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The Scarlet & Black

The Scarlet & Black

College Creates Grant for International Travel

Ever wanted to spend a week in Prague with Professor Anatoly Vishevsky? Or maybe you were inspired by Social Justice Prize Winner Rabbi Weintraub and want to go help her in Palestine. Or what if instead of a swim team training trip to Florida during winter break, they went to Australia? Well, now all of these opportunities are available with the establishment of the International Co-curricular Travel Program (ICCTP). The Center for International Studies and the Office of Social Commitment announced this week that they are approaching the Budget Steering Committee to establish a grant that would allow groups to travel internationally starting next year. Proposals for travel next year are due November 21 to Lynn Stafford. The grant is a part of the college’s effort to “internationalize” the many parts of campus Grinnell.

“We wanted to add specific ways to invite the college community, students faculty and staff, to think about how do we take the really good work that we do outside of the classroom and add an international component to that as well,” said Doug Cutchins, Director of Social Commitment.

The college funds course-embedded travel such as Biology Professor David Campbell’s trips to Belize in the past or German Professor Dan Reynolds’ and Art History Professor Jennifer Anger’s course, Berlin: Borders and Transgressions, coming up this next semester, and given the success of programs like Alt-break within the United States, the jump to international travel seemed natural. Former President Russell Osgood began working on the idea and putting aside money to fund it in response to student desire.
“It was President Osgood’s idea, sparked by student interest so we had a trip to Nicargua that the college funded for students a few years ago where students just decided they wanted to do this and kind of ran around, hat in hand, to a lot of different offices, trying to round up the money, and we’re trying to make that easier. We want to say, ‘That’s a good idea, let’s do this in a bit more organized way and in a way where we encourage everyone to think about this at once!’” Cutchins said.

One of the components that Cutchins hopes groups seize upon are the connections that exist already between the campus and the world, from obvious sources like Grinnell Corps and the Social Justice Prize to any contacts that professors or students have around the world.

“We very specifically and intentionally made the deadline about three weeks after the social justice prize winners are here on campus to encourage people to think about talking to the social justice prize winners—is there a way we can connect this with that.”

The costs of the program will vary depending on the project.

“We’re trying not to have people limit their imagination by dollar amounts or stretch their imagination to meet a dollar amount,” Cutchins said.

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    FrankOct 5, 2011 at 11:14 pm

    So this is why tuition is so high…

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