Minding the Gap: Achieving Curricular Integration through Experiential Learning at Home and Abroad A Presentation by Urs

1. Minding the Gap: Achieving Curricular Integration through Experiential Learning at Home and Abroad A Presentation by Ursinus College and CAPA International Education Forum Conference, February 2009 Portland, Oregon

2. Melissa Hardin, Ursinus College Institutional Perspective: the Liberal Arts

3. Liberal Arts and Education Abroad • Ursinus College • Founded in 1869 • First admitted women in 1880 • 1,583 Students from 28 states and 7 foreign countries • 6.3% African American, 5% Asian, 3% Hispanic • 12 to 1 student-faculty ratio • Accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools • All students and faculty are issued laptop computers • Idyllic 170-acre campus 28 miles from Philadelphia • Member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Watson Foundation list, Project Pericles • Member of Project DEEP, the Annapolis Group, the Centennial Conference

4. Mission Statement The mission of Ursinus College is to enable students to become independent, responsible, and thoughtful individuals through a program of liberal education. That education prepares them to live creatively and usefully, and to provide leadership for their society in an interdependent world.

5. The Liberal Studies Curriculum • The Core • Common Intellectual Experience I and II • Foreign language requirement • U.S. Diversity • Global Diversity • Independent Learning Experience (ILE) • Independent Research or Creative Project • Internships • Student Teaching • Summer Fellows • Study Abroad

6. Faculty-led Semester Abroad • Common Features • Florence • Madrid • Tuebingen • Yucatán

7. Sample Syllabi and Visible Products • Documenting the Environment • Global Media • Reading Italian Popular Culture • Reading the News Writers • Reflecting on Work • Travel Writing • Tuebingen as Text • Field Work • Lab Internships

8. On-campus Programs of Study • Area Studies • East Asian Studies • German and Pennsylvania German Studies • Latin American Studies • Interdisciplinary Studies • International Relations • International Studies Certificate • Civic Engagement and Social Justice • “Serial” ILEs

9. Drawing Conclusions • Relevance and Meaning • Establishing Relationships • From an Idyllic Campus toward an Ideal Community

10. Stacia Zukroff Biel Program provider Perspective

11. The CAPA London Program • London, England • Center based • Over 150 students a term • Of these 140 are interns • Local faculty instruction • 14 week semester / 6 week Summer • Accommodation in flats and homestays • Predominately first experience learning abroad The Center • 5 Customized faculty led programmes with 100 students

12. Program Design Goals To be contextual and relevant to the study abroad location current affairs To be holistic by weaving together academic and experiential modules For students to gain a genuine understanding of the host culture. To live in it, not just look at it To develop intercultural competencies To develop personal growth, confidence and independence To embrace different learning styles

13. Major Areas of Curricular Integration My Education (ME)** Service Learning Course** Other Courses with Large Experiential Components** Internships with PELA (Perspectives on Experiential Learning) Volunteerism

14. How Does It All Relate to ME? A Calendar with Contextual Themes: • Landscape and Time • Arts and Culture • Government and Power • Community and People • Offer multiple types of events for each theme • Local visits, guest lectures, self-directed tours, readings, group discussions, movies, walking tours, reflective seminars, journal workshops.

15. The Calendar

16. The Calendar

17. The Calendar

18. A Holistic Program • Pre-semester planning of ME TEAM (Advisors and faculty) will bring themes into each course • Activities and lectures will be shared and used for different course related activities • Adopt multiple learning styles • Make events both optional and required • Faculty led, staff led and locally led • Represent the ME events in the syllabi and relate them to the assessment methodology • Pre-departure calendars and web • Arrival orientations • Ongoing advertising

19. Strategies to Achieve These Goals Integrate intercultural learning (implicitly and explicitly) into all areas of the student’s life and experience abroad Get staff and faculty on board and create the ME TEAM Create strong links between Internships, Academic Courses, Field Trips and advising Talk about it all the time whenever students are around and captive so that they remember ME is an option.

20. The ME Cycle

21. Reflection • Create various ways for students to reflect: • With CAPA staff in ME Discussion sessions • Privately - In their journals – Offer a journal workshop • Academically - Faculty, in their syllabi ask students to reference relevant ME activities in their papers. These form part of the final grade. • With fellow students • Via blogs, Facebook and email • Evaluate every aspect of the program each term.

22. Service-Learning Course • The Social Dynamics of London: Contemporary Issues Through Service Learning (GST/SOC 303) • 4 credit multidisciplinary course with sociological focus • 13 weeks (3 hours of class time and 8-10 hours per week over 10 weeks) • Groups of 2-4 students, placed with non-government and community service organizations • Exposes students to areas of London and populations they would otherwise never encounter on study abroad • Primary focus is to serve local communities and to develop the themes while reflecting on the project goals in an academic setting • Themes are urban life (social landscapes and city issues), multi-culturalism and immigration (population, changing cultures, identities, alientation) and inequities and welfare (marginalized groups, poverty, housing and homelessness)

23. Sample Experiential Course • Politics, Democracy, and Islam: Apartism and Alienation in London’s East End (LNDN 3759) • 14 week, 3 credit course that seeks to develop an in-depth understanding of democratic citizenship, identity, gender and religion among young Muslims, focusing on London’s East End. • Lectures, readings, and commentaries, combined with practical field trips to the East End to look at the history and reality discussed in class. • Sample lectures and visits: • Citizenship Foundation • Iman Sheikh, Leyton Mosque • Karimia Institute • University of Sussex, LSE and University College London • UK Ministry of Communities and Local Government • Three Faiths Forum • Tour of Mile End, Whitechapel and Banglatown • Tour of East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre • Tour of Halls of Parliament, Westminster

24. Theme: Immigration and Multi-Culturalism • Local visit: to Southall and a Gurudwara for ME, SOC, PELA, GOVT, LIT • ME Discussion group Local visit: to Southall and a Gurudwara for ME, BLC, PELA,GOVT (local) • Guest lecture: a local Imam talking about Islam in London - for all students, but required for the POL course. • Local visit: to a mosque for the BLC, PELA, POP CULTURE, ISLAM courses. • Relevant readings: Held in the CAPA Library for all, but required by several courses. • Guest Lecture: ‘British festivals and multiculturalism’ • Movie Nights: East is East, Bend it Like Beckham, Dirty Pretty Things (British Cinema, PELA, SOC ,HIST) • Reading: Brick Lane, by Monica Ali and walking tour of area (Lit, BLC, PELA, London across History, Art) • Walking tours: East End of London and Southall – Dinner at local Indian restaurant • Movie: Slumdog Millionaire – movie and lecture on the positive, and negative intersections of British and Indian Cinema