Meeting & Agendas

Introduction of Sharon Miller, new part-time. Introduction of new committee members, Katherine Judge, Rebecca Francis-Robinson, Dr. Enrique Solis

Voting quorum was not present to vote on the minutes.

The handbooks are still under shared governance review by ACAC. Only one comment in the first reading. Second reading on agenda for first ACAC meeting of 2013 fall semester

A co-chair spot needs to be filled by a representative of the Faculty Senate. Given that new IPAC members have not been selected, nomination should be pushed to next meeting. Action: Motion to push nomination to next IPAC meeting.

Barbados: Sustainable Tourism and Recreational Services proposal has been submitted and approved by the department chair and by Charles Quinn. • Faculty leaders are Karen Duncan and Michelle Castanzo, chair of travel and tourism and hospitality management. • Barbados is a hub of tourism in the Caribbean, with large cruise ship industry. • Working with University of West Indies, which represents 17 Caribbean commonwealth nations, and Barbados Community College, which have a joint degree program in Travel and Tourism and Hospitality Management. Working with their faculty to create a focused program where we can draw from their expertise. BCC operates their own resort hotel run entirely by their degree seeking students. IPAC proposal evaluation form has been shared electronically. Request to have evaluation forms completed and submitted to the IP Office as soon as possible. Sandra Hamilton asked about the need for and compensation of two ACC faculty and two Barbados faculty? WH answered that this program will have 2 ACC faculty leaders, and would use guest lecturers from UWI & BCC. Sandra Hamilton asked if the study abroad programs break even? WH answered that all of our study abroad programs are break even programs. IP is trying to provide an affordable study abroad opportunity. Program fee covers the student and faculty leaders cost, except for faculty salaries. (Airfare, transportation, accommodation, per diem etc.). Program fee is based on a per person cost, based on 15 participants. No programs from 2012 were in the red. Designed so no operational funds from the IP Office are used to support the programs. Action: Follow up with IPAC members electronically regarding the Sustainable Tourism and Recreation Services in Barbados Proposal.

Semester started off well, with 20 advising appointments in first three weeks and two applications submitted. Application period started August 27, 2012, and are accepted and processed on a rolling basis until March 1, 2013, which will make it easier to process applications compared to the 2012 application cycle where we had one week to process all the applications. This will also make it easier for faculty leaders who have to conduct student interviews. In addition, this gives students a longer time to plan and prepare financially. Karen Bell asked if students are balking at the high program cost. WH - No, not at this point. For some of the more expensive programs, such as Spanish IV in Spain or Art in Italy, the program fee is offset by reduced student out of pocket expenses. For instance, in Spanish IV, the students will be staying with host families which will provide two to three meals per day. So, the expense of having to pay for meals is worked into the program cost. For each program we are looking for ways to control costs and reduce student out of pocket expenses. Karen Bell asked if there are still scholarships available. WH – Yes, we have $50,000 to award 50 $1,000 scholarships. Roberta Weston asked if the time in country has been increased for some of the programs. WH – Many of our programs have been redesigned to increase time in country. Spanish IV has the most time in country, approximately 5 weeks in Spain. Language programs are the best opportunity of maximizing time in country, especially if we can place students with host families. Ireland has increased from 2 ½ weeks to almost 4 ½, World Literature and Religion in Spain from 2 weeks to 3 ½ weeks. The two Italy programs have almost 5 weeks in Italy. Those are the main programs where we were able to incorporate changes in the itinerary to increase time abroad while maintaining the affordability of the program. Judy Nwachie asked about the program in China. WH – Currently we do not have a program in China, but a proposal is being developed for engineering physics in China and possibly a business program in China. Other program proposals: • Arabic II – 9 week summer session. 2 ½ weeks in Austin focusing on developing an understanding of the alphabet/ Arabic script. Six weeks of intensive language immersion in Amman, Jordan. Partnering with the Jordan Language Academy. • Working with Joseph Liro to develop a Russian language program, planned for summer 2014. • Great to bring in critical needs language like Arabic and Russian. Already have interest from LBJ School of student affairs for students who cannot get into these language classes there. Dr. Solis asked what do you have in Latin America? WH - we have Spanish III in Costa Rica, Anthropology in Peru, Spanish II in Argentina, and the new Sustainable Tourism & Recreational Services in Barbados. Charles Quinn commented that travel and tourism has been trying to do something for years and this is the first program that they’ve pulled together that looks like it is really substantial. Sandra Hamilton commented that the textbook looks like a generic tourism textbook and wonders why we don’t have a textbook that is more about sustainability. WH – I cannot answer that. This is the beauty of study abroad programs; they give the faculty the opportunity to move outside the boundaries that are imposed on courses that are taught here on campus. Judy Nwachie commented that students need to think and operate in a global community. General 2013 Summer Study Abroad Programs Update: *Anthropology completed and returned their evaluation forms. *Change of faculty for Italy Drawing—Sydney Yeager will be lead faculty, Janet Brooks will be back-up. *Finalizing contracts and agreements. Working with a number of different providers. *Three programs run in house - Costa Rica - Spanish III - Belize – Anthropology - England – Intro to Theater and Acting I * Remainder of programs will be partnering with third party providers. CISabroad: • Peru – Anthropology • Spain - Speech Communication • Germany – Film History • Ireland - Creative Writing and Religion SOL Education Abroad • Argentina – Spanish II • Spain – Spanish IV. • Will be staying with host families in Buenos Aires and in Spain. Academic Programs International • Spain – World Lit and Religion • Staying in residencias where they will get three meals a day and the student will also have a dormitory-type experience because there will be other international/study abroad students in residence. There was a minimum of three providers submitting proposals for each program. Three of which are located in Austin: *International Studies Abroad (ISA) *Academic Programs International (API) *SOL Education Abroad - focus on Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina and Spain. Art History and Drawing in Italy programs work with Palazzi: Florence Association of International Education, which has supported our Italy programs in the past. Palazzi is an International Education organization with 9 different colleges, with a large international student body. The Barbados program, if incorporated into the study abroad roster, will be an in-house managed program. Most of the providers are easy to work with in terms of their service agreements. CISabroad has been very responsive to our feedback from programs that ran this past summer. ISA, on the other hand, has this idea that they are running the program. That is why we may be falling back with a different provider because WH doesn’t want to spend a lot of time focusing on this on the front end, wondering what sort of issues he will have to wrangle with on the back end. RW commented that in the past there have been problems with leaders getting to see the budgets. Will that change so the faculty leaders will have a chance to see the itemized budgets? WH – I have been working on preparing these budgets but there are limits to what programs providers will give us in terms of line item budgets. They do lump things together. They may have a proprietary process so they don’t actually have a legal obligation to divulge all of it to us. We don’t have the gross, and their price and their margin on top of that. But these businesses are a volume operation, and their margins are not substantial, which is why they rely upon supporting or running multiple programs.

For the first time, this academic year we will be hosting a visiting scholar through Institute of International Education\'s Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF). SRF was started 10 years ago, with funds from a wide array of organizations, and has provided safe haven to over 500 scholars from countries in which they are subject to persecution, in which their academic freedom has been infringed in one way or another by being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, expelled from their university position, harassed, assaulted, detained, etc. ACC will host this particular scholar specifically during the 2013 spring semester. He’ll be working closely with the Peace Studies Program initiative led by faculty member Shirin Khosropour. We are planning a variety of activities including co-teaching with faculty, a two-day peace studies conference, public lectures, brown bag conversation, working with the students. ACC is partnering with the UT LBJ School of Public Affairs to co-host and to partner on events and public outreach. The SRF visiting scholar will be able to make a substantial contribution to the Peace Studies program, including curriculum development and the course design. He will bring a real world relevance to a whole range of issues that span multiple disciplines. From the philosophical aspects of peace and conflict, to the sociological impact of conflict, and how conflict is managed and resolved. It will be very interesting to engage in his understanding of the Horn of Africa. There will be an office at NRG for the spring semester generously offered by the government department. Sandra Hamilton commented that she would like to see the Peace and Conflict Studies program work with the Early Childhood Development Program.