Panel
Technology and International Education
Jorge Luis Romeu
Associate Professor Emeritus
Department of Mathematics
Address for Correspondence:
P. O. Box 6134
Syracuse, NY 13217
romeu@cortland.edu
FAX (315) 476-8994
PRESENTED/PUBLISHED IN THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CIT97 SUNY
CONFERENCE ON INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY. BROCKPORT NY
ABSTRACT
Technology, particularly email communication, listservers,
newsgroups participation and uses of Web pages have greatly
increased the interaction between faculty and students of
universities of different countries. These advances have also
raised the interest in, the need for, and the possibilities about
participating in international faculty and student exchanges and
international course development and implementation For example,
for over three years now, this panelist has worked on a
Student/Faculty exchange project between SUNY and Mexican
universities, using these technologies to substitute scant funds,
yet obtaining significant results. Panel discussion will address
some of the problems panelists found in developing their
international exchange projects; the traditional and two new
models of student exchanges and the lack of a central SUNY
structure capable of sustaining projects developed in one campus
but benefiting all SUNY. Finally, how Technology has helped to
circumvent problems and to provide working solutions that
contribute positively. An open discussion among panelists and
audience will then be encouraged, where benefits and costs of
such exchanges will be examined, traded off and openly debated.
INTRODUCTION
Inexpensive and fast communication through the internet is widely
available in many institutions of higher education all over the
world. As a result, scholars and educators of many countries and
universities are now cooperating daily in their teaching and
research or establishing personal links. Email and access to the
Web via Lynx or Netscape are today a daily ritual of many if not
most academics and students.
In addition, many government agencies and research operations
also use the internet. And even private citizens, via commercial
organizations (e.g. AOL) can access it at affordable rates. And
Web pages, with announcements for jobs and services, competitions
for grants, commercial advertising and general information (e.g.
on line newspapers) have made it possible to be physically in one
place but intellectually all over the place.
Finally, the advances in transportation (air, sea and land) have
also made it faster and cheaper to move around the globe. Global
economic interests have created international corporations, where
products are manufactured in different countries and then
assembled for its sale somewhere else.
This new situation raises the interest and need for greater
exchanges of goods and information. The people involved in these
international activities must acquire the skills to work and
cooperate and to communicate with ease. Such skills should be
acquired during their college training. And an international
education should be a fundamental part of it.
In turn, the new international education also requires a more
complex student and faculty exchange program. For the faculty
that will train them should also be sentitive, knowledgeable and
trained in the international education problems.
The need is there; the means are there. Still, the human part of
such developments is lagging behind. Some of us, working in this
area, still sense some problems and challenges that make more
difficult the development of student/faculty exchanges.
This Panel seeks to examine some of these problems and challenges
and some of the working solutions we have given to them.
SOME PROBLEMS
In a faculty/student exchange, there are at least three factors:
the individual being exchanged, the institution that receives
this individual and the facilitator. All three need to gain from
it, for the project to survive and become permanent. And all
three need to contribute and commit themselves to it.
Individuals (students/faculty) must have an active interest, for
example learning the language, the culture, new professional
tools or new social skills, among others. But individuals also
need the right background that facilitates their transition (e.g.
good language and social skills, positive phylosophical attitude,
technical knowledge, etc.). Individuals invest valuable time in
the exchange and must be asured that they will not waste their
investmenttime (e.g. students must have the courses taken abroad
accepted as more than just free electives and faculty must be
sure that their research and teaching experiences abroad will be
accepted as valid).
This panelist has painfully verified how some courses taken
abroad were not accepted for the core curriculum, in the home
institutions. And how courses taught at prestigious foreign
institutions have not been considered acceptable for the
faculty's curriculum, back in the home system. And this is a
terrible punishment that must be eliminated if exchanges are
going to grow or even continue.
Because, in addition to becoming a heavy tax on student/faculty
participation in international exchange programs, the above
mentioned attitude also sends a clear message about how the host
institutions/society are considered inferior. And this attitude
goes against all that an exchange program stands for and pursues
and does not help to fight prejudice and discrimination here at
home.
Institutions receiving individuals (the second factor in an
international exchange program) must be prepared to place them in
the appropriate environment (eg. courses, labs, internships)
where individuals can function. Transition plans to ease this
insertion must be available. Ways of making use of the visitor's
capability, for the enrichment of the host environment, should be
in place.
Finally, the exchange facilitator, the last of the three elements
of an international exchange, must be prepared to foster, nurture
and preserve the exchange program. Facilitators must know both
environments well (people, societies, technical background).
They should create and oversee transitional mechanisms in both
ends of the program. which constitutes a main ingredient in
these exchanges.
The traditional exchange model consisted of the Directors of
International Exchange (DIE). The main background of these
officers has been in the fields of foreign languages,
international studies, political sciences, history, and similar
humanistic studies, That has also been the background and
interest of the traditional exchange students. This model worked
efficiently at a time when those interested in going abroad came
from the mentioned fields.
However, things have drastically changed. New programs such as
the FIPSE's Trilateral effort, now deal mainly in sciences,
engineering and/or business. Therefore, the traditional DIE,
whose original field lies mainly in the humanities, is not
necessarily familiar with these new areas and problems filling
the role of facilitator may arise. The potential facilitator for
such programs, science and engineering faculty interested in
international education, is not given a stake or an interest in
it through the old model. And some times this potential
facilitator is perceived as a threat or a competitor and is
ushered aside.
TWO SOLUTIONS
Two models have appeared that offer a solution to the facilitator
background problem. One is the new Faculty Directed exchange
program model that, for example, Dr. Ron Bloom, SUNYwide DIE and
Associate Provost, in Albany, has been promoting in our SUNY
system. One successful example of Faculty Directed program is
the one for the Southern Cone (Uruguay, Argentina, Brasil),
developed by Dr. William Culver of SUNY-Plattsburgh. Under this
model, the program director is a professor in the field of
interest for the program. This director is provided with funds
to develop the program and time to work on it. And it considered
as a part of his regular workload. This is the model this author
is proposing, for the SUNY-Mexico student and faculty exchange
program, from SUNY Cortland. Its faculty director resides in,
and functions from a specific SUNY campus. But exchange students
and faculty are recruited from any SUNY campus and those coming
from Mexico can select to be hosted in any SUNY campus.
A second solution to the mentioned problem is provided by the new
LxC (Languages Accross the Curriculum) model. Our second
panelist, Dr. H. Steven Straight, is the director of the
Program in Linguistics and Chair of the International Education
Advisory Committee at SUNY at Binghamton. Dr. Straight will
overview the main features of LxC.
Broadly speaking, LxC consists in providing the individual going
abroad (student/faculty) a possibility to enrich his/her language
experience in the (non traditional) area of expertise (e.g.
sciences, engineering, cinema, etc.). This is obtained by using
"secondary" talents of faculty/exchange personnel (e.g. their
native language skills, or acquired language skills) to allow the
candidate to receive, in the home campus, specific instruction in
the foreign language (e.g. read papers, books, see films, listen
to tapes in the foreign language and even give reports in such
language, on topics of candidate's technical interest such as
science, engineering, etc.). This prepares the candidates for
taking subject matter courses abroad, in the foreign language, by
exposing them to the technical vocabulary and construction.
These two models allow students/faculty in non traditional areas
of exchange such as engineering, to become better prepared during
the transition phase and better supervised/advised during their
stay in the host country. In this way, their work
(study/teaching/research) will not be reduced to obtaining
knowledge of a foreign culture, but also obtaining knowledge of
their subject matter in the context of a foreign experience.
It is necessary to underline that neither of these two new models
for international exchange programs poses a threat to the
traditional campus DIE. This officer remains in charge of the
main exchange administrative activities (e.g. billing,
certification of studies, transfers, coordination, etc.). The
DIE is indeed an efficient ally of each program Faculty Director.
A failure to perceive this mutual arrangement and the mutual
strengthening that such arrangement contributes to the
international exchange organization, will only harm the exchange
process and the players involved in it.
The third participant of this panel will be a Mexican Scholar.
This author has obtained, through the SUNY-Mexico exchange
project he is working on and for the second consecutive year,
three full scholarships for Mexican faculty to attend the CIT
Conference. The three Mexican scholarships are funded by FACT,
UUP and DIE and Associate Provost Ron Bloom. One of the three
participants in this CIT97 (perhaps even the three) will
contribute the Mexican insights into this exchange problem.
CONCLUSIONS
This Panel is, in itself, a tribute to the facilities that
internet and technology provides in the area of international
exchange programs. This author could have not developed his
SUNY-Mexico exchange project, nor could he have organized this
Panel, had he not had an unlimited access to internet, email, web
pages, listserves, etc. It has been this unlimited access to the
internet that has made this project possible, since we simply did
not have the resources nor support from other sources.
For example, this author has for months maintained and nurtured
an exchange list with Mexican interested faculty, via internet.
We have created a sort of monthly "newsletter" with news of the
exchange project, to keep everyone abreast of its advances.
These CIT scholarships were announced through such "newsletter".
We have become members of several listserves that deal with
international education in Mexico and elsewhere (e.g. ELNET).
Information obtained has served us very well and has put us in
contact with yet more people who share our international
education interests.
Finally, Web pages of these listserves, of international
organizations of government services and funding sources, of
grant competitions, have provided us with valuable knowledge.
The information obtained via these Web Pages or Listserves, has
become (or may soon become) a source of funding that will allow
us to continue with our international exchange project.