Meeting & Agendas

Discussion: Five programs take place so far this summer Barbados - Sustainable Tourism, our sixth and final program launching on July 27th. • In Barbados during their primary national cultural festival called Cropover, which generates over 80 million dollars in tourism revenue. • Meeting with the government tourism authority • Touring the port and cruise terminal facilities • Meeting non-profit associations that work with tourism and hospitality management • Visiting a range of very specific tourism and hospitality vendors who are exemplars in their field Italy – Culinary Arts • Learned that sometimes the partners that we work with do not represent their resources and support truly. • Good learning experience for us in terms of some of the technical issues that we will have to look at more closely We had a little over 60 students participate and so I am looking forward to an even larger number of programs taking place next year. And I hope that the variety of things that we are planning to do to promote the programs will result in more student awareness, more applications and actually real live participants when these programs take place. We\'ve taken a couple of programs off the roster, which have struggled to get even a single application. New Programs that are being added to the roster for summer 2014 • Japanese II – Japanese • United Kingdom - British Literature, • Jordan - Arabic II Some of our new programs that we have launched this year: International Visiting Scholar  Alex helped launch a first time colloquium on social thought  Alex has an appointment as a visiting professor with the department of government at Suffolk University  Incoming visiting scholar, named Merange Nonferte Musari, is in the process of obtaining her J-1 visa at the US consulate in Dubai. • PHD in Human Resources Management from the University of Pune in India • Working with Social & Behavioral Sciences and Business Studies • Dr. Musari will teach a class on human resources management in the Spring • She will also be affiliated with the UT Austin Center for Women’s and Genders Study. • She will arrive the first week of September Internationalizing Curriculum, Courses, and Instructions Grant We were able to give two awards for this pilot grant. • One of them was given to Rennison Lalgee, and his awarded project was to develop social problems in India course, with an associated study abroad program that would be focusing on sociological field work and service learning Working on creating blog for study abroad programs and faculty doing international work.

Discussion: ACC has an official policy about alcohol, and we use that policy in study abroad, and communicate that to students through advising appointments and pre-departure sessions. We did have an unfortunate incident occur during the Italy-Art History program, which involved some students, involved alcohol, and which resulted in a student being expelled from the program and returned home immediately from Italy, only two weeks into the program and then this student had to go through the ACC disciplinary process. So, this raised some questions that are important for us to address before we get too far down the road for summer 2014 on the question of student conduct and alcohol and what we can do to address this. I have been talking with faulty who have returned this summer, and I think the reports are consistent, that regardless of how we communicate to students regarding alcohol, they ignore what we say and they always will. 1. We are dealing with adults (age range from 18 to mid-sixties—making average age late twenties). 2. Extreme end of zero alcohol will not work 3. Two mechanisms that we could incorporate into our policies without much trouble. a. A rule of no alcohol in your accommodations. b. A rule that if you are not of the legal drinking age in the state of Texas, then you cannot drink while on a study abroad program while you are in a country that you may be of legal age. I know this is going to be challenging to enforce, because our faculty leaders are not trolling the bars at three a.m. In terms of being able to tighten up the rules, or add to the rules and create additional obstacles, as well as, rigorous enforcement of it, when they get themselves into trouble, or when they are found, for instance, with alcohol in their hotel room, or they come in stumbling drunk into class the next morning, that is it, zero tolerance, you are going to be expelled, we are going to send you home and you will have to go through the due process here, the institutional process. When I do pre-departure sessions, to be more stern about alcohol, and then use our latest cautionary tale, along with immediate expulsion and return home and no refund of program fees, so the kid is out several thousand dollars and as well as having to make arrangements to complete his coursework and whatever else are the end results of the disciplinary process. Roberta Weston commented that as difficult as this situation was, I think that the policy that we have in place really helped us expedite this process and helped us get him home. I do like the idea of the additional rules that would be applied, I am concerned about enforcing those, and I wonder what happens to my responsibility if I do happen to see a student violating these policies and if there is zero tolerance. I am concerned that I will start with 17 students next year and then have to expel half of them. Also, what am I to do if I should go over to a student’s apartment and I see a bottle of wine on the counter and the student is 62 years old. Charles Quinn commented I think as far as prohibiting students that are under 21 from drinking, that sounds good on the surface, but I don’t know if you can have two sets of rules for the students that are on a study abroad trip. To have half of the students who can drink in some context and the other half can’t. I don’t know how enforceable that is going to be. Having two sets of rules for anything is usually not very effective. Prohibiting alcohol is hotel rooms or dorm rooms might be something to consider, but that is not preventing people from drinking and potentially getting in trouble. William Hayden responded that is right and we create a mechanism that would drive them farther out into the streets. Charles Quinn said it sounds like our policy worked this time. It is unfortunate, that it got to a point where this student got into enough trouble or caused enough mayhem that he had to be sent home, but that kind of stuff can even happen without alcohol. Although, it is more likely to happen with alcohol as part of the equation. William Hayden responded it is a frequent occurrence across study abroad in the United States. Alcohol is probably the number one conduct issue that colleges and universities face with study abroad programs and their students. Every one of them encounters this issue, so, how best do we proceed? Jan Emberson commented I don’t think we can eliminate it, it is part of the process. Todd Phillips commented nothing we can do will stop them from drinking. So personally, I would rather not have to deal the age issue at all. Sydney Yeager commented that a good deterrent would be to emphasize that if they are expelled from the program that you pay your own way home, so it is a huge financial deterrent, to them if they realize that is what is going to happen if they are caught in a bad situation, that they are responsible for their own way home. Charles Quinn said I think we need to have a little perspective on this; out of all the study abroad programs is this the only one that has involved a student being sent home because of drinking? William Hayden responded this is the first one since I have been here, and I haven’t heard any horror stories about things that have happened in the past. That is another issue, are we worrying this too much? Should we just recognize that is going to take place to matter what sort of rules we put into place. I mean it does place a big burden on the faculty leaders. Catherine Angell asked do the forms that the students sign cover any liability. If there was a tragic accident, would the professor or the school be liable? William Hayden responded we do have a State of Texas Release of Liability form that they sign and because we are a public higher education instruction the Texas Sovereign Immunity Law applies, and there has to be a specific set of circumstances that have to be reached before that immunity can be withdrawn. There has to be gross negligence, which is why we do not want faculty leaders driving vans of students. Action: Continue applying the rules and policies that we have and think about this further, and see what we can possibly to do to just enhance and get the student to understand the risks involved, and limit the prospect of the leaders having to address these issues, because it becomes a big burden on their part.

Discussion: Service learning it is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities. I italicized reflection because that is an integral part of service learning where students have the opportunity to either journal or present or do some type of thing to let you know that they learned. That they learned something from the service that they did, that they accomplished their learning objectives. Most people think it is volunteerism, which it is to some extent, but with volunteerism you may or may not reflect on your experience. You may not tie it into your learning objectives, service learning does that. It also teaches civic responsibility and strengthens community, because we have students who go out with their skills and they make a difference in their community. The benefits of service learning: 1. It offers authentic learning, what they learn in a classroom comes to life to them. 2. It is an opportunity to view the world through a community based lens, in your case it would be looking at the community from a global perspective. 3. It is something they can write on their resumes, it can help them make job connections. 4. It allows the faculty members to build a bond between you and your students. 5. It allows you to connect with the community and also an opportunity to explore research ideas. Service learning at ACC: 1. Office opened in June of 2011. 2. Service learning activities that we are doing a. Faculty from developmental reading and her students go out and mentor elementary students. b. We have some folks from psychology, government, mainly the social sciences, but it is not limited to that, service learning can be applied to any field. William Hayden mentioned that there are a couple of programs where we have integrated that in, but we just haven’t had the chance to launch those programs to test that. Jan Emberson, Argentina Spanish II for this summer had a service learning component working with a non-profit in Buenos Aires and had those components that you listed in the first slide that are necessary to it, reflection. Charlotte Guillick added we were trying to set something up for Ireland too in a Buddhist center which had a hospice there. Lillian Huerta responded that she would be willing to help you integrate service learning into your curriculum.

Discussion: William Hayden said we have a new international partnership with Aarhus Business College and we are in the process of developing one with their sister institution Business Academy Aarhus. Jill has already been working with faculty in Demark through her social media communication course and doing some very novel and interesting things which can serve as a model for how we conduct international partnerships with peer type institutions. We are looking forward to hosting this November up to 20 students in AABC office administration apprenticeship program. We are planning for them to come here for two weeks for intensive business English as well as professional communication which will include social media communication which is an integral part of how businesses engage the community and their clients and disseminate information on markets and products. So I asked Jill if she could give us information on what she has been doing with our Danish colleagues. Jill Brockman: Aarhus is the second largest city in the nation. A little tiny town called Odense right here. The city of Austin and the city of Aarhus have formed a partnership where they are sister cities, Aarhus and Odense have a ton of music schools, Aarhus has two big music conservatories and the city of Austin has invited Demark musicians to come to Austin to do collaborations and vice versa, so Austin students are actually going to Denmark to learn about their music and history. UT-Austin and Aarhus University just did a collaborative media and journalism course that is taught in Demark and in Austin, this summer, and both professors get together online and they hammer out the curriculum for the course and they both teach the course. These types of collaborations are really becoming mainstream. I am one of the co-creators of the Social Media Communications degree plan, we have been teaching it for a year, but students can actually declare their major in Social Media Communication in the fall. I had a virtual lecture with about 80 students in Aarhus that lasted about 3 hours because there were so many questions and ideas thrown around. Some my students came to my house that day, so they could be involved. Goals of collaboration between Business Academy Aarhus and Austin Community College 1. Application of social media in courses 2. Web-lectures 3. Webinars 4. Virtual classrooms and team work 5. Knowledge sharing through teacher exchange Purpose of collaboration: We wanted to give students the chance to integrate several areas of study into one major project. For years Aarhus has been doing this with Holland and Lyon, France, and they create pretend companies, and they go through the pretend process of importing or exporting goods, designing the label, designing the box packaging and they have web design and graphic design students. Programs from Aarhus: 1. Advertising 2. Graphic Design 3. Website Construction 4. PHP Coding Programs from Austin: 1. Social Media Communication 2. Culinary Arts (?) 3. Austin Organization 4. Export/Import Product (export product from Austin and import it into Denmark) Description of Project 1 Aarhus wants to work with an Austin company that produces a product and the company must be: 1. Environmentally-sustainable production 2. Low pollution as a result of manufacturing (zero CO2) 3. Pays a living wage to employees 4. Socially responsible business practices (donating to charity, donating to ACC for scholarships funds etc.) 5. Open to timely collaborative communication online The Aarhus student’s will gain knowledge and skills in: 1. Multi-media Campaign execution 2. Selection of channels (online, print, video) 3. Integration of campaign site and relevant social media platforms My Social Media advanced students will be creating a website for interaction between the two classes and they will be tracking views, create Facebook pages and twitter accounts and Pinterest. Cross cultural localization – our social media and their multimedia students are going to be learning how to integrate social media and how it is different in Denmark. We are also going to be involved in virtual team work, we are going to have interactivity, once a week for the faculty, and once a week with the teams of students. The owner of the business will get presentations from these groups and then the owner of the business will choose the winning team. We will learn to integrate social media and tracking and analytics of social media. The website we have created is called the Cross-Cultural Cloud. Three schools involved right now: 1. Business Academy Aarhus 2. Hogeschool van Amsterdam 3. Universite Lumiere Lyon 2 Austin Community College will be up here. There are a lot of other departments that could develop collaborations with other countries. There is an enormous potential for collaborating with six or seven departments at ACC. When those products sell overseas, a percentage of sales will go to scholarships for the students and faculty to travel. Social Media course here in Austin will be a co-mingled course with a class in Aarhus Demark, we will meet online virtually every week. We will: 1. Create a Wordpress CMS website 2. Facebook business page creation 3. Twitter for business 4. Importance of blogging 5. Pinterest 6. Field trips to Austin Company In November, when Aarhus Business College comes, they will get to visit Company X. • ACC and Aarhus students will be eligible to apply for the travel scholarships to visit another country • We will only work with Austin Company X if they agree to contribute portion of European profits to scholarship fund • One or two faculty will accompany students to each country • First faculty/student travel will occur in 2014 They do not use Facebook for business at all in Denmark, they wanted to make sure that when their students graduate from school that they have some real world experience. We are going to teach them how to do a visual resume. Project #2  Aarhus Business College students will  Visit Austin from Aarhus, Denmark Fall 2013  Attend customized two week education program  Learn business writing and correspondence skills  Learn real-world uses of social media for business  Visit Austin Company X for tour of facilities  Attend live, virtual classroom lectures  Learn digital techniques and technologies  General Professional communication skills  Plan to show them some cultural aspects of Texas This is an excellent way for both Aarhus and Austin to have cross-cultural integration of ideas and will help students think outside of the box and realize that people in different countries look at things differently. Super exciting prospect and if you know of any other faculty that have some sort of coursework that could easily be collaborated with the people in Denmark, I do not see why we couldn\'t work towards that.