The following article is by Carol Lowe, McLennan Community College, with contributions from several community college educators. The piece reflects the work of the TCCTA Publications Committee, and is designed to share experiences related to educational opportunities abroad for students, including in the field of service learning. The article will also appear in the April Messenger. Readers are invited to respond to this post, to initiate an online conversation on the subject.
From twenty-two years of teaching at McLennan Community College, I have three classes of students I know will never forget Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.” Why? Because we read and discussed the poem sitting in the beautiful ruins of the abbey, surrounded by the sights and sounds the poet described—one of the highlights of my teaching career. While the rewards of travel study are invaluable for students and teachers, as described in the following articles, teachers planning such a venture need to be aware of the regulations governing international study travel, the risks of traveling with students, and the time-consuming work of planning such a trip.
Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board Regulations
Section 3 specifies first that Study-Abroad and Study-in-America courses must be approved by the Commissioner if the contact hours generated are used for formula funding reimbursement. The certification form is available online at
https://www1.thecb.state.tx.us/apps/StudyAbroad. An institutional FICE code and a password issued by the Coordinating Board (available from Rhonda Jenkins at
rhonda.jenkins@thecb.state.us.us.) are needed to access the form.
Other regulations state:
- Enrolled students must be admitted to the college and pay tuition and fees;
- Instruction must be provided by faculty of the institution;
- Courses must be from the approved course inventory;
- Credit must not be given “for activities undertaken primarily for travel, recreation, or pleasure”;
- Standards for classes must meet all standards for on-campus classes, including minimum enrollment, length of class, and academic standards;
- State funds must not be used for faculty or student travel, meals, lodging, or incidental expenses;
- Travel, meals, or accommodations provided by travel agents, hotels, or other service providers may be used only in direct support of the program (not given away).
Legalities and Liabilities
In addition to meeting Coordinating Board requirements, instructors might wish to consult their college’s attorney, and certainly the appropriate administrators, for advice on liability waivers and other liability issues. Consider transportation (even to and from the airport), physical and mental health issues students may develop, criminal actions involving or against students (everything from under-aged drinking by students to sexual assault accusations to stolen passports, credit cards, and cash), and even who would be financially responsible for getting students home should a booked airline go bankrupt and cease flights.
While study travel can be an enriching, enlightening experience for students and faculty, instructors need to deal with the sometimes less than pleasant realities of being totally responsible twenty-four hours a day for the safety, health, and well-being of their students. Such contingency plans, approved by the college, should be presented clearly to students and, when applicable, their parents.
With Co-Board requirements met and liability issues resolved, faculty still face a myriad of arrangements to make, both academic and day-to-day living: local transportation, daily itinerary, meals, lodging, entrance fees, local guides, acceptable locations for “class meetings.”
The following brief articles share the joys of travel study. And the delights are real—faculty simply need to recognize the responsibility and difficulties that accompany the experience.
—Carol A. Lowe
McLennan Community College
Service Learning at
Lone Star College–Kingwood
Lone Star College–Kingwood provides students with many international travel learning opportunities traditionally unavailable through a two-year college education. These programs are carried out under the umbrella of the Lone Star College System International Programs and Services office. The system’s international efforts include international exploration for American students led by faculty, service learning initiated by students, internationalizing the curricula, faculty exchanges, or collaborative partnerships with international governments or universities abroad. International travel is fully supported by Lone Star College System campus and the system office. Grants designed to encourage international activities are available through the Study Abroad Student Scholarship program and the Faculty International Explorations Grant.
Lone Star College – Kingwood students have been performing service learning in the Philippines as part of a cooperative effort between Cherith Letargo of the geology department and Brian Shmaefsky of the biology department who is also service learning coordinator for the college. The overall goal of the Philippines service learning project is to conduct international service learning opportunities as an honor’s program component that integrates geology with service learning. Dr. Letargo and Dr. Shmaefsky formed networks in the Philippines so students can study geology in an area known for diverse geological features that result in natural disasters affecting the health and well-being of people. They both developed a service learning component that teaches students how to use their academic skills to help improve the lives of people displaced and made indigent by natural disasters. The outcome of the travel is for students to study natural disasters in the Philippines and then work on projects with the non-profit Gawad Kalinga organization to restore communities devastated by the natural disasters. The project was recently awarded the prestigious Environmental Protection Agency “People, Prosperity and the Planet Program Grant” that encourages students to focus on sustainable energy solutions.
—Brian R. Shmaefsky
Lone Star College–Kingwood
Spanish Study in Mexico at
McLennan Community College
International travel provides learning experiences that cannot be duplicated by reading textbooks or taking a class. Reading about cultures helps in understanding others, but actually living the culture is better. In our Spanish travel study program in Mexico, students live with families, not in student dorms or hotels, learning the family’s language and culture and acculturating themselves to the host country. For foreign language students, hearing the target language in context and in everyday situations helps them improve their skills much faster.
In addition to improved language learning, visiting a foreign country and living with its people can lead to two positive attitudes: students learn to appreciate the United States much more, but at the same time, they learn to accept and appreciate the differences in the two cultures. Not everything is best in the U.S., but students will not know that unless they are exposed to other possibilities. Although culture shock is possible, most students tend to get over that after about two weeks, if they experience it at all. An outcome more likely than culture shock is tolerance of differences, stress reduction due to a calmer pace of life, and an increase of physical exercise through walking rather than driving. Given American students’ affinity for fast foods on a U.S. campus, even diet changes can be considered a health benefit!
Although study abroad is a costly experience, it can enhance a student’s job prospects or aid their admission to competitive graduate and professional schools. A student’s experiences in international travel will result in a lifetime of great memories, whereas so many other material—and unnecessary—things that our students spend their money on in this country will be thrown away or forgotten in a year or two.
For instructors, taking students abroad can be stressful as they are faced with much more responsibility than in teaching a class at the college. Accidents, alcohol poisoning, emergency operations, and students not getting along with their roommates are all problems that might be faced, but, fortunately, they do not happen often. What the experience can mean to the instructor is that it is a type of adventure than can invigorate you when you return to your campus!
—Dan Paniagua
McLennan Community College
Teaching in the Sahara
As a young teacher heading out on a great adventure, I could not have imagined what I would meet on the other side of the world. The labels North Africa, Muslim world, and Sahara Desert conjured limited ideas in my mind. I had always been excited about “foreign” opportunities, and here was the golden one. I quickly accepted a teaching position in a small gas field in the middle of the Sahara Desert. I applied for a visa, packed my bags, and within three weeks, I was teaching English at an isolated work site surrounded by impressive sand dunes.
All my students were Muslim men. Most were over 40 and had never studied English before. Few had ever had contact with an American woman. I thought it would be a difficult road to gain their acceptance and their respect as I knew the cultural differences between the U.S. and Algerian are extreme.
Despite the cultural differences, I found a group of people who not only accepted me as their English teacher, they took me in and treated me as a daughter, as a sister.
Following are some of their (unedited) good-byes to me.
—Kelli Klier Ebel
Paris Junior College
Dear Teacher,
I want say good bye to you ,I will never forget you, let me thank you for your assistance and all your efforts teaching me English language .I hope that you have enjoyed the work at REB.I wish you good luck in your life and in your new job in USA.
* * *
Madjidi
Thank you
Thank you for your hard work with us ,
Thank you for your passions with us
Thank you for your help to us
Thank you for all the time had spent with us
Thank you for all things from you because it was very nice and from a noble woman
* * *
Thank you Miss KELLI for your help to all in teaching us good English with an easy and quick method.
Through your method, we have a good view about USA and other countries with different cultures.
* * *
Hi Kelli ,your words hit straight the Heart , and they can’t be read without generating some kind of mixture feelings .
personnally I feell proud and sorry by the same time . Proud to have a chance to get you like a teacher and sorry to not have a possibility to continue .
But this is the way the life is made , it’s difficult for everybody to be separated from a certain environnement not only a peoples but also a land especially the desert land which has a possessive attraction .I’m not going to writte you a novel in this subject ,but believe me ,lot of western citizens coming in here , even like a tourists or scientists to visit Southern Algeria ,especially Tamanrasset & near by ,after they finish their business or holidays ,they stay there and never go back . May be because Africa is the mother of Humanity ,according to the history it is the continent where Adam& Eve had seen the day .
Learning About Ourselves
in Foreign Cultures
Over about a ten year span while teaching English and Spanish, I planned, recruited, and traveled with several groups of students to Spain, England, Ireland, Scotland, and South America. Each trip was an adventure of learning more about our subject and ourselves.
Traveling on the first tour bus in years to go to Northern Ireland was both terrifying and exhilarating. But taking ten lovely young women to Africa on a ferry from southern Spain was one of the most memorable events of my travels. We were surrounded by escorts as we walked the streets in Morocco, obviously tourists in a strict Arab country. But we established a common bond with a woman in the restroom who was draped and wore a birka. She said nothing to us, but as some of our group laughed at the hole in the floor that served as a toilet, her shoulders began to shake and her eyes danced. We included her in our revelry, and she joined in silently but obviously enthusiastically.
The people of the countries we visited provided the real education. Who could forget the angry old man in a side street of Madrid who wanted to be our guide, but said he refused to visit the gallery of Picasso’s paintings. When we told him that we wanted to see Picasso’s works, especially Guernica, he began to rant and curse in Spanish, telling us not to go. Obviously, the savagery of the Spanish Civil War was still fresh in his mind. It began to fill ours as well.
Seeing the Amazon River from the air and walking Ipanema Beach provided breathtaking vistas. We walked in jungles and rode a boat under Iguazu Falls, but enroute to an estancia (ranch) in Argentina we heard the name of our destination, Santa Susana. Santa Susana! We had just watched an episode from our textbook video collection about that ranch and a gaucho named Cirilo. Could it be? It was. We ate lunch, visited, and had our pictures taken with Cirilo in the same location that we had first seen him onscreen.
And probably that is the point of traveling with students. Help them learn about people in diverse places and see that basically we are all very much alike. Avoid touristy locations and opt, instead, for visits to local places to talk to real native residents. Talk to them in their language and try to understand. For it is in sharing that we become rich and in giving that we receive.
—Lillian Cook
Panola College
