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ENGAGING FACULTY TO INTEGRATE STUDY ABROAD INTO THE CURRICULUM

ENGAGING FACULTY TO INTEGRATE STUDY ABROAD INTO THE CURRICULUM. The Challenges of a Southern European University. 2008 ISEP Conference, Washington, DC November 21, 2008. Factors: the Southern European Condition. Language of instruction Culture of the institution

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ENGAGING FACULTY TO INTEGRATE STUDY ABROAD INTO THE CURRICULUM

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  1. ENGAGING FACULTY TO INTEGRATE STUDY ABROAD INTO THE CURRICULUM The Challenges of a Southern European University 2008 ISEP Conference, Washington, DC November 21, 2008

  2. Factors: the Southern European Condition • Language of instruction • Culture of the institution • teaching and teaching staff • institutional structure and hierarchy • services • Ignoring the Internationalization factor or misunderstanding it.

  3. Strategy • Internal pressure can only have limited results (at least for now) • Internationalization efforts need to be motivated from the outside: • Partner institutions (mostly international) • Customers – students • Outside workforce • The activities are then implemented thanks to a bottom-up / top-down structure (the sandwich effect)

  4. Example 1 Courses taught in English • requested by international partners • require a selection of faculty members who can teach in English and have had teaching experience abroad • Courses initially taught to international students • Long-term goal: insertion of these courses into existing degrees programs

  5. Example 2 Limited recognition of an international experience in the students’ academic career • The introduction of the International Career card is a document that highlights any type of international academic experience has had: • Mobility • Language courses on campus or abroad • Participation is international seminars, conferences, etc. locally or abroad • With the accumulation of a certain number of non academic credits the student may receive additional points on his/her thesis.

  6. Example 3 Focused Programs Abroad (FPA) • Short-term, subject focused for specific degree program students (Economics, Humanities, Psychology, etc.) • Direct involvement of Faculty in the design of such programs • Automatic credit recognition and transfer to home degree

  7. The results • The IRO brought the various departments’ attention to the need to: • Recognize and give credit to students’ international experiences • Supplement inadequate foreign language instruction • Lead a committee for internationalization composed of champions from various departments • Respond to the needs of the students, international partners and students’ future employers The IRO leads by example….it does what departments may believe impossible to do.

  8. Measuring success Over the past two years since these various activities have been launched we have witnessed a growing interest on the part of the faculties/departments to internationalize their existing programs mostly by creating parallel degree programs that are internationally focused and taught in English. Furthermore, by introducing the FPAs we give “responsibility” and “control” to the faculty members for the quality of the programs through which they send their students.

  9. Impact on exchange programs such as ISEP • Limited immediate impact on exchange programs, especially for outgoing students. • Greater flexibility for incoming students with new coursework offered in English. • Larger number of faculty members (faculty champions) who support the institutions’ internationalization efforts and all its academic programs

  10. Léa Senn Int’l Programs Development Coordinator Universita’ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milan, Italy E-mail: lea.senn@unicatt.it

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