By Sharron Hannon
Student participation in international education programs--including study abroad and
exchange programs--has grown steadily in the past several years and is projected to top  1,000 students during the coming academic year, according to David Coker, associate vice president, Office of International Education.
But a key to continued expansion is to have “coherent” programs that are integrated into academic programs and not just ancillary, Coker told the Institutional Strategic Planning Advisory Group at one of the group’s recent breakfast sessions.
“We need to look at the curriculum as new course proposals come forward and ask what the possibilities are for international education,” he said.
Currently, UGA students have the opportunity to participate in some 60 international programs--some offered by UGA, others by other University System institutions or through affiliations with other institutions or consortiums.
Of these, study-abroad programs attract the most participants--with the most popular being existing UGA programs in Oxford, Cortona and Verona.
The expansion of the Oxford program from a spring and summer program to UGA’s first year-round residential program offers opportunities for increased student participation. Meanwhile, several new student-exchange programs are getting under way, primarily in Japan and Korea.
 Coker hopes to offer a “shopping mall” of choices to suit a variety of interests, and wants students and faculty to view international experiences as “more than a side trip.”
He also wants to see students seek travel experiences that are interdisciplinary.
Coker predicts that participation in international education programs will grow by at least 15 percent over the next few years.
“I’m not worried about reaching a saturation point,” he says.
To plant seeds with incoming freshmen and transfer students, orientation groups will have a session on international education starting this summer.
But getting a statistical handle on the percentage of students who graduate with some international experience is not possible at present because such data is not collected on transfer students. Coker would like to see that information tagged.
|
|
