The University of South Carolina, in conjunction with the Education Abroad Office, is honored to host the Forum on Education Abroad Standards of Good Practice Workshop on March 3rd, 2017.
According to the Forum on Education Abroad’s website, “The Forum’s institutional members include U.S. colleges and universities, overseas institutions, consortia, agencies, provider organizations and foundations. The Forum focuses on developing and implementing standards of good practice, encouraging and supporting research initiatives, and offering educational programs and resources to its members. Its mission is to help to improve education abroad programs to benefit the students that participate in them. It is achieving this goal by establishing standards of good practice and quality assurance programs, improving education abroad curricula, and promoting data collection and outcomes assessment, all to advocate for high quality education abroad programs.”
Throughout the year, the Forum invites institutions of higher learning throughout the U.S. to host workshops surrounding their Standards of Good Practice. These workshops are complimentary to the national conference held each year in March, and are conducted with the hope that staff who are unable to travel to the national location will still be able to attend a regional workshop, such as the one at USC. For instance, attendees are coming to South Carolina not only from the Southeast, but also Arkansas and Massachusetts.
The two sessions that attendees can choose from at the USC workshop are titled Health, Safety, Security and Risk Management and Student Selection, Preparation, Code of Conduct and Returning Support. According to the event website, “Health, Safety, Security and Risk Management will provide the tools to assess and improve health and safety protocols. After examining the data available (including The Forum’s Critical Incident Database), workshop participants will consider how this specific Standard works in conjunction with the other Standards to guide programs in developing a solid risk management plan. Participants will practice applying different approaches to risk management as they discuss actual case studies from the field.” Additionally, “Student Selection, Preparation, Code of Conduct and Returning Support will help participants identify resources and design programming in these areas. Topics include a comprehensive judicial screening process, different preparation and returning support models and developing strategies to improve existing practices in participant’s specific context.” Each session qualifies as a Forum Certification Workshop and will be facilitated by Kevin Morrison, Director of the International Center at Macalester College.
The deadline for attendees to register for the workshop is February 23rd, 2017. Anyone who is interested in attending should contact the Education Abroad Office at 803-777-7557.