Meeting & Agendas

Discussion: Voting Quorum not present. One of the more important items on the agenda, item #3 – the selection of a co-chair from the faculty senate representatives. Three faculty senate representatives in attendance, Jan Emberson, Roberta Weston and Linda Tobin. Actions: We will hold off on these voting items until later—to see if we get a voting quorum to show up.

Discussion: After a very long process of redesigning, rewriting, redeveloping the three handbooks, which lay out the policy and procedures, the Academic and Campus Affairs Council (ACAC) approved all three handbooks with no changes. They lay out what everyone considered to be an excellent foundation for policy and procedures for study abroad programs at ACC. ACAC approved all three handbooks without any changes. They have been forwarded to Dr. Rhodes for his signature. We can now operate with the handbooks official policy and procedures. This gives us a lot to work with as we move forward in a variety of ways—including 2 key areas of concern, regarding air transportation options for programs and also accompanying persons. 1. Accompanying persons a. You can have someone who is not ACC faculty or staff, a spouse or significant other—they must pay their own way, sign a release. b. Children under 18 can also come—but if you have more than one child, another adult must come with you. c. Helpful for faculty leaders to plan vacations or professional development. It gives the option for faculty leaders to plan that and not have to come back to Austin then depart again. 2. Flight options a. Individual Flight b. Designated Individual Flights c. Designated Group Flight d. Mandatory Group Flight Comments: • Gives greater flexibility depending on the program country risk assessment and mitigation issues, the confidence for the faculty leader of the program and whether or not the faculty has led a program abroad before. • For new programs it is strongly recommended that the mandatory group flight be used. • For experienced leaders there might be greater flexibility to have student purchase his or her own tickets and be responsible for arriving at appropriate time. Raises a different set of issues: o Risk and liability issues o Logistics issues – delayed flights, missed flights, missing students, coordinating communications, potential delay in execution of program. • Roberta Weston commented that, theoretically, with a designated group flight the faculty leader could accompany the group to the airport but not actually have to fly back with them. • Juan Molina commented that due to problems that the President and VP saw in the past, International Programs has to rebuild trust and as we do that things will continue to become more flexible. • William Hayden commented that the handbooks help us clarify this, so we can manage risk much more effectively, all the way from the beginning starting off with the designing process, to the development, and the execution. This will enhance the student experience which is our primary purpose. • The handbooks are now available in PDF format on the website. o If you go to the International Programs website, on the left hand menu, you will see “For Faculty”, o Click on that there will be a drop down menu that will have the faculty leaders handbook and the emergency response handbook. o And for Faculty who might be interested in what study abroad is about and what is involved in developing a study abroad program. • Juan Molina commented that it would be beneficial to develop a mentoring program as part of faculty development. If an instructor wants to run a program like this, we would have a goop or subgroup that would mentor this instructor throughout the process. A good strong mentoring program, I think we would have more faculty involvement. It will have to be part of faculty development. • William Hayden explained that we have not had a formal process, but informally we have put new faculty leaders in contact with current faculty leaders, so the connection is there and they know. Given everyone schedules, a mentoring program could be complimented by that as a first step and then it would be incumbent upon the new faculty leaders to communicate with the experienced faculty leaders to get up to speed on how to manage their programs • Tracey Cone-Muccini asked about incorporating a cultural component. • William Hayden answered that we try to introduce that in the pre-departure programs. It could be something to consider as an element in the faculty pre-departure sessions.

Discussion: We do not have a quorum yet, to deal with some of our voting issues, we can return to this electronically, selecting a co-chair from the faculty senate representatives. This is our last meeting for the semester, I would like to have this done whether it is in this room or by electronic vote through email, so we can have that colleague identified and selected so by next Spring we have a dedicated faculty liaison representative as a co-chair. Actions: Complete selection of co-chair via electronic vote before the end of the semester.

Discussion: 1. Two new workforce education programs: a. Sustainable Tourism and Recreational Services in Barbados b. Pastry Arts in Italy. 2. Advising Appointments and Submitted Applications Number of Applications received as of 11/09/12 Italy – Pastry Arts 4 Spain – Spanish IV 4 Ireland – Creative Writing 3 Costa Rica – Spanish III 1 England – Acting 1 Total 13 Number of Advising Sessions completed as of 11/09/12 Argentina – Spanish II 4 Barbados – Tourism 2 Costa Rica – Spanish III 4 England – Acting 2 Germany - Film 1 Italy – Art History 3 Italy – Drawing 3 Italy – Pastry Arts 7 Ireland – Creative Writing 9 Peru – Anthropology 4 Spain – Spanish IV 10 Spain – Speech 2 Spain – World Lit 2 Total 53 3. Monthly Payment Option a. International Programs has now formally adopted a monthly payment option as an alternative to the 30 and 60 day lump sum payments. b. This option has been marketed through email and on the website. c. About one-half of all applicants have opted for this option so far. Comments: • Tracy Cone-Muccini asked if International Programs has worked with academic advisors to get them excited to promote the programs. • William Hayden replied that we have sent them the materials but it would be beneficial to work with them through professional development. • Charlotte Gullick commented about capturing student. • William Hayden answered May Patterson, she is our student outreach specialist, she participated in the Argentina Spanish II program, and she conducts a large majority of our class visits, and she speaks to the students about the study abroad experience, and that has been invaluable in sharing what this is about. • William Hayden explained that we are trying to do as much as we can with our limited resources that we have at the office. We have two full time staff and two hourly. Given the current circumstances, it is an impediment to being everywhere at once. But these are certainly things that could be done easily and would really be a value added, and I appreciate your suggestions. • Wiliam Hayden mentioned we are doing info sessions and info tables and the info tables are generally located near the student lounge area so we get that student foot traffic. We are finding that the info sessions are not really well attended, but the info tables near the lounges get a lot of foot traffic. So we may end up moving toward forgetting info sessions where we have a room somewhere—there is plenty of information available about schedule of the info sessions both online and on campuses, we get that out to campus managers and things like that, but still attendance is limited. Besides from class visits, that has become a tool that is more effective. • Charlotte Gullick asked do we have data on which campuses have the most interest or which majors. • William Hayden replied we do ask for that data at least in terms of majors. In terms of campuses, we could look at that through data cell once we have our final application lists. We are always looking at fining and retooling class visits lists, for instance, we know that some campuses have greater interest, there is more foot traffic, we have more contact with the office. So we have a tendency to visit those campuses more frequently. We do track declared majors so we can understand what academic areas the student participants are pursuing. • Linda Tobin commented that one of the things that I have done informally in my classroom for the last five semesters is a general survey asking about their knowledge of study abroad programs. I have five questions that I ask. One of the questions I ask is what would prevent you from participating in study abroad. And I always want to try to gage their knowledge, what do they know, do they know anyone whose done it, what would they be interested in. Though I haven’t actually analyzed the data, this about five semesters now. Money is the big issue! • William Hayden replied we would enjoy seeing your data on this. We started with the three programs we had run last summer; we had all the participants fill out a post program survey using survey monkey. We explored a variety of issues, including what were the challenges they experienced in deciding to apply for a program, in paying for a program, and we have tried to use that information to help us in the application process or the payment process and developing a program fee. • Charlotte Cullick asked if we have a Facebook page. • William Hayden explained we do use ACC social media on a regular basis. Which includes Facebook, Google +, Twitter and so information about programs, information updates, schedules of sessions of tables, we send it to the college marketing and public information and the person who manages ACC social media generates that. I would be hesitant on embarking on an International Programs Facebook page, because we would have to moderate that and we don’t have the resources to do that. There is ACC social media policy, so we would have to apply that to the Facebook page, as well as developing specific policies for International Programs that would have to deal with a variety of issues, and if we are not monitoring this 24/7, we could go through a whole weekend with something posted on the Facebook page that could be problematic for the college or for the individual student, and so I am not prepared to expose International Programs or the college to the risk that would come from that right now, just for the utility of reaching out to students via Facebook. That is why we can use ACC social media, because they have the policies and procedures in place. • Juan Molina asked if International Programs advisees the students to contact the faculty leaders. • William Hayden answered that the materials we have about the programs list the faculty leaders, so students looking at a brochure, not only do we have the information about contacting the International Programs, about the application process, the program fees, what’s involved in participating in study abroad, they can be directed to the faculty leaders to ask questions about the academics. • Juan Molina asked if we are doing class visits, because that is the best kind of advertising, to go directly to the classes. • William Hayden replied that by the end of this week we will have done over 100 class visits, which is more than were done last year. • Juan Molina asked if we do any radio or television advertising. • William Hayden replied we just did a Spanish language piece on Despeirta Austin , which is a little local morning show and they came to our office and interviewed Maite. We wanted to reach out to the Spanish students obviously, but first and foremost to their parents, because there are cultural obstacles to certain demographic groups participating in study abroad. And we know this, for instance the Institute for International Education, does their Open Doors review on an annual basis on anything to do with International Education and some of the information they do collect looks at these different demographics and how they may or may not participate and the obstacles that may prevent their participation. We have even had conversations with John Jacobs of Student Life talking about student participation. And he was pretty open in discussing how he knows in the African-American community there is a discouragement to participating in international education amongst African-American communities on the part of their parents or family members. So how we address that is an interesting question. The idea of traveling abroad and going to a different country just seems to be so unusual and scary and the idea of why you would want to leave your family over the summer. John Jacobs with Student Life they tried with their Unity Jam events this semester have tried to support and encourage the understanding that study abroad and international education is not something that should be viewed as a threat, but could actually be a great enhancement to their educational experience.

Discussion: We have the Academic Master Plan process that has been launched. Unit Leaders have a December 15th deadline to input their contributions to the Academic Master plan. Is this going to be a departure in the methodology and process than in the past? Comments: Juan Molina explains that this is supposed to be different then past years. 1. Grassroots movement from the faculty (bottom) to the top. 2. The Academic Master Plan is a philosophy. 3. It should be a visionary statement. 4. From the budget prospective, the college is waiting for the faculty to bring their proposals and if they fit in with the Student Success Initiative goals and the presidential priorities, then they will attempt to find the money to implement the proposal. Discussion Paper: • Juan Molina comments that the vision statement is a great statement you have here, but it talks only about the experience of the student. And the internationalization and globalization portion of it. What about the faculty? When I think about International Programs I think of faculty exchange programs. The vision should be something what do we want to be in the future. So, you all need to sit down as a group and decide, is this what we want, is this a good thing? • Charlotte Gullick commented I think the professional development for the faculty is a great point. Another thing is we are essentially building learning communities. Because faculty are aligning curriculum and that is one of the presidential priorities. • William Hayden explained the purpose of this paper is a discussion paper. Partly, I am sketching the lay of the landscape right now, and I am also being realistic. We have substantial limitations and at least from my perspective, I think that our objectives should be deliverable and sustainable and that incrementally build and allow us to build on each successive year. And these are ideas, and whether International Programs goes in that direction, I don’t know yet. And this is certainly a part that IPAC members can play and faculty leaders can play and anyone can play actually in helping us understand what might be or not be. • Juan Molina commented the idea behind this document is that you want to think futuristic and visionary and then you set your goals. When you set your goals, you say that something can happen in this time frame, but eventually you want to go to those goals. It’s called pushing the envelope to see if you can get more. • Carol Duss asked what is the definition of International Programs. We are creating all of these different silos all over the place, and it should be centered on International Programs, if we all buy into that. Is that just study abroad, is it creating exchange programs? • Juan Molina commented part of the problem with ACC is that we’ve been doing this for 30 years and everyone is doing their own thing. Part of William’s job is going to be looking at some of these things, the communication and presentation, how to communicate to all of these units to create a more cohesive program. • Carol Duss asked what do we want for International Programs? Do we want our offices to work together? Would we be looking down the line at a multi-cultural institute, which would have International Programs and International Admissions, because we all really do work well together? So the question, where do we want to take International Programs? • William Hayden replied that is a very important question going forward, because the continued existence of International Programs really hinges on its purpose and relevance. It was on the table in earlier discussions, do we keep it or do we close the doors? What do we do with it? There has really been no leadership in terms giving International Programs that specific purpose and function. • Juan Molina commented that professional development needs to be part of the Academic Master Plan. We do not communicate. • Charlotte Gullick stated that professional development component is one of the leading factors in student success. • William Hayden commented look at the chart down at the bottom, if you just look at numbers, it seems that there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of interest in Study Abroad at ACC. There seems to be a huge drop off. This doesn’t give us a clear picture, the challenges that we face with study abroad. How International Programs is understood here is study abroad, so is that all that International Programs is going to be? Because its existence has been to support faculty led study abroad programs. There are these ad hoc initiatives and projects that take place, but in its entire existence there has been no other reason than this. So to try and create something out of nothing that fits into the mission of the college and the SSI goals and the presidential priorities is an extraordinary challenge. And the pragmatic nature of supporting or sustaining anything that might have international attached to it in any way. • Charlotte Gullick commented it sounds to me like there are three things happening right now. o What we think we might want to be? o What’s feasible? o Where do we fit in? • William Hayden said International Programs survives right now, because Dr. Soliz has an interest in it. And Dr. Soliz is an interim provost. And Dr. Soliz is going to be responsible for finding a permanent Provost, and will the permanent Provost have a similar like mindedness to International Programs? We don’t know really what is our role, our purpose, our functions here, and we still have a disconnect between other components of the college that are also involved in some international aspect of the college’s mission. The big bussword now is “data driven.” I would like to see things that work and I would like to point to those things that are workable, beneficial, and sustainable. So in the short term, over the next three years, we need to build on things that actually are successful, that actually do something, that actually prove something, so we can capture data that supports the claims that this works, and what we are doing. • Roberta Weston said I don’t see anything in terms of your needs. • William Hayden replied I purposely left that out, but I will discuss that briefly here, because I wanted to focus on what is International Programs, first and foremost, before we actually address the issue of how do we then meet that in terms of staffing and budgetary resources? • Juan Molina commented that the Academic Master Plan is not another budget. We shouldn’t think in terms of this is what we are doing because this is the budget that we have right now. This is the opportunity to ask for more, and yes, some of it might not be available in the short term, but part of pushing the envelope, well the budgeting department will now trying to look for the money to make these dreams a reality. The idea is to change things so that the budget doesn\'t drive the program, the program drives the budget. • William Hayden replied we are a program in search of a program. This discussion paper is not the master plan, this is a discussion paper. Juan has been helpful is catching us up with the Academic Master Plan process, and what they are hoping it is going to lead to. We are dealing with the nuts and bolts of reality and where we are right now and what we could reasonably, feasibly and sustainably do. Yes, we are guided by a vision. Action: Move discussion to a virtual domain. Set up Google docs so that every IPAC member has access to the document and can add comments and changes.

Discussion: I met with Stephanie Dempsey, the executive director of the ACC Foundation, about fundraising for International Programs. They have not had that on their plate. She was very excited to introduce that, to incorporate that into fundraising discussions to potential donations. The minimum amount of ACC Foundation scholarships is $2,500. That is one avenue to create another basket of scholarships to offer more opportunities for students to participate. Not just scholarships, but also some funding that could also be directed to program activities. I have done some external fundraising on my own directly related to our visiting scholar and struggling with the fact that we had no resources at ACC to actually welcome an international scholar or visiting faculty. Even UT is deficient in resources to assist a visiting scholar. I have been working with a friend of mine who is on the City of Austin Foundation Board, and we have identified a couple of perspective donors who are commercial real estate developers, we are working on having them donate the use of an apartment on an annual basis that we could use for visiting scholars or visiting faculty. A modest studio apartment that is clean, accessible to public transportation, is in a North Central Austin location so that it is easy for a visiting faculty member to be able to go to our various campuses. End: 11:18 am