Business : Community colleges to welcome 20 instructors and administrators from Indonesia

FROM INDONESIA TO AMERICA: Community colleges to welcome 20 instructors and administrators for skill-building stint in U.S.

Once more, educators from afar will call America home as they study new instruction methods with a side of U.S. cultural understanding.

That is the goal of a new exchange program funded by the U.S. Department of State and coordinated by Community Colleges for International Development. The pilot program will begin in the summer of 2011, with another two years of continuation based on funding availability.

The $500,000 award will support the 20 educators’ travel, coursework and other expenses for each of the planned three years of the program. Highline Community College in Washington State and Kapi’olani Community College in Hawai’i will host the educators in the pilot year of the new project. Kirkwood is the host institution for CCID, and both entities will co-manage and administer the Federal grant supporting the program.

Participating Indonesian educators and administrators will come from the country’s polytechnic schools, similar in structure and mission to some U.S. community colleges.

CCID National Director Dr. Carol Stax Brown said the project is a an outgrowth of a successful exchange project that brought more than two dozen Egyptian educators to the U.S. in the 2008 and 2009 academic years.

“The educators from Egypt attended nine months of training in our country, then returned with this newly gained knowledge that we hope will enrich teaching and learning in their country,” she said.

Kirkwood’s and CCID’s success in administering that program along with the expertise of Highline and Kapi’olani provided a strong proposal for the Indonesia project.

“We are pleased to expand our involvement with Indonesia via this new program, a country that has been sending an increasing number of students to the U.S. for the past three years through the Community College Initiative program. This new program focused on faculty and administrators will assist the nation of Indonesia in building the quality and capacity of their polytechnic educational system. As with our other parts of this effort, this exchange will have a positive impact on these multinational partners of our country as they continue to internationalize their campuses and curriculum,” Brown said.

Since 2007, CCID and Kirkwood have welcomed more than 1,000 students through the Community College Initiative, sponsored by the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. A fourth cohort of international scholars is now studying at Kirkwood and 28 other community colleges throughout the U.S. Fifteen nations are represented in this most recent cohort including India, South Africa, Pakistan, Cameroon, Ghana, Brazil, Egypt and several others.

More information on Community Colleges for International Development is available on the organization’s website: www.ccid.kirkwood.cc.ia.us