WISE Schedule

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2010
Noon – 1 pm	Registration
1:00 pm – 1:30 pm	Welcome & Opening Remarks
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm	Culture—It’s Not Just a Way of Life Many people have a stereotypical understanding of culture. Bill Roberts will cut through the cultural clutter to properly define culture, explain what constitutes cultural differences and discuss how misconceptions affect students.
2:30 pm – 3:30 pm	Cultural Issues at Home & Abroad Hear first-hand stories and lessons learned from students who have studied abroad. Moderated by Terry Baker, a panel of four Wake Forest students will share perspectives related to their experiences in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
3:45 pm – 4:00 pm	Break (coffee & snacks provided)
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm BREAKOUT SESSIONS	• Building Frameworks for Intercultural Competence Learn how to structure international experiences to ensure your students’ intercultural competence development. Darla Deardorff will discuss several frameworks for intercultural competence and how they can be applied to study abroad programs. • Tell Me, Show Me, Involve Me Ever considered having students train themselves? Mary Gerardy and Brighid Jensen have found this approach highly successful for preparing students for their international service-learning trips. Come hear how they developed their in-depth peer-led orientation and training programs.
5:15 pm – 6:15 pm BREAKOUT SESSIONS	• Competency Starts at Home Preparing students for an enriching program abroad starts at home. Kline Harrison will describe Wake Forest’s innovative, three-part, credit-based Intercultural Competency Program. Learn ways to help students prepare for intercultural learning, and develop your own detailed learning activity. • Survival Skills: Prepare Yourself for Intercultural Competency Going abroad and learning a culture can be shocking for your students, but what about you? You are not immune to culture shock, but you can minimize its impact with careful preparation. Penelope Pynes will guide you through some important steps so you can enjoy the most culturally-inspiring experience possible. • Connecting the Dots—Creating Culturally-Based Student Assignments Don’t miss this interactive session where you can brainstorm and ask about creating appropriate culturally-based assignments. Gary Miller will help you explore a variety of activities from informal interviewing techniques to objective observation and journaling.
6:45 pm – 8:00 pm	Dinner
8:00 pm – 8:30 pm	Group Discussions Small groups from the 5:15 p.m. breakout sessions will reconvene to continue discussions.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2010
7:45 am – 8:15 am	Breakfast for overnight registrants
8:15 am – 8:30 am	Overview All participants will meet for a brief overview of Saturday’s sessions.
8:30 am – 9:30 am BREAKOUT SESSIONS	• Breaking the Myth of Drive—Thru Fluency Many students studying a foreign language have “drive-thru” fluency expectations—they expect to become fluent in only a few weeks or months while they are abroad. Jane Albrecht will discuss more realistic expectations and the types of circumstances that facilitate rapid language acquisition. • Managing Safety Risks The question is not if, but when, you will encounter opportunities that pose safety risks. Sometimes you should press on through the situation; other times you should run. Steven Duke will address the need to balance safety with opportunities for cultural interaction. • Dos and Don’ts of Effective Study Tour Programs Many study abroad programs include excursions or study tours. Anders Uhrskov will assess the preparation and cultural elements that make these trips as culturally rewarding as possible and discuss how to integrate them into your program.
9:30 am – 9:45 am	Break (coffee & snacks provided)
9:45 am – 10:45 am BREAKOUT SESSIONS	• Helping Students Succeed in External Programs Guiding your students in their cross-cultural development is hard enough when you are with them. How does that change when an external partner is involved? Julie Scott will discuss ways to make collaboration with an external program as beneficial as possible for your students. • Understanding the Dimensions of Cultural Diversity In this session, Mike Lord will unravel the complex intersections of gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, spirituality and race and how different diversity attitudes can affect a student’s experience.
11:00 am – Noon BREAKOUT SESSIONS	• Experiential Programs: Bringing It All Together By taking questions and incorporating ideas from attendees, Steven Folmar will lead a participatory session on designing pre-departure activities for experiential programs. • Classroom-Focused Programs: Bringing It All Together What if your program primarily takes place in a classroom setting? How do you modify what you have learned to make it work? Join Byron Wells for a participatory session on designing pre-departure activities for these types of programs.
Noon – 1:00 pm	Lunch
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm	Taking it Home In this closing session, we will have a group discussion and propose concrete steps for implementing the new ideas and concepts you have learned.