CHEM 2008: Engaging the World, at Home and Abroad

As the world moves closer and is getting flatter, it is crucial that students are taught the skills necessary to engage and succeed in a shifting world. The examples listed are just a few of the many ways Council institutions are advancing the cause of Christ-centered higher education worldwide.
 

Four years ago, the forward-thinking president of a small island nation decided to invest in what he calls “Madagascar’s greatest resource – its people.”

That investment paid off Saturday when all 24 students sent to Abilene Christian University graduated with high expectations that they will become the “future leaders” of their home nation.
 

Madagascar’s President Marc Ravalomanana is a successful business owner and Christian leader who said that sending his students to ACU was “the best investment in the world” toward his goal of lifting his nation of 17 million people out of poverty.
 

Ravalomanana addressed the Malagasy students during ACU’s Commencement: “I am proud of you. Your country, your families and your professors are proud of you…. I hope you understand what a treasure you will have when you receive your diploma from ACU. Having a degree from an American university is highly valued around the world, but to graduate from an excellent university where God is honored is priceless.”
 

“To the faculty and staff of ACU, please accept my deepest gratitude for your dedication to academic excellence and your commitment to the values of Jesus Christ,” Ravalomanana said. “In fact, you have exceeded my expectations. You have helped develop the minds of your students, and you have helped to shape their faith and lives, as well.”
 

During the May 10 Commencement, ACU awarded Ravalomanana an honorary doctor of laws degree, particularly for the improvement of education in his nation.
 

During his ACU visit, Ravalomanana said, “We need leaders who are willing to serve others before themselves. We need men and women of integrity who will do what is right. We need people who take initiative, who are willing to tackle difficult issues and discover solutions. In fact, what we need in Madagascar is the same as what you need in America and what every nation needs. We need Christian servant-leaders, and we need them now.”

For more: http://www.acu.edu/news/2008/080707_graduation_ma.html

Intentional internationalization emphasizes the pursuit of intercultural and ethnic understanding, both at home and abroad. This desire for global engagement calls for an active exploration of events, institutions, peoples, problems, and issues within and beyond our nation’s borders in order to promote the peace, joy, and love of God and to help form culturally competent faculty and students. Together, the diversity and internationalization initiatives refer to deliberate, systematic, and related efforts to integrate an intercultural and international dimension into teaching, research, and service functions of the university. For example, every academic program will include an opportunity for a cross-cultural educational experience so that all graduates may demonstrate intercultural competence as defined by their discipline.
 

Our world today has become much smaller with the evolution of technology and the sophistication of modern travel. Students must be well equipped and prepared to flourish in this increasingly borderless international community. The Center for Global Learning and Engagement provides more than 40 opportunities for freshmen through senior students to enhance their book learning.
 

The Center for Global Learning and Engagement carries out the university’s academic vision to deliberately and strategically “integrate an intercultural and international dimension into teaching, research, and service functions of the university,” through the creation and maintenance of innovative global learning opportunities, comprehensive guidance, preparation, and advising of students, and the creation of opportunities for faculty development and leadership in international education.
 

For more: www.apu.edu/studyabroad
 

In fall 2007, APU commenced its first semester in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa, presenting an experience to interested students unlike that of any other program. Traveling between Cape Town and Pietermaritzburg, the APU South Africa Semester provides students with an unequaled opportunity to learn about the rich kaleidoscope of South African society; receive theoretical and practical training on community building and intercultural ministry; conduct service and research projects in local communities; and develop relationships with South African students, community members, and academics.
 

Nearly a year later, through further developments and an ever-growing commitment to the institution’s outreach, the program now includes nursing students each semester to provide unparalleled field experience to students committed to health care through services to the South African community.

To learn more about APU’s South Africa Semester, please visit www.apu.edu/southafrica.
 

The Global Learning Term (GLT) program seeks to fulfill the international mission and educational essence of Azusa Pacific University by affording students self-directed, full- immersion learning experiences within a variety of cross-cultural contexts. Program faculty assists students in exploring their major and in designing individualized study and service projects. The GLT is an integral component of the undergraduate global studies major, and builds upon campus-based multidisciplinary course work, existing also as a stand-alone program for non-global studies students to empower themselves and the community in which they serve to grow in global partnership.
 

Students who wish to take their Global Learning Term in the summer may qualify for the summer tuition discount, and can also take a Leave of Absence in the following fall semester in order to apply their financial aid package to the spring. For additional information, contact the Department of Global Studies, Sociology, and TESOL at (626) 815-6000, Ext. 3844, or visit www.apu.edu/studyabroad/programs/global.
 

The American International Mentoring Program (A.I.M.) provides a comfortable opportunity for international and U.S. students to learn about one another’s culture and lifestyle while developing lifelong friendships. The program challenges students to better understand and celebrate cultural diversity, enhance global awareness, share their culture, develop meaningful and cross-cultural relationships, and to experience personal and spiritual growth. APU mentors will live alongside international exchange students, guiding them through their initial American integration and appealing to their experience through relational intentionality and consistency.
 

To learn more about the A.I.M. Program, please visit www.apu.edu/international/activities/aim. 
 

The Operation Impact (OI) Program provides educational support internationally to leaders of mission, government, non-government, and nonprofit organizations by delivering the Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership Program in a distributed-learning approach to global-learning groups worldwide. One- or two-week intensives held throughout the year are followed by semester-long study projects contracted for each course with professors via the Internet, including email and APU library resources.
 

The Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership Program is based on essential principles for effective leadership through understanding the basic concepts of human growth and development, recognizing that individual leadership styles and personalities relate to the achievement of organizational goals and individual development, and acknowledging that social science and biblical values are operational zed into an informed ethic of leading. The OI Program strengthens APU’s global initiative to bring education and advancement internationally with ease and professional partnership.
 

To apply for and learn more about the OI Program, please visit www.apu.edu/bas/csaol/operationimpact.
 

The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University (Harrisonburg, Va.) is one of the country’s few universities to offer masters-level training in conflict transformation. In addition, the center offers trauma healing seminars and a Summer Peacebuilding Institute that has trained some 3,000 peacebuilders from around the world. People from the Sudan to Nicaragua, Iraq to the Philippines and across the United States have found EMU to be a place of hospitality and practical hands-on learning opportunity.
 

EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding offers superior programming in restorative justice, trauma healing, worker care resourcing and practical peacebuilding skills. Howard Zehr, PhD, often considered the “grandfather” of the restorative justice movement, continues as an active professor on campus and mentor to students and graduates worldwide.
 

People of all faith traditions are welcome at EMU. Learn more at www.emu.edu/cjp. Read about the grassroots, community-based work of our graduates all over the world in Peacebuilder magazine at www.emu.edu/peacebuilder. Consider inviting us to your campus for seminars in organizational management, conflict in the workplace and cross cultural understanding www.emu.edu/cjp/seminarseries.
 

What started as a simple question became a key initiative for the office of External Programs. What is every student had a Passport?

About 62% of Messiah College students study abroad -- last year, 429 students earned academic credit by studying abroad in more than 30 different countries. The College's commitment to international education, service, and missions has been recognized by the Institute of International Education, who ranks the College eleventh in the U.S. among undergraduate institutions sending students to study abroad.
 

The reasoning to do this was simple: We want to create climate for going international,” said Wendy Lippert, Interim director of International programs. “We have an expectation that if you a Messiah student, we encourage to do something internationally. Having a Passport in hand makes the whole realm of possibility a bit more real to the student.”
 

After a two-day event, almost 10% of the student body was able to procure Passports, with plans to make this an annual event.
 

For more: www.wgal.com/news/17434748/detail.html.

The fall of 2007 marked the introduction of Northwestern’s first college-operated semester-long study abroad program, the Romania Semester. The program is offered every fall in association with New Horizons Foundation, a ministry that seeks to use adventure education and service-learning experiences to help young Romanians develop responsibility, teamwork and trust. The Romania Semester’s onsite director is Dana Bates, founder and executive director of New Horizons and a doctoral degree candidate at the Oxford Centre for Missions Studies (and Gordon College alumnus).
 

The study abroad program was designed to be a unique combination of cross-cultural learning, theory about social development, practice, service, and adventure education. The program includes four courses: Romanian Culture and History, Eastern Orthodoxy, Sustainable Development, and Experiential Education: Theory and Practice. Based in Lupeni in Jiu Valley, a deprived coal-mining region, students live with area residents for five weeks and have constant interaction with Romanians.
 

In addition, two of our short-term study abroad courses are especially dependent upon partnership with other agencies. Sociology professor Dr. Scott Monsma has traveled with students to Oman twice over winter breaks as part of a Northwestern study abroad course and will be taking another group there this December. That course is done in cooperation with the Al Amana Centre, a Reformed Church in America mission in Oman. The college is studying the possibility of establishing a semester-long study abroad program in that country.
 

And Northwestern nursing students traveled to Tanzania last summer, working in conjunction with Siouxland Tanzania Educational and Medical Ministries. The cross-cultural experience—required as part of Northwestern’s nursing major—included an introduction to Tanzania’s health services; visits to Selian Lutheran Hospital, rural clinics and an orphanage; and opportunities to observe health teaching in villages.
 

For more: www.nwciowa.edu/studyabroad/semester/default.aspx#ROMANIA
 

Seattle Pacific University Professor of Theology Rick Steele taught a two-week intensive course on Christian ethics in the master of arts in theological studies program (MATS) at Hope Africa University (HAU) in Bujumbura, Burundi, July 7-18, 2008. HAU was founded in 2000 by the Free Methodist Church in East Africa, and was originally located in Nairobi, Kenya. It moved to Bujumbura in 2004. Its total enrollment in undergraduate and graduate programs is fast approaching 2,000 students – so swift a growth that some classes are being held in buildings that are still under construction. The MATS program was launched in 2006, and is mostly staffed by visiting faculty from the United States. Rick is the first SPU faculty member to teach at HAU, although a delegation consisting of Professor of Educational Ministry Bob Drovdahl, Associate Dean of the School of Health Sciences Chris Henshaw, and Director of the Perkins Center Tali Hairston was sent in the summer of 2007 to pave the way for cooperation between these two sister institutions.
 

Whitworth University is planning an international center in Central America for 30-60 students with the possibility of additional centers in other international location in years ahead. A group of administrators and faculty just returned from Central America where Whitworth has offered faculty-led study programs for more than 30 years and where the new center could be opened as early as fall 2010.
 

The primary goal of establishing the international centers is to help create global citizens by providing opportunities for students to develop cross-cultural skills, language competency and empathy by seeing first-hand how people in other cultures live.
 

"We want to get more students off campus in semester-long programs where they can be immersed in the Spanish language and learn about poverty, development, social justice and theology," said Michael LeRoy, Michael Le Roy, Whitworth's vice president for academic affairs.

For more: www.whitworth.edu/Administration/InstitutionalAdvancement/UniversityCommunications/WhitworthToday/2008_Spring/CentralAmericaLegacy.htm