“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things,” wrote Mark Twain, “cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” He was writing about travel in general, but his words apply equally to the time-honored practice of broadening one’s mind through studying abroad. But stepping away from one’s daily obligations for any length of time — not to mention the prohibitive costs of pursuing such opportunities — means that most community college students will never have that chance to experience another culture up close. Here in Ulster County, however, the Cooperative Online International Learning (COIL) program at SUNY Ulster Community College offers students a global learning experience without ever having to leave home.
Students enrolled in a COIL class collaborate with students attending a university in another country, each guided by their respective professor. The students study each other’s culture, then work together on a project, communicating through Skype, Facebook and other apps. The classwork culminates in a presentation from both groups at the end of the semester.
The (COIL) program at SUNY Ulster “opens up the possibilities for our students,” says Alfred Ragucci, adjunct professor of business at the school. “The best part about it is when students get frustrated, because of language differences and time differences; because that’s what they’ll experience when they’re working in business and they’re dealing with people overseas. The frustrations and problems are actually the learning experience.” In working outside of their comfort zone in a situation where they have to figure out how to communicate effectively with their team members to get a project done, he adds, the students are getting an experience in the global economy.
The COIL model involves instructors working together to generate a shared syllabus based on academic coursework, emphasizing experiential and collaborative learning. Ragucci, for example, partnered with Brazilian professor Ana Colenci to teach principles of business management, with six groups of students divided between the two countries. Three groups developed a product to market in Brazil with the other three working on a product to sell in the United States. The American students who were marketing in Brazil asked the Brazilian students their views of the product’s possibilities, and those students did the same with the Americans. In order to decide what product to offer, the students studied the other country’s culture, demography, government, politics and economy.
“Dr. Colenci and I created the class like an organization,” Ragucci says. “We tried to make it as realistic as possible. We met once a week by Skype. We had team leaders and a CEO, with she and I chairmen of the board. When problems inevitably arise, they go through the chain of command. The team leaders deal with it first and if that doesn’t work, it goes to the CEO, and if that doesn’t work, then she and I communicate and see if we can work out the problem.”
Colenci , a professor at Fatec São Carlos, Brazil, visited the SUNY Ulster campus on Monday, January 9 to receive a certificate of recognition for her contributions to the COIL program.
Twelve COIL classes in a variety of disciplines were offered in the fall semester at SUNY Ulster — more than at any other community college in the state — and Ulster was the first of the SUNY community colleges to participate in the COIL program. In the ten years the program has been in place, there have been 44 collaborations between the school and eleven countries: Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Greece, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, The Netherlands, Scotland and South Africa. So far, 627 students at SUNY Ulster have participated in the COIL program with 238 involved in an academic travel program.
Participating in COIL classes often spurs the desire in students to travel and learn foreign languages, says Hope Windle, who heads the instructional design office at SUNY Ulster, specializing in creating learning opportunities through the COIL program. “It’s opening up the concept of what they can do that they didn’t even think about before, which is really heartwarming.” The students get to learn about the culture of a place in much more tangible ways than they’d have the opportunity for otherwise, she says, and they often tell her afterward that they come away from COIL coursework with a very different — and improved — perception of the country they collaborated with.
Many of the SUNY students who traveled to Mexico with their design class, for example, she says, were astonished to learn about the rich history of art in that country. Another COIL group included several students here who were vets of Iraqi conflicts, who were reluctant to participate with a group of students in Lebanon until they realized how much more they had in common than they had differences. “One of our students was a volunteer firefighter, and one of theirs was working for Syrian refugees. And one of our students was looking at women’s rights and the situation there for women gave him more empathy. So with every project, there sort of blooms a new recognition of a different facet of why doing international studies is so important.”
COIL classes have included studies in communications, genetics, design and fine art. For Christopher Seubert’s second-year portfolio development class, his art students partnered with a cultural competency course in Japan. The class focus was on communication, he says, with the Japanese students already possessing good English-speaking skills but benefitting from developing their cultural understanding of the U.S. “That was one thing the American students were able to critique and work with them on,” he says. As for his students, “the better they can communicate with others, the stronger work they can develop. We came together over some common topics and subject matters, and were able to develop a presentation and present to one another.”
In many cases, the rural students of Ulster County find themselves relating to urban students in places like Amsterdam and Beirut, Windle says, which adds another dimension to the learning experience. Professor Ragucci says that in his business management courses, he has frequently heard from his Ulster County students that they’ve only traveled as far as New York City, and even then, just a time or two. So COIL studies, he says, are “an eye-opening experience.”
The projects that the groups of students collaborate on do sometimes fail in the original intention. “But even when the project falls flat,” says Ragucci, “the students still get a lot out of the learning experience.” Windle agrees, noting a COIL collaboration with a school in Belarus, when the American students were unable to get an entrepreneurial project off the ground due to restrictive government regulations there and difficulties relating to the students, who read and wrote in Cyrillic. “That was a total eye-opener to them. But even though they weren’t able to do the project, the students still got an understanding of different governments and different ways people do things.”
For faculty members who participate in COIL programs, it offers opportunities for team teaching, professional development, intercultural competency and travel and language incentives. Thirty-three Ulster faculty members have participated in the COIL program up to this date, with nine going on to involvement with the school’s academic travel program.
This summer there will be a COIL program with students from Mexico, Brazil and The Netherlands working with Ulster students on a business entrepreneurial challenge, says Windle. The session begins in June and the students will meet face-to-face from July 3-17. The course will be taught by SUNY Ulster’s Mindy Kole and two professors from The Netherlands.
The COIL program has received $24,000 to date in grants. “We’re fortunate in that the president and vice president of this school understand the importance of this for our students,” says Windle. “There’s also a push nationally – specifically in SUNY – to look at diversity and do something about it. Intercultural competence is one of those buzzwords right now, and COIL is a great combination of applied learning and intercultural competence. It’s ticking all the boxes for our students to engage in something that is hands-on and something that’s intercultural.”
More information about the COIL program is available at coil.suny.edu.
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