Chronicle 16-17 Issue 04

8 The Chronicle November 1 - 7, 2016 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Campus
Going global is a priority for DC
Durham group
discusses
Peru trip
Dean Daley
The Chronicle
Travis Fortnum, a second-year
Durham College (DC) web and
print journalism student, describes
his recent trip to Trujillo, Peru as
“literally life changing.”
DC’s Peru project was the
school’s first international opportunity
for students to go to another
country through their program. In
this case the opportunity was only
offered to students in the journalism
streams, video production and
the culinary school.
Through a two–year partnership
that Durham has with Centro Experimental
de Formación Profesional,
a technical and vocational
college in Trujillo, an opportunity
presented itself.
After a four-week application
and interviewing process that Fortnum
describes as “stressful”, three
Durham students - Fortnum, Vik
Panjawani and Kyle Rist - from
the three different programs were
chosen to go to Peru. They left
Sept. 26 and returned Oct. 3.
According to Danielle Harder,
journalism professor at DC, the
purpose of the trip was to “enhance
the Peruvian school’s culinary
management program through the
expertise and curriculum of faculty
from DC’s Centre for Food.”
While in Peru, Rist shared some
Canadian recipes with his new
Peruvian colleagues and brought
some Peruvian recipes back with
him. Fortnum and Panjawani
worked together as journalist and
videographer to document the experience.
According to Katie Boone, Durham’s
manager of international
projects and partnerships, the project
was funded by the government
of Canada, facilitated through Colleges
and Institutes Canada and is
part of its Education for Employment
project.
The focus of the project is to link
graduate skill sets with industry demand
and to make sure students are
graduating with skills employers
want and need. The whole project
ends next March.
Boone believes international
opportunities, “build an incredible
self-awareness when you are
thrown into another culture, another
community, with different
expectations, different perceptions
on who you are both from outsiders
and from yourself that I think is a
really great learning opportunity.”
Boone isn’t the only administrator
who believes in the importance
of cultural opportunities.
Elaine Popp, Durham’s
vice-president academic (VPA),
says one of her main roles as VPA
is internationalization. Popp would
like students to have opportunities
to travel, study and learn abroad.
Popp believes students who
graduate from the programs at DC
should have great cultural awareness,
acceptance of different cultures
and cultural diversities.
According to Popp, our society is
very interconnected and it’s quite
often that companies communicate
with other countries on a daily
basis.
“India’s not that far away anymore,”
says Popp.
According to Popp, DC implemented
the International Education
office last year. Previously, the
International office looked at getting
international students to come
and study at DC.
The ‘rebranded’ International
Education office also looks at
ways for students and faculty to go
abroad and find ways to have global
experiences at home for students.
Popp says “it is now a priority
having international opportunities
for our students and our faculty. It is
now recognized as being a priority,
so it’s going to be given attention
and focus. It’s not something that
will happen ‘boom’ overnight but
we’ll work towards it and work towards
providing more opportunities
for these trips.”
Popp explains the trips may be
short, come in the form of internships,
or field placement opportunities.
She explains some trips may
even be exchanges - programs
where Durham partners with another
institution in another country
and DC accepts one of their
students and a DC student gets the
opportunity to go to visit the other
institution for a year.
With the new department in
place, within the next five years DC
will be looking at a different sort
of program. According to Popp,
the perfect example is a program
where students focus and learn
about global events and also get
opportunities to go to these global
events.