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)