website they sum up the purpose and the importance of the conference as follows:

But Internationalization is about more than just bringing international students to Canadian        campuses. It’s about making “globalizing” our own students, either through study abroad or    through a more internationalized curriculum. It’s about ensuring our campuses are well-  networked with leading institutions around the world. And it’s about finding ways to make Canadian education available around the world, even to students who can’t come here.

As this is a brand new conference the presentations and audience it may attract is difficult to ascertain. However, there is a very interesting line-up of keynote speakers including Dr Grant Harman (University of New England) and Dr Kris Olds (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and I am especially interested in hearing from Dr Donald Rubin, co-author of the GLOSSARI project. I hope that his address will spur greater interest in Canada for some of the multi-institution and longitudinal research like the GLOSARI project, the Georgetown Consortium Study and the Study Abroad for Global Engagement.

However it is very exciting to see a second conference (following the Canadian Bureau of International Education conference) focusing on these issues in Canada. Especially as CBIE this year may make it more challenging for those of us in the eastern and maritime provinces to attend. This conference may also serve as a good warm up for NAFSA which will be held in Vancouver, BC in the 2011. See you there!

How Do We Diversify The U.S. Study Abroad Student Population?

This is a question I’ve been asking and looking into for some time now.  Today, the Diversity in International Education Hands-On Workshop is taking place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.  I would love to attend this free workshop but alas I am here in Chicago and I just can’t make it.  I posted about this workshop over on IHEC Blog this summer (view that post here) as I think it is a great thing that AIFS and DiversityAbroad are doing (in conjunction withNational Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), the Institute of International Education (IIE) and Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU).  I was invited to update and contribute my comparative data tables on race and ethnicity in education abroad for inclusion in the workshop.  At some point I'll make these data table more available but for now they are part of the e Diversity in International Education Hands-On Workshop materials distributed to those fortunate to attend.

While most of us can't be in Washington, D.C. for the workshop it doesn't mean we can't think about and discuss this important issue in the field of education abroad.  What are your thoughts on this?

This post is cross-posted over on my International Higher Education Consulting website.

Getting Children Interested in Traveling Like Babar

Yesterday while my wife was working (incoming first-year students arrived at the University of Chicago yesterday) I took my children to the 57^th Street Book Fair in my neighborhood (Hyde Park, Chicago).  It was a great time and my kids were excited to have me purchase a bunch of new books for them!  While browsing through all of the book stands I came across the book “The Travels of Babar” [affiliate link] and I started thinking about children’s books that take the reader to far away places and instill an excitement and curiosity for travel and meeting others who are different than themselves. 

What books do you recommend for children (say ages 1 to 12) that will hopefully educate and bring about an excitement for travel and adventure in far away lands?  

Perhaps a similar post to IHEC Blog about children's television programs and movies will surface in the future (I wanted to do this over a year ago but alas time got away from me).

Photo credit: http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/

Boren Awards - Breaking the Language Barrier

I haven't posted about the focus of my dissertation and won't directly do that until it is finished or close to being finished.  Previous IHEC Blog posts may have alluded to the direction I'm heading with my dissertation.  The following video also provides some insight into my current research interests.





Learn more at http://www.nsep.gov/ and http://www.borenawards.org/.

Those of You Interested in the History of Standards of Good Practice in Education Abroad

Very busy week for me this week with the Fulbright U.S. Student Program 2011-2012 competition in full swing and revision work on my dissertation survey instrument so I thought I would embed this bibliography I compiled and host over on Scribd.  The following bibliography is just over two years old and was compiled for publication in the Standards of Good Practice of The Forum on Education Abroad, 3rd edition (2008) which you can download here.  There are some great resources here and some historical documents for those of you, like me, that enjoy the history of international education.History of Standards of Good Practice in Education Abroad Bibliography by Comp, 2008

Follow the Back Channel Discussion during the 2010 EAIE Conference in Nantes, France

Can't make it to the European Association for International Education (EAIE) 2010 annual conference in Nantes, France?  Are you attending the conference but want to participate in or follow the back channel discussions?  If so, here are some resources that will allow you to follow along:


Those of you on Twitter can follow the conference via #EAIE2010 in Twitter search.  

The International Student Recruiter blog (http://www.theinternationalstudentrecruiter.com/) [@intlrecruiter on Twitter] will have live guest posts from the conference.

Karin Fischer [The Chronicle of Higher Education] will be tweeting/reporting from the conference.  Her Twitter profile is http://twitter.com/karinfischer

You can access the EAIE conference webiste at http://www.eaie.org/nantes/.

Always Stop and Look through a Pile of Free Books as You Never Know What You Will Find

Earlier during my lunch hour today I discovered a table with a bunch of books spread all across the top and a small sign that read "free books" (pictured here).  I always stop and search through a pile of free books...don't you?  This pile of books focused primarily on political science and economics in Russia and Slavic countries and the majority were written in Russian.  While these subjects are of interest they are not books I would pick-up for casual or academic reading.  Today, however, I lucked out and found a great publication to add to my Bury Book International Education Library & Archive.  Under several books I found and took the following:


Victor R. Johnson. (2006).  "Americans Abroad: International Educational Programs and Tort Liability" The Journal of College and University Law, 32 (2), 309-359.


I did a quick internet search and found the article online here (hopefully you can access it as well)


Photo credit:  http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/

Reuniting with an Exchange Student and/or Host Family from your Past

Have you ever reunited with an exchange student you hosted or a family that hosted you while you were an exchange student or studied abroad?  What was that experience like for you?  Please leave a comment with details below!

I have reunited a few times over the years with my host families from Rosenheim, Germany.  I was fortunate enough to be an exchange student twice during high/seconday school for a month during the summers after my sophompre (2nd) and senior (4th) years of high school.  I stayed with two different families during these exchange experiences and on my second exchange I was able to visit my first host family.  During my junior (3rd) year of studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire I studied abroad for a semester in Valladolid, Spain (my wife and I met on this program!) and after my stidies I backpacked Europe and stayed with my second host family again for about 4 or 5 days and visited my first host family again as well.  I have remained very close friends with my second host brother (he was actually an exchange student at my high school the year before my summer stay with him as our high schools have had an exchnage program for the past 20 years and you can read a brief history of this exchange program here).  During the fall of 2008 my good friend Christian came to visit me and my family in Chicago for three weeks and it was so great to reconnect with him in person.  We even made it up to Milwaukee to visit one of our good friends from high school who participated with me on the same two exchanges (see photo above).  The following year, in late summer 2009, Christian returned to visit and stay with us again for three weeks but this time he brought his wife and two sons!  It was great meeitng his family and my two older children frequently refer to their visit and playing with Christian's children.  I look forward to the next time our paths cross in person.  I think my family and I owe him a visit to Rosenheim!

Christian and I have stayed in touch and communicted frequently over the past 23 years via letters and post cards from our various travels and then via e-mail and now via Facebook but it was really great to see him in person again!

Do you have a story to share?

Photo credit:  http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/

"One Size Does Not Fit All: Sustained Global Commitments for the Small-and Medium-Sized Institution" - AIEA Forum on Internationalization - Jan. 28-29, 2011

The following IHEC Blog post is a copy and paste job from various listserv messages that my colleague Bryan McAllister-Grande from Brandeis University has recently sent around. I am reposting with his permission:

The Association of International Education Administrators and Brandeis University are excited to announce this special campus forum to take place in early 2011:

Save the Date - January 28 - 29, 2011

AN AIEA FORUM ON INTERNATIONALIZATION STRATEGY

Hosted by Brandeis University
Waltham, MA (about 30 minutes outside of Boston)

"One Size Does Not Fit All: Sustained Global Commitments for the Small-and Medium-Sized Institution"

Small research universities and liberal arts colleges face special challenges -- as well as unique opportunities -- for comprehensive internationalization and global partnerships. This day-and-a-half Forum, jointly sponsored by the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), will be developed as a focused set of small-group discussions about our "sustained global commitments" -- any kind of coordinated set of overseas-based educational activities, including partnerships, exchanges, study abroad, and internationalization hubs, campuses, programs, or offices.

Full details and Registration will be available in October; this AIEA Forum will be limited to 20-25 participants and geared for institutions serving student populations of 2,000 - 12,000 (undergraduate and graduate). For questions, please contact oga@brandeis.edu or +1 781-736-5642

Host:

The Office of Global Affairs at Brandeis University
Daniel Terris, Vice President for Global Affairs
Bryan McAllister-Grande, Associate Director, Office of Global Affairs

2011 AIEA Forum Planning Committee:

April Burriss
Dean, School of International Education
Endicott College

Joel F. Harrington
Associate Provost for Global Strategy
Vanderbilt University

Rebecca Hovey
Dean for International Study
Smith College

Joseph Tullbane
Associate Dean for International Education and Outreach
St. Norbert's College

Sponsored by the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) (http://www.aieaworld.org/)
*The AIEA Annual Conference is Feb. 20 - 23, 2011. http://aiea-world.org/events/conferences.htm*
Photo credit:  Paul Trafford

CBS News Report on 50 Iraqi University Students that were Invited to the U.S. for a Summer Exchange Program

Nice to see a national news broadcast here in the United States covering international educational exchange.  This CBS News broadcast "Iraq's Next Generation of Leaders" focuses on a group of 50 Iraqi university students visiting Washington, DC on a summer exchange.  Here's the video (Note that video is not embedding correctly due to the code provided by CBS News but you can watch here):

Vote for Your World Next Door in the Pepsi Refresh Project

As I was cleaning out my various inboxes of messages that accumulated during my vacation and other “out of office” time I came across a very interesting post on SECUSS-L (from Sept. 1^st) and I thought I would post to IHEC Blog about it.  My post is a simple copy and paste job of the original SECUSS-L message (with permission):

Do you believe in the power of study abroad? Like the idea of students experiencing study abroad in high school, and then creating a natural pipeline to longer term study abroad experiences at the college level?  Think it’s important that more minority students have access, and the opportunity, to study abroad?  Want more high school students coming in to higher education poised to approach college with a maturity born out of a study abroad experience?  Think students need to learn through experiences, and take command over foreign languages?

Then read on...

A Washington, DC teacher at Paul Public Charter School has created an innovative study abroad prep program for middle school students and is seeking your vote through the Pepsi Refresh Project.  Chris Magnuson started Your World Next Door in 2009 with a grant from the Humanities Council of Washington and a dream to inspire middle school students to set their sights on studying abroad.  He started with a small group of students interested in international travel and conducted five “Saturday Abroad" programs in which students visited local international communities to understand what it would feel like to spend a day in India, Ethiopia, Japan, Brazil or Italy.  Students caught the travel bug and became serious about studying abroad in high school. Through our activities they began to learn the steps necessary to truly be ready for going abroad and how such an adventure could enable them to be better prepared to enter college.  We are poised to follow our current middle school students through the steps to actually study abroad *but we need your help*!

If we win the Pepsi Refresh Project for the month of September, we will expand our program to more schools, offer language and culture classes for specific countries, create an intense cultural immersion summer program and offer financial assistance for students ready to study abroad this year.  *But we can only accomplish all of this with your vote!*

*Here is what we are asking you to do:*
1) *Vote today and everyday for the month of September!*  You can do so in two ways:  Visit http://Pep.si/9fqurK to go directly to our voting page and vote online or you can use your cell phone and text 102524 to Pepsi (73774)!

2) Recruit 5 friends to vote everyday for the month of September.  We need a HUGE group of people willing to commit to voting on a DAILY basis for the month of September.

3) Learn more about our mission, learn more about the programs offered over the  past year, and see videos of our students in action so you can spread the word about what we do.  Visit our website at http://www.yourworldnextdoor.org and check out our facebook page:

If you have any questions, ideas for promoting this project, or comments please feel free to contact Chris Magnuson at cromagnuson@yahoo.com or Beth Mora, Program Assistant, at ywnd.beth@gmail.com.

What Do You Feed Your RSS Reader?

I have found my Google Reader (my preferred RSS feed reader) to be my best friend in learning about the field of international education.  It seems that many international educators find RSS Readers to be a very valuable new media tool used to keep up to date on the field according to a recent IHEC Blog new media poll (view results here).  In addition to posting to IHEC Blog, Twitter and IHEC Blog's Facebook page I frequently share items of interest relating to international education via my Google Reader on this blog.  I actually feed my shared items to IHEC Blog (top right of the page) and my new consulting website/blog http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/ (bottom center of the page).  You can view all of my shared items at http://www.google.com/reader/shared/international.ed.consulting.

Do you use an RSS reader for keeping up to date on the field of international education?  If so, what do you feed to your reader?  Leave a comment or five so others can learn about interesting sites to add to their readers.

Photo credits: dullhunk & Search Engine People Blog

Back in the Game (sort of)

I'm back home in Chicago from a long overdue family vacation up in Wisconsin and ready to get back into the game.  This next week, however, will be crazy busy for me as my job at the University of Chicago is picking up rapidly as the Fulbright U.S. Student Program campus application is rapidly approaching and we are preparing for the arrival of first-year students and the start of a new academic year.  Additionally, my two oldest start kindergarten and third grade this week as does the new soccer season for my kids and I'll be coaching my son's team of six year old boys!  Additionally, and what will affect my ability to post to IHEC Blog and other new media outlets, the next stage of my dissertation is calling and I must focus on that as well.  


All of this is to say that I will try my best to return messages and/or participate in discussions but they will be limited more that usual.


Photo credit:  Photo of sunset over Lake Michigan in Carlsville, Door County, Wisconsin taken by http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/. (2010)