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Study Abroad programs featured by ’IIE Networker’
3:57 p.m., Nov. 10, 2006--Lesa Griffiths, director of UD's Center for International Studies and professor of animal and plant sciences, and Lisa Chieffo, associate director of student programs at the Center for International Studies, co-authored an article that appears in the fall 2006 issue of IIE Networker, a magazine published by the Institute of International Education. On the new media front, Diane Henker, assistant director of UD's Center for International Studies, wrote and published an article that is featured in the current issue of the complementary web magazine produced and maintained by IIE Networker. Griffiths and Chieffo's article, “LIFE Abroad: A Unique Model for Study Abroad,” focuses on UD's LIFE Abroad Freshman Program, the study-abroad component of UD's LIFE (Learning Integrated Freshman Experience) Program. According to both Griffiths and Chieffo, the LIFE Abroad program serves a unique educational need. “In the fall of 2000, UD initiated an academic first-year experience called LIFE...[which] is designed to provide first-year students [with] a small learning community...organized around an interdisciplinary theme,” Griffiths and Chieffo wrote in their article. “Prior to 2000, the total number of freshman who studied abroad annually at UD was about 30. By the end of Winter Session 2006, 143 first-year students had participated in LIFE Abroad programs,” they wrote.
“There are several aspects of UD's Study Abroad Program that differentiate it from programs at other universities,” Griffiths said. “Our Winter Session program allows us to develop short-term programs for students, and there is virtually something for every major in terms of meeting [graduation credit] requirements. But an aspect that really sets UD's Study Abroad Program apart from those offered at other universities is that we don't just send students off by themselves. All of our short-term programs are directed by UD faculty who travel with the students.” Chieffo said that her belief in the educational benefits of a first-year study-abroad experience likewise impelled her to co-write the article. “Nationwide, not many freshmen go aboad,” Chieffo said. “In many schools, students can't study abroad until they're juniors, and here we are encouraging freshmen to go abroad and running two freshman study-abroad programs a year. Coupled with UD's LIFE Program, that provides a unique learning experience.” Henker's article, “A Global Business Model: Creating Programs Abroad for Business Students,” was inspired by yet another distinctive aspect of UD's Study Abroad Program, as well as by Henker's own conviction that an international experience provides business students with particularly valuable skills. “I absolutely feel that a study-abroad experience is an essential part of the curriculum for undergraduate students,” Henker said, “and I don't feel that enough schools are paying as much attention to this as they should. I'm glad that UD faculty place a high priority on studying abroad. I've had the pleasure of working with faculty in UD's Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics for the past five years, and their [study-abroad] model is so effective that I wanted to share it with others, which is why I wrote the article. No matter what country our study abroad business students choose, we feel that they are getting a valuable experience that prepares them for a career in business once they graduate.”
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