Italian Classroom Program for Education Students Wins International Acclaim

Clemson University and the University of Kansas have earned international acclaim for a program that puts future American teachers in Italian classrooms for a month each spring.

The Institute of International Education will present the IIE Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education for a study aboard program called “Maymester Study Abroad in Capri, Italy for Education Majors.” The award will be presented in a ceremony at the United Nations on March 19.

The Clemson-Kansas program put 37 students from four universities in Italian classrooms last May. Clemson recruited additional students from the College of Charleston and the University of Kansas recruited more students from the University of Missouri.

Most of the students are early childhood or elementary education majors, though a few are majoring in secondary education or special education, according to Clemson’s David Reinking, Eugene T. Moore Professor of Teacher Education and director of the program at Clemson.

All students take a non-credit introduction to basic Italian before going to Italy, but there is an added benefit to the Americans who find their Italian skills lacking, according to Reinking.

“We want our students to experience a situation where they do not understand everything that is occurring in a classroom,” Reinking said. “We believe, and we have some data to support this belief, that it will make them more empathetic to English as a second language students in their future classrooms.”

The course, now it its ninth year, is designed so that American students can participate in and learn about Italian culture by living with a host family while observing and taking part in the education system.

The program earned the Heiskell Award for providing future teachers with the global skills and disposition necessary to effectively manage cultural differences in the classroom. The Heiskell Award was established to promote and honor the most outstanding initiatives being conducted in international higher education among more than 1,000 member institutions in the Institute of International Education network.

About the Award
The Institute of International Education created the Andrew Heiskell Awards in 2001 to promote and honor the most outstanding initiatives that are being conducted in international higher education by IIENetwork member universities and colleges.

The goals of IIE's Heiskell Awards are: to foster innovative ideas that will help international education professionals create and sustain new opportunities for students and faculty; to bring international education to the forefront of education policy; and to stimulate public awareness of the benefits of study abroad and international educational exchange.

By recognizing excellence and innovation, the Institute hopes to support IIE Network members in their endeavors and to signal a new and important role for international education on campus in the 21st Century. We are particularly interested in highlighting initiatives that remove institutional barriers and broaden the base of participation in the international elements of teaching and learning on campus.

Andrew Heiskell Awards are presented in four categories: internationalizing the campus, study abroad, international exchange partnerships and study abroad at the community college.

The award will be presented in New York on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 in conjunction with the 4th Annual IIE Best Practices Conference.