POST 188/IIS 100: External Studies Colloquium

Fall 2001 Syllabus

Friday 12-3 BH 214

Instructional Team

Nigel Boyle Office: Scott 217 Tel: 909-607-3770 Email: nboyle@pitzer.edu Office hours: MW 11-12, W 1-3

Carol Brandt Office: Scott 110 Tel: 909-621-8308 Email: carol_brandt@pitzer.edu Office hrs by appt: book open in Scott 110

Tim Jones Office: Bernard Core Tel 909-621-8308 Tim_Jones@pitzer.edu Office Hours by appointment

This course focuses on the integration, deepening and broadening of the affective and cognitive learning experienced through external study.  It is designed as a workshop to provide the occasion, skills and methodology for additional reflection on and critical analysis of your particular external study experience. Intercultural understanding—one of key goals of external study—is not easily acquired.  It does not come automatically with travel and cross-cultural activity but must be thoughtfully, and sometimes painfully, drawn out of life-experiences.  Using knowledge about culture (general and specific) enables us to be more deliberate and consequent about cultivating intercultural awareness.  To do this we must develop and reliably employ a set of competencies related to effective cross-cultural communication. 

In this class we will try to see those competencies collectively as a kind of “intercultural literacy”, which can help us decode the complex alphabet of cross-cultural interaction and learn to construct and use intercultural perspectives. Through a series of writing, research and multi-media projects and related presentations and discussions, you will have the opportunity to

• expand your knowledge of the country and culture in which you have been immersed and of the cross-cultural learning process,
• develop a focused proposal for a fundable follow-up study, research or volunteer project in your host country/culture or in another country/culture
• reconsider, reinterpret and reframe previous associations, meanings and conclusions from your experience against a deliberate model of culture and intercultural understanding
• acquire and employ IT skills to more effectively organize and present to others important, appropriate and salient information about your host country/culture and the intercultural learning process
• exchange (which involves receiving more often than sending) insights, questions and concerns with other sojourners about the nature of external study/intercultural learning experiences
• put your external study experiences into a comparative framework and work with other students to help define what sort of institutional objectives Pitzer college should have for intercultural learning
• make use of (and further develop) your learning by teaching it to others in the Pitzer and local communities (and in doing this, you give back to your own community, while demonstrating respect and appreciation  to those who helped you learn)
• adopt the role of a “public intellectual” (see Aeon Skoble “Lisa Simpson and American Anti-intellectualism”) by submitting an op-ed piece to a newspaper/journal

Class Format

This course will generally follow a workshop model of organization, where all participants accept a significant responsibility for contributing to the learning of the group.  There will be little “talking head” lecturing, and class sessions will consist of multiple activities, which will require regular attendance and active participation.  While the instructors and others, including the students, will make presentations, these will tend to be interactive and generative rather than teacher-centered.  In addition to the in-class activity, students will be expected to complete assigned readings, assignments and tutorials, on which the success of the class will depend.  

The class meets 12-3 on Fridays. This constitutes “lunch time” for Carol and Tim, “dinner time” for Nigel and, it is rumoured, “breakfast time” for some students. In any case, the class will start at noon (sharp!) with a conversation over a meal prepared by class participants. Each student will have responsibility for one such meal, ideally something that reflects the country/culture from which you have returned. Cooking skills will not be graded but related cultural interpretation skills will.

We expect you to keep a journal during the semester and make entries in it several times a week. This will allow you to document and explore, at a personal level, the process of re-entry and subsequent rediscovery of who you are in this society.

Required Materials: Semester subscription to the Financial Times ($29 for daily world-news paper delivered to your dorm). At the start of each class a lottery will be held to determine which student will give a 5-minute presentation on that week’s news from “their” country/region.

Requirements and Evaluation

20% In-class: journal, in-class writing assignments, meal talk and participation

20 % Proposal: grant or project proposal related presentations

20% Cultural Ambassador Project: multimedia presentations to class and local school

20% Public Intellectual Project: op-ed article and related activities

20% Group Intercultural Project: developing a proposal for institutional goals for intercultural learning to be shared with Pitzer External Studies Program Directors

Semester Schedule

Week 1 September 7 (Carol provides food)

Theme: Reflecting on the External Studies Experience.

In-class writing and discussion exercises will be undertaken. Preliminary discussion of “Fulbright” and other fellowship ideas will take place.

Week 2 September 14 (Nigel provides food)

Theme: Intercultural Skills and Understanding: where to next?

Guest: Sandy Hamilton, from the Dean of Faculty’s office, on the mechanics of Fulbright applications

1. Read the articles by Milton Bennett.
2. Prepare a 5-minute oral news summary of a top story featured in primary news sources of the country/region in which you studied (who, what, when, where, why, and your sources), how the story played out in the mainstream U.S. media (if at all), any background information class members might need to understand the importance of the issue. (This assignment will recur each week).
3. Bring pictures, materials, souvenirs etc. from your ES experiences for a “show and tell”
4. Review the websites for grant possibilities, starting with the following:

http://www.iie.org/fulbright/ (Fulbright)

http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/fellowships/watson.html (Watson)

http://www.iie.org/pgms/freeman-asia/ (Freeman)

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/icenter/orc/scholarships/rotary.html (Rotary)

http://www.rhodesscholar.org/ (Rhodes)

http://www.acu.ac.uk/marshall/bms_geninfo.html (Marshall)

http://www.gates.scholarships.cam.ac.uk/ (Gates)

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2001/index.cfm?docid=3050 (Gilman)

http://www.iie.org/nsep/ (National Security Education Program)

http://www.coro.org/programs/fellows_program/fellows_program.html (CORO)

http://www.echoinggreen.org/ (Echoing Green)

http://pdsoros.org/ (Soros Fellowships for New Americans)

http://www.us-irelandalliance.org/mitchell/index.html (Mitchell)

http://www.amscan.org/award.htm (American-Scandinavian Foundation)

5. Identify country(ies) and topics for Fulbright Proposal.
6. Tim Jones will introduce Cultural Ambassador Project

Week 3 September 21 (Tim provides food)

Theme: cultural ambassador

1. Teaching about cultures and countries: content and pedagogy
2. Teaching about cultures and countries: technology and technique
3. Technology workshop: powerpoint, web and videostreaming.
4. First draft of personal statement and Fulbright project proposal due. These materials must be presented to the Instructors, at least 2 faculty/advisors, at least 2 peers and one former Fulbright scholar (contacts will be provided by Nigel).

Week 4 September 28

Theme: Fellowship workshop

Presentation of revised drafts of fellowship proposals. Oral and written critiques of peer’s work due.

Week 5 October 5

Theme: Extending the External Study Experience to the Local Community: Guidelines for Successful School Presentations

Guest: Jackie Purdy, Site Director for Claremont International Studies Education Project

Completed Fulbright proposals are due (to Pitzer Research and Awards Committee).

During the week of October 5-12 students must visit the school at which they will make a presentation. Students will meet their partner teacher, meet the students and sit–in on a class.

Week 6 October 12

Theme: Connecting Global to Local

Guest: Marie Sandy, Director of Pitzer in Ontario

Read Giroux, “Insurgent Multiculturalism and the Promise of Pedagogy.”

Topic and materials to be used in cultural ambassadors project to be submitted.

Week 7 October 19

Theme: Cultural Ambassadors Presentations (bumper session – class will run from 12 to 5)

Students will present completed draft presentations to the class (or portions thereof)

Week 8 October 26

(No class meeting, students will meet individually with Instructors regarding their presentations)

Student Presentations in schools will commence.

Week 9 November 2

Theme: the public intellectual

Guest: Nina Mason, Director of Pitzer’s office of public affairs

Students will present from collected samples of op-ed pieces, offering critiques of both content and technique

Week 10 November 9

Theme: Students as teachers

Students will make a presentation about the country on which they are to write an op-ed piece.

Week 11 November 16

Theme: rethinking intercultural learning

What are Pitzer’s institutional goals for intercultural learning? What should they be? How do we get there? Outline of the group project will be developed. A plan for interacting with Pitzer External Studies Directors will be developed. This interaction must be initiated by November 21.

Thanksgiving Break

Week 13 November 30

Theme: memorandum to External Studies Committee and President Massey

Guests Marilyn Massey and members of External Studies Committee

A formal memorandum with detailed recommendations will be finalized. This is a document which would ultimately go to College Council for adoption by Pitzer College.

Week 14 December 7

Theme: public presentation

Op-ed pieces are due. They must also be submitted to a newspaper or journal. The pieces will also be presented at a public forum (or fora) at Pitzer.

Week 15 December 14

Theme: Final Reflections