On the Move - Louisiana Community and Technical College System

“O
nce again, it was a life-changing experience for
our students,” said Louisiana Community and
Technical College System President Dr. Joe May
about the 2012 Salzburg Global Seminar.
“That’s not an overstatement,” May continued.
“The 17 students from Louisiana who participated
in this year’s seminar will continue to benefit from
their experiences in ways they cannot yet imagine.”
For the fourth consecutive year, Louisiana
community and technical college students
and faculty members had the opportunity to
participate in the Salzburg Global Seminar, a
prestigious event held annually in Salzburg,
Austria. The seven-day program convened
community and technical college students from
the United States to discuss and explore pressing
global issues.
Selected by their colleges, the students participated
in intense workshops and informative lectures
in which they interacted with international
scholars with expertise in global economics,
environmental policy, politics, culture and
more. A faculty session took place later in the
summer with an emphasis on how to bring
global perspectives into the classroom in order
to prepare students for work and citizenship in a
global economy.
Pondering everything from women’s rights to
the European Union, from the Arab Spring to
water quality, community college students found
themselves face-to-face with some of the most
important international issues of the 21st Century.
Faculty members also studied these issues, and
learned new ideas for bringing global awareness to
their classrooms.
“We watched our students have these incredible
‘aha’ moments when they discovered that their
point of view is not the only one out there,” said
Dr. Derrick Manns, LCTCS vice president of
academic affairs and institutional research and a
faculty advisor on the trip. “With so much going
on in the world right now, they had a number
of eye-opening moments that really broadened
their perspectives.”
The Salzburg Global Seminar is one of the
signature projects of the Foundation for
Louisiana’s Community and Technical
Colleges. This year’s sponsors, including
the Dow Chemical Company, Shell,
Northshore Community Foundation and
founding donor AT&T, enabled the largest
number of students yet to participate: 17
students and 14 faculty and administrators
from seven different Louisiana community
and technical colleges.
“The reason we were so interested in supporting
this is that it takes these young people and
gives them a global perspective,” said Stacey
Chiasson, Dow public affairs director. “The
backbone of our operation is a two-year
degree professional, but we need that person
26 | Moves Magazine