Two Excellent Swine Influenza Resources for International Educators

Swine Influenza A (H1N1) is most certainly on the minds of international educators and higher education officials across the globe and in particular here in the United States. I believe (hope) that most people in the field who are working on the Swine Influenza issue are aware of the following resources but I want to post information and links to IHEC Blog for readers who may be unaware of these valuable online resources.

Safety Abroad First - Educational Travel Information (SAFETI) Clearinghouse
The SAFETI Clearinghouse is, in my opinion, the leader in health and safety for the field of study abroad/international education and is a resource that everyone should consult when planning or assessing current health and safety practices or in a major health event such as the Swine Influenza. The SAFETI Clearinghouse is part of the larger Center for Global Education which was established by Gary Rhodes and is located at Loyola Marymount University. You can access the SAFETI Clearinghouse website here where you can find a link to “Special Topics: Swine Flu”. After the Swine Influenza situation has concluded I encourage you to return to the SAFETI Clearinghouse and access all of the valuable materials created by Gary.

NAFSA website: Swine Influenza: Resources For International Educators
NAFSA: Association of International Educators has established a special page on their website dedicated to the Swine Influenza. You can access NAFSA’s special website on the Swine Influenza here (pay attention to the links on the right side of the page as well).

Inter-association Network on Campus Internationalization (INCI)

Inter-association Network on Campus Internationalization (INCI) is a new network to enter the international education community. This organization is made up of member organizations strictly from the United States and, as you can tell from the name, focuses resources on campus internationalization efforts. Members of the network include:

- American Association of Community Colleges (AACC)
- American Council on Education (ACE)
- Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)
- Association of American Universities (AAU)
- Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA)
- Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)
- Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU)
- Forum on Education Abroad
- Institute of International Education (IIE)
- NAFSA: Association of International Educators (NAFSA)
- National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU)

You can read more about and link to the web portal of resources of INCI for campus internationalization here.

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.

International Supplement now available for “Road Map for Graduate Study: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students”

I’m posting today with an update to a previous IHEC Blog post on the book Road Map for Graduate Study: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students. Donald Martin, books’ author, has written an international supplement for Road Map which is approximately 25 pages long and is available for sale through him at $5.00 per copy. I’ve read the supplement and I think it’s a valuable piece for anyone outside of the United States wanting to come here to study. You can learn more about Road Map and find Donald Martin’s contact information here.

Call for Manuscripts/Proposals for Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad

Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, the only journal specifically devoted to U.S. study abroad, posted a call for manuscripts and proposals for a special volume on “Study Abroad and the City.” Here is a snippet of their call for manuscripts and proposals:

“The majority of today’s education abroad students will either study in a city or visit cities while learning abroad. Study in the city can provide rich learning opportunities for students from a variety of academic disciplines while also generating insights into cultural, artistic, scientific and other intellectual achievements of city dwellers. Further, cities can serve as living laboratories for the experiential and intercultural learning that are a critical part of learning abroad.

Frontiers seeks contributions to a special, thematically focused volume on “Study Abroad and the City.” Manuscript submissions and proposals should analyze, examine and explore how institutions, individual faculty, and study abroad programs use cities to enrich student learning and help participants connect both intellectually and personally with host country environments and people. The volume will also consider how certain cities foster study abroad learning in ways that are unique to those locations.”

You can read the entire call for manuscripts and proposals here.

Study Abroad and International Education in the Twitterverse

In mid-February I decided to start a profile on Twitter. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect as I'm not interested in what anyone ate for breakfast or that they just bought the latest Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD or that they are getting ready for bed so I wasn’t sure what Twitter could do for me. I must say that I’m finding Twitter to be a useful (and amusing) tool.

I’ll first comment on Twitter as a useful tool…

I currently follow 150 people on Twitter and 125 are following me and this number is growing slow and steady. I’m attracted to Twitter posts about international and higher education issues with links to articles, blogs, reports/documents. I find most of the content posted to Twitter by the people I follow to be intellectually engaging and often times information I probably would not have come across on my own.

It’s challenging for me to find time to research, write and post to IHEC Blog on a daily basis as I am a husband and father of three great and active little children, I work full-time in The College at The University of Chicago and I am at the dissertation proposal stage so my blogging and consulting activities take a back seat. I use Twitter as a micro blog or an extension of this blog when I don’t have time to put together a longer blog post but want to push content that I think/hope people will find interesting. If you don’t want to follow anyone you can also search Twitter for specific terms/phrases and you can see all the recent posts related to those search terms.

A handful of examples of useful/interesting Twitter posts follow:

@IDPDRIE: New records have been added to the IDP Database of Research on International Education. See the April link at http://tinyurl.com/bo2l6s

@glancypants: Supporting international education. Visit www.iielatinamerica.org to see what IIE Latin America is up to.

@chronicle: Aided by Exchange Rate, New Zealand Makes Gains in International Education http://tinyurl.com/d2tvsm

@DavidComp: Study Abroad Alumni International is a new study abroad organization that sounds interesting http://www.studyabroadalumniinternational.org/

@Study_Vancouver: Search International Education-Vancouver Community College on Facebook and learn about studying in Vancouver: http://www.facebook.com

@nathanreid: reasons why us Americans fail... a girl asked a Swedish exchange student "so what do you guys do on 4th of July?"

@ anavidtraveler: University of Washington State Relations » Study abroad insurance ... http://tinyurl.com/cmrlhq

@PublicDiplomacy [Today in PD] People-to-People-Based Foreign Policy http://tinyurl.com/cg3tt4

@CitizenDiplomat: Support the Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy! Improve the U.S. image abroad...http://tinyurl.com/cewjoo

@NAFSA: Explore 2009 Annual Conference Poster Topics #nafsa09. More at http://www.nafsa.org/nnews

Now on to Twitter for my amusement…To be honest, it’s really the students who are interested in or who currently are studying abroad that provide me with a chuckle from time to time. A handful of examples of amusing Twitter posts follow:

@ keva_miller: jus got her first assignment for her study abroad program...i almost forgot Europe aint gone be no vacay

@ NealCrosby: I've been accepted to go on the Ireland study abroad trip this summer! YES!!! I can go to the pub in Gallway!

@purple_kangaroo What the fuck do you wear to interview for a study abroad program?

@ayharkey: I wish i had the money to study abroad in Egypt. Or the Philippines or Korea for that matter. ANYONE WANT TO DONATE?

@christinartobia: I don't understand why the study abroad office insists on making my life so much more difficult...

@centuryplant: @fishingwithyou We're eating for free at study abroad orientation!

@DesireeinDR: school is getting in the way of study abroad.

@MBenti: On study abroad and taking the time to travel around Europe: "My GPA will understand."

For those of you on Twitter ~ what are your thoughts?




You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DavidComp.

The Economic Contribution of International Students in Australia

The Australian Council for Private Education and Training has issued a report prepared for them by Access Economics Pty Limited entitled The Australian Education Sector and the Economic Contribution of International Students. From the executive summary of the report:

“Education services ranks as the third largest export category earner for the year 2007-2008, behind coal and iron ore. Education services include expenditure by students in Australia ($13.7 billion) and exports from other education operations ((438 million). Education services ranks ahead of service categories of personal travel and professional services and merchandise trade categories of gold, crude petroleum and aluminum.

Each international student (including their friend and family visitors) contributes an average of $28,921 in value added to the Australian economy and generates 0.29 in full-time equivalent (FTE) workers.”

You can read the full report here.