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Institute of
International Education
809 United Nations Plaza
7th Floor
New York, NY 10017
USA
Tel: +1 (212) 984 5367
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DeSales University in Peru: The Power of Short-term Intercultural Engagements |
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By Dr. Galen Godbey, Dr. Bill Hunter, Michael J. Krajsa and
Dr. Mohamed Latib
There is a massive realignment of higher education taking place, one similar to Thomas Friedman’s emerging “flat world” of globalized innovation. A new playing field is being created, with new paradigms and rules as a result of Bologna and ERAMUS, WTO open markets for higher education, the rise of reputable institutions abroad, the diffusion of technology (Internet 2 and MIT’s $100 laptop) and technologically-mediated collaboration between U.S. and foreign universities, the outsourcing of basic academic lab research functions, and the increased market penetration of for- profit and distance education options. Like business, higher education is becoming global in both missions and markets. Universities must craft niches in this increasingly complex global space.
Universities are faced with new demographic, market, and educational dynamics at home and abroad, not to mention federal financial disinvestment; those institutions without strong recruitment and student retention rates will be vulnerable. Improving student retention, performance and satisfaction are imperative in this rapidly-changing educational market, and creating the “engaged student” is the key retention strategy.
“Student engagement” is an intellectual and emotional commitment to one’s personal, social, and vocational development. Engaged students are enthusiastic and energized. Helping engaged students connect their personal development and life’s possibilities with their institution’s facilitative role fosters alumni loyalty.
How can institutions produce engaged students? By practicing a powerful scholarship of application in which students use what they have learned in courses in collaborative work across disciplines, nations and cultures. International service projects provide immediate and meaningful feedback, and have social, economic and political consequences for the lives of others, thus raising the psychological and spiritual stakes and potential rewards for students.
Despite burgeoning short-term study abroad and international service learning offerings, research on their cultural and emotional impact is limited. Also, the value of brief international exposure has been challenged. Engle and Engle (2003), who proposed a 5-Level reclassification of all study abroad offerings, contend that a less than-three-weeks program can only attain Level 1 (least effective), and cannot offer “provisions for cultural interaction or experiential learning.” (p.10)
Chieffo and Griffiths’ large scale assessment (2004), however, contradicts Engle and Engle: “Programs, even as short as one month, are worthwhile educational endeavors that have significant self-perceived impacts on students’ intellectual and personal lives.” Hulstrand (2006), agrees, holding that, “some of the most important things that can be learned on education abroad programs can happen in a surprisingly short period of time.”
The authors’ three-year experience with DeSales University students engaged in service-learning work in partnership with Heifer International in the Andean village of Cuchuma (described below) strongly supports Chieffo, Griffiths and Hulstrand. It is not the duration of international student activity that matters, but to the extent which students become emotionally and intellectually engaged with the people and their culture, and the extent to which the students’ institution permits students to build upon that initial encounter. Embedded, on-going opportunities back on campus to create sustained inter-cultural relationships that provide value for all parties are essential.
From the perspective of institutional strategy, distinctive, short-term international social enterprise projects can create visibility and networks for participants and for their institutions. Short-term programs abroad that lead to long-term relationships and engagements can help universities create the vital market niche referred to above.
DeSales University: International Education Context
DeSales is a 40-year-old Catholic, Carnegie Level 1 institution with headcount enrollment of approximately 2,300 in eastern Pennsylvania. Despite nationally-recognized programs in several fields, the University has had only modest international commitments until recently.
Ninety-six percent of DeSales University undergraduates are from Pennsylvania and its contiguous states, and the University has only a handful of foreign students. DeSales administers the College Student Experience Questionnaire (from UCLA’s Center for the Study of Evaluation) annually to its freshman and seniors. Only 20 percent of freshman and 26 percent of seniors responded that they gained “very much” or “quite a bit” of “knowledge about other parts of the world and other people” during the 2004-2005 academic year. “International relations” were topics of conversation “often” or “very often” for only 19 percent of our freshman and 51 percent of seniors.
In 2005, DeSales University’s Globalization Task Force (GTF) recommended that the institution mobilize itself to prepare globally competent students with skills and experiences that would permit successful entry into the international marketplace and multicultural societies. Drawing upon recent dissertations by Hunter and Deardorf, DeSales defined global competence as:
Using an open, inquisitive mind to understand the norms and expectations of other cultures, and using this acquired knowledge to communicate and work effectively outside one’s usual environment to promote human solidarity.
The GTF further urged that the University’s Mission statement be changed to
include global competence, and that the University rapidly establish a process for promoting and validating the global engagement of our students and of our institution as a whole.
While the GTF was at work, the University received the first of two consecutive Business and International Education (BIE) grants from the U.S. Department of Education. These grants have helped to fund the University’s work in Peru, as well as emerging initiatives in India, Romania, and Germany: DeSales is developing a voluntary consortium with universities in these and several other countries that should yield strategic as well as programmatic benefits for all. The Peru BIE initiative was an effort to promote student engagement with their DeSales educations through engagement with the wider world.
Peru Project: Student Experience, Activities, and Outcomes
In August 2004, April 2005, and March 2006, small groups (between five and eight undergraduate students) plus Mr. Michael Krajsa, International Marketing Instructor at DeSales University and Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) Team Advisor, visited the village of Cuchuma to meet the Quechua people and to learn about the International Heifer Project’s agricultural development efforts. Our students’ Christian values of human solidarity and compassion were activated by seeing barefoot men walking behind bullocks to plow the red clay soil in chilly weather, seeing the medicine man’s meager medical supplies, and experiencing the wonderful welcome and warmth of the villagers. Their brief, but powerful, experiences issued in initiatives that involved both the students who traveled to Peru and other SIFE members. Major projects included: (1) securing donated computers for the villagers and Heifer for access to Internet-based agricultural, medical, and other resources; (2) securing 12 donated lightweight plastic greenhouses - - these were shipped to Lima and the SIFE team helped assemble them in Cuchuma after an 18 hour drive; (3) securing, with help from Bucks County Agri-Tech School, both lambs and lambing equipment for the villagers; (4) raising money for micro loans and helping to identify candidates for start-up businesses; and (5) creating an import / export project with Peruvian artists and craftspeople, with proceeds going to Heifer at Cuchuma.
The Team used Cuchuma as the focus of its presentations in SIFE’s 2005 and 2006 national competitions. DeSales won regional championship both years, and showed well in national match-ups, besting powerhouses Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M. Mr. Krajsa, largely on the strength of the Cuchuma initiative, was named International Business Educator of the Year by the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs. Along with Michigan State, DeSales was recently mentioned in International Educator Magazine for innovative program design.
The recent accomplishments of DeSales University students Jonathan Andrews, Elizabeth Pfister, and Brian Radziwill - - all two-time Peru participants - - demonstrate the power of short-term international programs. All are now University peer advisors. Mr. Andrews was recognized as DeSales University Student of the Year for 2006. Ms. Pfister received the Academic Excellence Award in 2005, and shadowed the Director of the World Health Organization for the Americas for a week in Washington. Mr. Radziwill was elected President of the Student Government Association. All cite their relatively-brief experiences in Peru as essential to their remarkable development and soaring self-confidence. All other student participants rated their SIFE Peru experience as extremely meaningful - -transformative, for some.
Conclusion
Hybrid short-term abroad programs that provide intense cultural immersion, are dedicated to long-term community building and local empowerment, and are committed to interaction between students and locals long after the overseas experience, can enable participants to ascend well beyond Engle and Engle’s Level 1. In fact, apart from language learning, the DeSales University students in Peru were able to achieve Engle and Engle’s Level 5, the equivalent to international “self actualization” on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need. The authors urge increased research on such hybrid short-term international programs, with particular attention to the long-term educational, emotional and cultural impact on participants. Further, market-oriented research should be performed re: the potential for “branding” institutions through the work of student organizations in general and global social enterprise in particular. The co-curriculum may become as important as formal academic programs in marketing institutions and in creating the engaged learners that our missions envision and that global competition will demand.
Dr. Galen Godbey is Associate to the President for Globalization at DeSales University. Dr. Bill Hunter is the Lehigh University Representative to the United Nations and Director of the Global Union. He serves as the external auditor for the BIE Grant to Peru. Michael J. Krajsa is the Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Kutztown University’s Innovation Center at TEKPARK. Mike has led 4 Global Social Enterprise expeditions to Peru and is the recipient of the ACBSP 2005 Intenational Teaching Excellence Award. Dr. Mohamed Latib is VP for Program and Strategic Development at DeSales University.
Works Cited
Large-Scale Assessment of Student Attitudes after a Short-Term Study Abroad Program, Lisa Chieffo, Lesa Griffiths
Volume X, Fall 2004 Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad
A Qualitative Approach to the Assessment of International Service-Learning
Humphrey Tonkin, Diego Quiroga
Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, Volume X, Fall 2004
Study Abroad Levels: Toward a Classification of Program Types
Lilli Engle and John Engle
Volume IX, Fall 2003
Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad
Hulstrand, J., 2006, “Education Abroad on the Fast Track,” International Educator,
May/June.
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