The University of Guelph was announced today among the winners of the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) awards for U of G’s India field school.
U of G will receive the Panorama Award for Outstanding International Education Program in the academic category. The awards ceremony will take place during CBIE’s 50th anniversary annual conference Nov. 13-16 in Ottawa.
The Panorama Award recognizes innovation and excellence in design, planning, implementation and management of high-quality endeavours in international education.
Under the field school, students spend the winter semester in an on-campus course taught by political science professor Andrea Paras, covering such topics as intercultural competence, Indian and Tibetan politics, global citizenship, privilege and voluntourism. They then spend four weeks in India for intensive, community-engaged, experiential learning.
“The students also act as participants in our research on intercultural competency, so we can actually measure how the students evolve their intercultural skills over the program,” said Lynne Mitchell, director of the Centre for International Programs at U of G and a co-researcher on the project.
“The result is an innovative program that is interdisciplinary, sensitive to local host organizations, stimulating to students, and productive in its contributions to the research on teaching and learning in an intercultural context.”