Joan Gross
Oregon State University
2016 Intercultural Learning Community with Oregon State University
The goal of this learning community is to gather a multicultural group of people (undergraduate and graduate students, professors/instructors and community members) who are passionate about food and social justice and who are interested in joining with others to learn more about cultural aspects of food, food systems and alternative food movements in Oregon and Ecuador. Through cross-cultural dialogue, collaboration, and experiential learning, participants will further develop their knowledge, social networks and their capacity for engaging food systems issues as global citizens, rooted in local realities. In addition, past participants all reported an increase in their communicative competence in Spanish or English.
The group will be composed based on the following criteria
- ability to enlighten the group about some aspect of the food system
- gender equality
- cultural diversity
- age diversity
- generosity of spirit
Program Cost:
US-based participants – $2110
Ecuador-based participants – $1710
This does NOT include tuition, transfer fees, airline ticket, miscellaneous meals/entertainment, passport or visa fees for Ecuadorians. Some scholarships are available.
Tuition:
Before beginning the program, participants must take the 4 credit Oregon State University online course “International Perspectives on Food Systems” (FCSJ 454/554). The cost of this course is $1120 for undergraduate credit or $2084 for graduate credit. Community members (including professors) who are not interested in transcript-visible university credits will be able to take a version of the course. OSU students will sign up for 6 credits of FCSJ 422/522 in Fall term 2016 to cover the 180 hours of field study and reflection exercises.
Credits, Certificates, Professional Development:
Every participant who successfully completes the program will receive a Professional Certificate in Food, Culture and Social Justice offered by the School of Language, Culture and Society of Oregon State University. Students who are enrolled in Oregon State University can count the credits towards either an undergraduate certificate or a graduate minor in Food in Culture and Social Justice. We will gladly work with other universities to establish equivalencies.
Professors, instructors and other community members will be supplied with a letter delineating the professional development aspects of the program that they can submit to their directors. We will encourage directors to compensate participants with a course down, airline tickets and other program costs.
Important Dates:
- November 13, 2015 – Deadline for applications
- December 15, 2015 – selected learning community participants are notified
- January 8, 2016 First installment of $100 is due for participants
- March 15, 2016 – Scholarships will be announced
- April 15, 2016 – The remainder of the bill is due
- July 18, 2016 mandatory meeting for Ecuador group (must have passport, visa, travel insurance and airline ticket by this time. It’s possible to meet by skype)
- October 28, 2016 mandatory meeting for Oregon group (must have passport, travel insurance and airline ticket by this time. It’s possible to meet by skype)
The tentative dates for the program are August 30 to September 13, 2016 for the field stay in Oregon and December 9 to December 23, 2016 for the Ecuador field stay. You are expected to be available for the entire field stays in both Oregon and Ecuador and to participate in certain exercises online following the two field stays.
The application and cost breakdown are available at http://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/feature-story/2016-intercultural-learning-community-0
