06/09/2015
Eight students at SUNY Cortland will visit Italy this summer to fine-tune their writing skills in covering the food industry.
The students enrolled in a variety of majors will join Professor John Hartsock, the author of the international award-winning non-fiction book Seasons of a Finger Lakes Winery, in Perugia to take his course, titled Wine Journalism at the Umbra Institute. His class is offered in partnership with SUNY Fredonia, the campus with the established link to the Italian host institution.
Meanwhile, SUNY Cortland is sending another eight undergraduates from a wide variety of academic majors to southern India to earn credits while helping their professor conduct research on public health at two orphanages. Associate Professor of Health Jena Curtis is working through St. Aloysius College in Mangalore and the Tribal Children’s Home in Kodaikanal to offer this hands-on learning opportunity among those cities’ poorest young citizens.
A third cohort of six undergraduates and one graduate student will arrive in tiny Belize on the eastern coast of Central America to immerse themselves in this country’s very different culture and environment while completing courses toward several different majors. The College’s new ties with the Center for Engaged Learning Abroad (C.E.L.A.) program promises to expand academic diversity in study abroad programs.
What do these three academic programs have in common?
All are new this summer. All are offered through newly developed partnerships with other universities or study abroad organizations. And each contributes to one of the highest numbers ever of SUNY Cortland students participating in summer study abroad: 108 compared to last year’s 102, according to Mary Schlarb, who directs SUNY Cortland’s International Programs Office.
“There’s a trend nationally: more students are participating in the short winter or summer programs rather than the semester-long ones,” she said. “They go for short, one- to four-week programs.”
In 2014, the College committed to join Generation Study Abroad, a nationwide effort to ultimately get thousands more American students to graduate with the international experience necessary for success in a globalized world. Reaching this goal means that by 2019, more than 28 percent of SUNY Cortland’s undergraduate and graduate students will venture outside America’s borders to expand their intellectual horizons.
“To that end, we are working to enrich the number of disciplines represented in our programs through the new C.E.L.A. program, which we first advertised last fall,” Schlarb said. “We’re trying to diversify the population of study abroad students with not just racial and ethnic but academic diversity.”
The C.E.L.A. program opens access to students enrolled in a broad range of disciplines, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), which traditionally are not well represented in the study abroad cohort.
C.E.L.A. is directed by the College’s Belize international internship coordinator, Nancy Adamson. For this newest program, Adamson places students in courses offered by Belizean instructors, sometimes with international collaborators. The program draws upon the expertise of that country’s universities.
Another recent development, Schlarb noted, is that many SUNY Cortland students are trying summer-long programs offered through the College’s or other SUNY campuses’ partnerships with other universities world-wide.
Also, at the Cortland campus much of the flow of students traveling overseas involves faculty-supervised “applied learning” programs for students, such as the trips led by Hartsock and Curtis, she noted. Traveling to another land with their professor as mentor sometimes encompasses the whole course and other times just the culminating experience.
Internship opportunities, both through the College’s longstanding Belize program as well as its more recent affiliation with Projects Abroad, explains much of the more recent travel.
Through Projects Abroad, this summer six students will work in locations all over the world in developing countries. The hands-on learning programs can be in the areas of teaching, internships, volunteering, conservation, healthcare and sports.
A non-profit internship provider, Projects Abroad prepares students for their internship with language study if needed and provides an onsite coordinator, Schlarb said.
“It began with several students going to Project Abroad on their own, but we are able to partner with the program so that they will get academic credit,” she said. “They will have a faculty mentor here and a supervisor in the host country. Students still can do independent internships and get credit, but this way Projects Abroad helps vet the experience they are getting. Projects Abroad’s knowledge of the host setting and on-the-ground support mitigates risk.”
Meanwhile, the Belize internship project continues to grow in interest with nine summer participants, including John Kriegelstein, a junior majoring in international studies, who is trying his hand at radio and television programming and production at Love TV/Radio; Jonathan Moore, a junior international studies major, who will join Belize Red Cross in the areas of AIDS information awareness and disaster management; and Jenna Mrozinski, a senior community health major, who is assisting with outreach, awareness and training at the Belize Cancer Society.
Certainly the interest in study abroad has grown since the whole process of students reviewing study abroad program descriptions and submitting applications has moved online, Schlarb said.
More than 100 more students than the prior year applied after the process went digital last fall.
Many of the students looked beyond SUNY Cortland for the actual academic program, Schlarb noted. Besides through SUNY Fredonia, the institutions included through Stony Brook University, SUNY Geneseo, University at Albany, Binghamton University, SUNY Brockport, SUNY Geneseo, SUNY Farmingdale, SUNY Oneonta and SUNY Oswego.
“Any SUNY student can go through any SUNY program, and some of our students are going through other programs and students from other colleges are coming through ours,” Schlarb said. “We have all the procedures for registration and transferring credits in place. It’s relatively seamless.”
The trend for students to use established overseas programs reassures that students have enrolled in legitimate, reliable and compatible academic ventures, Schlarb said.
“We know they have been vetted,” she said. “We’re happy for any student to go through any program, whatever meets their academic needs or interests.”
Scholarships Aid in Overseas Learning Opportunities
This summer, 40 of those 108 students received a SUNY Cortland scholarship to offset the cost of their academic work in another country.
Ten of the students earned the Uschald Study Abroad Scholarship, created in 1991 in the name of Willi A. Uschald, professor emeritus of foreign languages and director emeritus of international programs at SUNY Cortland. Uschald Scholarships are open to students accepted to a study abroad program who are U.S. citizens. Summer 2015 awardees received between $500 and $750.
The awardees and their programs are as follows:
Three students will study in Mangalore, India, with the India: Research in Public Health class:
- Chelsea Dimyan, a senior physical education major from New Fairfield, Conn.;
- Carolyn Encarnacion, a sophomore chemistry major from Bronx, N.Y.; and,
- Gabrielle Mastrogiovanni, a senior community health major from Rochester, N.Y.
Two students will complete internships in Belize:
- John Kriegelstein, a junior international studies major from Seneca Falls, N.Y.; and,
- Jonathan Moore, a junior international studies major from Syracuse, N.Y.
Two students will study in the Umbra Institute program offered in Perugia, Italy through SUNY Fredonia:
- Krystal Vega, a senior communications studies major from New York, N.Y.; and,
- Emily Wheeler, a junior communication studies major from Syracuse, N.Y.
The remaining students will pursue academic work as follows:
- Jahtayshia Davis, a senior African American studies major from Brooklyn, N.Y., will participate in SUNY Cortland’s Summer in Ghana program;
- Shanice Green, a senior childhood education major from Valley Stream, N.Y., will take part in a program in Australia called Summer: Australian Education in the Outback and Tropical Coast; and,
- Ivy Senke Starowicz, a sophomore childhood education major from Manlius, N.Y., will experience a winter/summer program in Belize with the C.E.L.A Center for Engaged Learning Abroad.
Thirty recipients were awarded Overseas Academic Program (OAP) scholarships, reserved for students accepted in a study abroad program. The scholarship is for amounts between $200 and $1,000 for summer recipients.
Four summer 2015 OAP scholarship recipients will study in Mangalore, India, with the India: Research in Public Health class:
- Laura Hill, a senior exercise science major from East Islip, N.Y.;
- Meghan McGovern, a junior sociology major from Manlius, N.Y.;
- Melissa McKeveny, a senior exercise science major from Holbrook, N.Y.; and,
- Amanda Sibbitts, a junior biomedical science major from Homer, N.Y.
Three scholarship recipients will complete internships through the Projects Abroad Program:
- Kadeeja Fredankey, a junior biomedical Science major from Brooklyn, N.Y., in Bolivia;
- Nicole Mattia, a sophomore speech and hearing science major from Kings Park, N.Y., in Thailand; and,
- Brooke Stevens, a junior psychology major from Manorville, N.Y., in Jamaica.
Three scholarship recipients will pursue different programs offered through SUNY Brockport:
- Devin Cerise, a junior history major from Garden City, N.Y., for a summer internship in Dublin;
- Melissa Vasquez, a junior psychology major from Westbury, N.Y., to document the culture of Western Europe; and,
- Gabrielle Zaccour, a junior early childhood/childhood education major from Brockport, N.Y., to experience the Food and Culture of Athens, Greece.
Two scholarship recipients will participate in SUNY Cortland’s Summer in Ghana program:
- Beesanne Kurzum, a sophomore sociology/anthropology major from Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; and,
- Alexandra Walker, a junior political science major from Speonk, N.Y.
Two scholarship recipients will take part in a program in Belize with the C.E.L.A Center for Engaged Learning Abroad:
- Allyson Baraban, a junior biology major from Melville, N.Y.; and,
- Bethanny Jolly, a sophomore biology major from Geneva, N.Y.
Two awardees will study in the Rome, Italy program offered through Stony Brook University:
- Marie-Marcelle Benoit, a sophomore childhood education major from West Hempstead, N.Y.; and,
- Cormier, a sophomore communications studies major from Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Two awardees will study at the Universidad Veritas in Costa Rica:
- Danielle Diaz, a junior business economics major from Mount Sinai, N.Y; and,
- Abigail Merz, a freshman outdoor recreation major from Rochester, N.Y.
Two awardees will study at University College Cork in Ireland:
- Caitlyn Caswell, a junior speech and hearing science major from Clifton Park, N.Y.; and,
- Megan Sullivan, a junior business economics major from Seaford, N.Y.
Two awardees will study the Italian language and civilization of Rome, Altomonte and Florence, Italy, through a program offered through SUNY Oswego:
- Samantha DiTaranto, a senior psychology major from Farmingdale, N.Y.; and,
- Teresa Quartironi, a senior communication studies major from New Rochelle, N.Y.
Two students will study in the Umbra Institute program offered in Perugia, Italy through SUNY Fredonia:
- Morrill Makenzie, a junior communications studies major from Ontario, N.Y.; and,
- Alyssa Ackerman, a junior communications studies major from Apalachin, N.Y.
Two scholarship recipients will pursue different programs offered through the University at Albany:
- Christina Losier, a junior communications studies major from New City, N.Y., for study at Regent's University School of Fashion and Design in London, England; and,
- Kaitlyn Altamura, a junior English as second language major from Honeoye Falls, N.Y., for study in the AIP Language Institute Summer Studies program in Valencia, Spain.
The remaining awardees will pursue academic work as follows:
- Kelli Grossmann, a sophomore art major from Miller Place, N.Y., for study in the Ireland: Dingle Summer Art program;
- Nicole Guzman, a junior early childhood/childhood education major from Yorktown Heights, N.Y., for study in the six-week Spain: Spanish Language Culture course offered in Malaga and Madrid, Spain, through Binghamton University;
- Iva Markicevic, a junior adolescence education: English major from Cortland, N.Y., for study in the Summer Spanish Language and Culture Studies at Cuzco, Peru program offered through SUNY Geneseo; and,
- Jenna Mrozinski, a senior community health major from Tappan, N.Y., for a summer internship in Belize.