Live Stream of the White House Travel Bloggers Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship, December 9, 2014 #WHTravelBloggers

This morning I learned via Twitter that the White House in collaboration with Hostelling International USA is hosting the first White House Travel Bloggers Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship today.  You can learn more about the Summit via the HI-USA News webpage at http://bit.ly/1w9mQ9x and this blog post by HI-USA CEO Russ Hedge at http://bit.ly/1s92a1S.  As the title of the Summit suggests, invited participants are the top 100 travel bloggers and digital influencers.

Based on my limited available time to fully research this event it seems that the National Security Council may have played a significant role in planning the event.  The Summit will stream live via the White House Live Events page at http://1.usa.gov/1w9sOHo at 2:15pm EST.

Speakers include:

Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Commerce, Department of Commerce

Denis McDonough, Chief of Staff, The White House

Benjamin Rhodes, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, National Security Council

Evan Ryan, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), Department of State

Carrie Hessler-Radelet, Director, Peace Corps

Daniela Kaisth, Vice President, External Affairs and IIE Initiatives, Institute of International Education

Alex Montoya, Alumnus, Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship Program

Angel Cabrera, President, George Mason University

Samantha Brown, Host, Travel Channel

Don Wildman, Host, Travel Channel

Robert Reid, Digital Nomad, National Geographic

Robin Goldberg, Chief Experience Officer, Minerva Project

James Howard, National iHeartRadio Brand Coordinator, iHeartMedia

If you wish to follow along via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook you can do so via #WHTravelBloggers.

#WHtravelbloggers Tweets

I'll be posting this in a few moments over on SECUSS-L for two reasons:  

First - to inform everyone about this event as it seems to have not have made it to the larger study abroad community.  Kudos to @CIEEstudyabroad for engaging via Twitter to see if any of their alumni, and possible travel bloggers, are attending the Summit!

Second - to possibly generate some discussion within the SECUSS-L community about the Summit.

While I haven't come across the complete list of 100 travel bloggers attending the Summit I posit that very few (if any) are Study Abroad professionals and aside from Evan Ryan of ECA and Daniela Kaisth of IIE it appears that the international educator voice is missing from such an important Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship hosted by the White House!  Perhaps that is a good thing?  Your thoughts?

First Student Travel Trends Symposium – Turning Research into Practice

The Student and Youth Travel Research Institute (SYTRI) at Michigan State University is pleased to announce the first Student Travel Trends Symposium, to be held July 12-14, 2009, at the Hilton Northbrook in Northbrook Chicago. With the symposium theme of Turning Research into Practice, we invite submissions from all applied researchers interested in the broad topic of student and youth travel. Presentation topics might include:

• Emerging trends in the student/youth travel sector
• Characteristics and impacts of school-age group travel
• Role of travel in the K-12 curriculum
• Characteristics and impacts of independently- organized student/youth travel
• Organization and impacts of college-level Study Abroad
• Challenges facing the student/youth travel sector

Invited speakers include Suzanne Cook, VP of Research, US Travel Association (formerly TIA); Ruth Nader, VP of Research, Destination Management Association International; Greg Richards, Principal Researcher, World Student, Youth & Educational Travel Confederation; and, Michael Palmer, COO, Travel and Tourism Research Association.

Submission of Abstracts We invite submissions for both oral and poster presentations, and welcome the presentation of works in progress in addition to completed studies. Please include the following information in your abstract submission:
• Study title;
• Author(s) names and affiliations;
• Preferred format: poster or presentation;
• Three-five keywords;
• The body of the abstract itself, to include a statement of purpose, description of methods, and presentation and discussion of (preliminary) results. Given the nature of the audience, please be sure to emphasize the industry implications of your findings;
• References (APA style).

Abstracts should not exceed two single-spaced pages, Times New Roman 12-point font, one inch margins on all four sides. Please submit your abstract as a Word or PDF document to Dr. Sarah Nicholls (nicho210@msu.edu) by Friday May 1.

Graduate Student Competition An award of $500 will be given to the best student presentation. If you are a graduate student and wish to be considered for this award, please indicate your student status under affiliation.

The first Student Travel Trends Symposium is being held in conjunction with the Student and Youth Travel Association (SYTA) and Treeline Associates, and has been endorsed by the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA). Sarah Nicholls, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Depts of Community, Agriculture, Recreation & Resource Studies (CARRS) and Geography 131 Natural Resources Bldg Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1222 Phone: (517) 432 0319 Fax: (517) 432 3597

You can learn more about the Student Travel Trends Symposium here.