Beyond Academics – Developing Local, Community-based Experiential Learning Opportunities for International Award Students Seminar
- Date:
- 15 November 2016
- Venue:
- Southampton Education School Building 32, Room 2097
For more information regarding this seminar, please email Torhild Hearn at T.Hearn@soton.ac.uk .
Event details
At the start of the new millennium, UBC created the International Scholars Program (ISP) as a means for students from around world with demonstrated financial need, academic excellence, engagement in various co-curricular pursuits, and global and local leadership the opportunity to study at the university without being hindered by the costs of market-rate tuition and living expenses.
In the summer of 2014, given the socially conscious nature of students selected for this awards program there was an opportunity to examine how ISP students were engaging beyond academics and what could be done to deepen students’ connections to local Metro Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) communities and social issues while furthering learning and supporting academic excellence, community engagement and leadership, the three program pillars.
We explore the development of a co-curricular community-based learning component of this awards program. We take a program development perspective in the discussion of the structure and delivery of this program and offer some of our reflections as planners, practitioners, and researchers of the program as we have developed both a year-1 and year-2 component of the program.
We aim to share and elicit feedback from scholars, practitioners, and students on our experiential education process model and associated curriculum that supports international student learning and their capacity to work with local communities effectively and appropriately. Finally, we offer our perspectives on how changes we have made will promote the broader socially-oriented aims of the awards programs, and on how community-based experiential learning might enhance the employability and networks of international students in Canada and beyond.
Speaker information
Peter Wanyenya , University of British Columbia. Peter Wanyenya has roots in eastern Africa and also calls Toronto, Ontario home. He currently serves in multiple student-centred roles at the University of British Columbia and in several local and national organisations that are children and youth focused. Peter is driven by core values of equity, diversity, and intercultural understanding and draws from his deep commitment to these values to work towards passionate and positive social change.