Meeting & Agendas

Discussion: Study Abroad Program Application Deadline will be extended to March 31, 2014. Please do not announce the extension until Monday, February 24, 2014, so as not to encourage any more procrastination. 145 advising appointment completed. 27 more advising appointments schedule through next Friday 68 applications submitted: Argentina – 2 Barbados Sustainable – Tourism - 2 Costa Rica – 11 England – 6 Germany – 6 India - 1 Ireland – 1 (a couple withdrawn applications and one changed to UK) Italy – Art History - 2 (14 advising appointments – majority of applications we received last summer came in the last two weeks of February and first two weeks of March) Italy – Drawing - 3 Japan – 14 (already a go—10 commited, paying participants) Jordan – 0 Mexico – 4 Spain – 5 United Kingdom - 9 David Albert asked how many participants are necessary to have a program make. William Hayden responded that our programs are planned for 10 students. David Albert asked how many programs made last year. William Hayden responded that 6 out of 14 made last summer for a total of 67 students. William Hayden feels confident that every program has a good opportunity to make, besides Jordan and Ireland; he is optimistic that we will crack 100 students, which will the best study abroad year since 2007. India focuses on Contemporary Social Problems – has a substantial service learning component, working with an organization called Relief Project India and their SHE project-stands for Sanitation, Health, and Education and focus on women and female children. Based in Madurai and Tamil Nadu at the Lady Doak College, which is a small, private women’s college that hosts a small number of groups from the U.S. on a regular basis. They pair each of our students with a Lady Doak student as a volunteer chaperone, who can introduce them to Madurai, they can take them home for dinner with their family. Karen Bell asked if male students are allowed on this program. William Hayden responded that yes they are. India is the first program to develop out of the Internationalizing Curriculum, Courses, and Instruction Grant that we launched last year. Several faculty have been working on applications on a variety of topics including child development, marine biology, and political philosophy, among other things. We have more flexibility. Programs that do not have group flights, since we are not constrained by the number 10, if we have a program that has 8, then we can green light that program. We break down the programs to a per person cost, so it is not incumbent on us having 10 person in particular to make sure we cover our costs. Amber Luttig-Buonodono asked if we have a program with more students, does it cost less. William Hayden responded no, there is no cost savings for higher numbers. Joel Owidi asked if these programs were only for students, or also for faculty. William Hayden responded that yes, every year we have seen at least one or two faculty participate. In fact this year, we have two faculty who have applied for the Italy – Drawing program. They have to go through the whole process as well. Programs developing relations with new peer partners. 1. Barbados Community College – two Barbados programs will be hosted by the BCC Hospitality Institute and they will be staying at their boutique hotel.They want to send students here as well and focus on renewable energy. 2. India with Lady Doak College 3. Additional Projects that include student groups going to our new peer partners. We are working on an internship project for Music Business, performance, and Technology for a group of students to intern at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Promotion and Marketing Roberta Weston asked about changes in promotional materials and requested more single paged flyers that faculty can hand out. William Hayden responded that first we have to acknowledge that ACC does not have good resources for this. First thing to increase student awareness is that International Programs will be moving from the 5th floor of the Highland Business Center to the Highland Learning Center in the Fall semester of 2014. David Albert mentioned that many students are not aware that study abroad through ACC is even a possibility. William Hayden agreed and explained that it is also important for faculty leaders to help market and spread awareness about their programs, per the faculty leader agreement. Future Marketing Plans • Weekly ACC Study Abroad Alumni Student Panels hoping in collaboration with Student Life. • Developing a stand-alone website, an International Programs Facebook page. Students like the tri-fold brochure. Roberta Weston and Karen Bell would like a single page flyer to duplicate on their own, however, it lacks a lot of information including the itinerary. Amber Luttig-Buonodono mentioned that table at the Texas Book Festival and suggested that we reach out to the Early College Start high schools, parents, and students. William Hayden says that we provide ECS personnel with all of our materials and they disseminate it to the schools and parents. David Albert wonders how we can engage faculty and students in departments that do not have a connection to typical study abroad programs, like Government and History. How do we get course numbers or the buy-in from these departments that don’t seem to mechanisms for study abroad? Williams responded that David Lauderback is a contradiction to those statements and that it is necessary to understand the constraints that community colleges have in the state of Texas. We have to rely upon courses that are already in the course manual. Faculty Senate is launching their newsletter, which contains two pages fdedicated to the Peace and Conflict Studies Program and a page and a half dedicated to International Programs and what we are doing. Amber Luttig-Buonodono commented that another big challenge for ACC is that we have students here for only two years, which is not a lot of time to chose a program and make all of the arrangements. The University of Texas at Austin is the number two college in terms of sending students abroad with only 450 students, half of NYU which is number one. If ACC was able to break 100 students this summer, that would put us in the top three community colleges in the U.S. in terms of sending students abroad. ACC has signed onto IIE Generation Study Abroad, which is to focus on doubling the number of American students who study abroad by 2020. Dr. Rhodes signed a pledge in support of that and our objective is to increase our study abroad participation rate to 1% of our total enrollment, which would be about 400 students. David Albert asked if we have any financial numbers in regards to how many students are paying for study abroad themselves. William Hayden responded that not until we have completed the application cycle. We are running low in terms of BOT Scholarship applications. Last year we only awarded 36 BOT Scholarships, which suggests that not all students have financial constraints. Amber Luttig-Buonodono commented that some of her students have said they are having trouble getting faculty to complete the recommendations. William Hayden responded that Amber should have those students turn in their application and let him know which faculty are not completing the recommendations and he would be happy to send an email. That also speaks to the lack of engagement by the faculty. Roberta Weston asked if students had to go through the same link as the Mylena Chavez Memorial Scholarship, a $2500 merit based scholarship available to students applying to an art program. William Hayden responded that no, the BOT scholarships are paper scholarships through the International Programs office. Robert Rogers asked if there is any work with the Foundation besides the BOT Scholarship. William Hayden responded that yes, Stephanie has it on her to do list when she meets with donors. Robert said the combined campaign we do in the fall, you can donate to the Foundation for scholarships, and maybe Stephanie can get a dedicated line in there for people who wanted to donate specifically to International Programs instead of the general scholarship fund. Partners Programs a. Aarhus Business College i. Hosted first program of 25 students in November ii. Planning two more programs of similar sizes in June and October b. Business Academy Aarhus i. Working with the Hospitality Department to develop a two-week summer school in July that focuses on Social Media Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism. ii. Developing that summer school using framework of Millennial Mentoring Project that we are implementing with Hackney Community College that we began in January and which is coming to its public presentation finale March 10 at Hackney House SXSW. c. Hackney House/Millennial Mentoring Project i. Created 10 paid internships ii. 4 hospitality internships working with executive producer of Hackney House. Then will be working on the Austin venues of Digital Shoreditch in London. iii. 6 students participating in 3 ACC/HCC teams working on a millennial marketing solution to a challenge brief prepared by our three business sponsor clients, Adobe, British Airways, and Retail Me Not. iv. Each Business sponsor has donated $10,000 to the project.

a. PHD in Human Resources Management b. Use to work as an Assistant Professor in Iran for 3 years c. Dismissed because of focus on women and gender studies and efforts of raise awareness d. Luckily found SRF and through it ACC e. At Rio Grande Campus in the 3000 building Joel Owidi asked if it within this organization to arrange for ACC faculty to spend time abroad. William Hayden responded that yes, that is something we are very interested in developing especially with our peer partners. The peer partner strategy that we are developing now is to create partnerships with institutions that have similar mission and a similar student profile. • Aarhus Business College • Business Academy Aarhus • Hackney Community College • Barbados Community College Amber asked if Mehrang is available for class visits. Mehrang said yes, of course. William Hayden commented the female scholars in Iran have a significant uphill struggle in having equal access to opportunity and resources. Mehrang said especially if they find you Westernized and anti-government scholars. Carol Duss invited Mehrang to her “Ask an Immigration Attorney” workshop that is happening next Friday at the Rio Grande campus. In response to Joel’s earlier questions, William Hayden talked about the Curriculum Development Grant. Deadline for applications is May 23rd. Wednesday, February 19 at 6 PM in the HBC Board Room is the next International Visiting Scholar Speaker Series during which Mehrang will speak about her own experiences in coming here. Not marketed broadly because of concerns for Mehrang’s family that is still in Iran.

Discussion: SOL Education Abroad is supporting three of our programs • Argentina – Spanish II • Mexico – Anthropology • Spain – Spanish IV They focus exclusively on four Spanish-speaking countries. Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Spain Wanted to create something that was focused on Spanish and four locations that represented the Spanish-speaking world. • Spain – Granada (Austin of Spain). • Mexico – Oaxaca (no travel advisory) • Costa Rica – long democratic history, 25% of country protected by national parks or reserves. • Argentina – Buenos Aires (more cosmopolitan) 2 Types of Programming: 1. Partner with different institutions and work with them to develop faculty-led options. 2. Own programs for students across the U.S. and Canada a. Summer Sessions b. Semester c. Winter Break d. Intensive Month e. Spring Break International Spanish Competency Certificate – take a course in Spanish and have an international experience. Jan Emberson commented that the representative of SOL Education Abroad did a great job. She then asked about the Winter Program, what is the general length and when does it happen. Brent Hunter responded that the most successful dates are right after Christmas until the Saturday before class starts for the Spring semester. About 2 ½ weeks and works best for non-traditional students. Cathy Angell asked what kind of documentation does SOL Education Abroad provide and do colleges accept it. Brent responded that on the website for each program the school of records are listed and they are the schools that issue the transcripts. Winter Break is too short for Beginner 1 or 2, but great for Intermediate 1 or 2. There is a program in Spain that is approved through the University of Houston, so if a student completes the paperwork through U of H (the VSP-Visiting Scholars Program) the transcript will come through U of H. Winter Break is good for non-traditional students, student athletes, students whose degrees aren’t language driven but still need to complete a language requirement. Sharon Miller asked if SOL programs must have a minimum requirement of students to make. Brent Hunter responded that no, there is no minimum requirement.

Discussion: Shared Governance Council is undertaking a review of the shared governance process and all the councils and committees, so Mike Midgley has asked all of the committee chairs to of committees that report to ACAC to come up with areas for improvement. Thoughts on the function, the role, recommendations for how we might be able to improve this. IPAC was created to dump a lot of folks in it, but that has not been the most effective model, for this particular committee, It is different than other committees because we not dealing with draft ARs or curriculum issues that end up becoming time consuming projects where you vote on it and it has am impact up or down the food chain. Here it is more a sharing of ideas. David Albert commented that as the name suggests that IPAC is an advisory committee than a governing committee so it might not fit into a shared governance unless we want to get serious about changing policies that limit the scope of International Programs. This is advisory, sharing of resources, that kind of thing. William responded that he agrees, that IPAC does not have a shared governance function. That he would like continue as an advisory committee and to move away from this membership framework that hamstrings us and to have an advisory committee that brings all the faculty leaders in and people who are interested. Then it gives us greater flexibility because we are not having to abide by the shared governance framework and the rules and regulations that go with that. Gaye Lynn Scott commented that that she agrees that this is not a shared governance function that takes place here, but in the future if there is an issue that requires the shared governance, it wouldn’t preclude us from moving something into shared governance. William Hayden did a presentation to the BOT in January, the first time IP has had an opportunity to formally present to the Board on what is going on in IP and our strategy going forward. He was delighted to see an across the board support from the Board Members and an interest in reviewing within the framework of the AMP process and budgeting to give us the resources to grow this program in a substantial way. Action: Please think about this and email William thoughts on the International Programs Advisory Committee.