This past week Dr. Ryan Dye, our SAU Director of International Programs, joined me in Cuenca. Ryan was here to work with the CEDEI staff on a new contract between our two institutions. For the past several years we have been experiencing a major decline in the number of students who are willing to come to Ecuador to study. This year we have been meeting on campus to explore ways that we can modify the Spring in the Andes Program such that it will be more attractive to our students. We have talked about “rebranding” the program so that students can spend a semester in Ecuador and meet a number of their “general education” requirements for graduation. This will mean making some changes in the curriculum that is offered through CEDEI. Some of the ideas being considered include:
1. Students will be required to take a minimum for five credits of Spanish while studying in Cuenca. This means that they will have to take Spanish the entire semester. Our feeling is that if you are going to be living in a Spanish-speaking nation, then you need to become more comfortable with the language.
2. Another requirement for SAU students would be to take a course we are tentatively calling “The Ecuador Experience”. During their stay in Ecuador, the students travel extensively throughout the country and visit a number of historic sites and museums. We are proposing that they go beyond simply visiting these places and reflect on what they are seeing, and doing. This would be a three credit class that would transfer into SAU as a Humanities gen. ed.
3. One of the more exciting proposals is the creation of an “Outdoor Pursuits” option for students. This would be a two credit Kinesiology (P.E.) course where the students would overnight camp in Cajas National Park (currently the students spend a day hiking in this magnificent mountain park), spend a day “canyoning” (exploring local canyons in wet suits wading in the mountain streams and climbing waterfalls), another day rock climbing on the cliffs near Paute, and a day of horseback riding. Several of our current students have expressed a keen interest in taking a course like this, and if I were younger, this is one I’d jump on!
4. Currently CEDEI offers a “Latin American Art” class that transfer into SAU as an Art History course. Unfortunately what many of our students need is a creative arts class. Since a local artist teaches the current class, we are suggesting the addition of a painting class to meet that need.
5. Other courses under consideration include: Race & Culture, Theology, Philosophy, Catholic Studies, and Physical Geography. The key to the addition of these courses will be that CEDEI can locate qualified instructors.
Our “rebranding” is going beyond simply adding courses to the curriculum. Also under consideration is the reintroducing of a trip to the Galapagos Islands. Four years ago, when I first came to Cuenca, this was our “spring break” trip. However increasing costs caused CEDEI to change to the jungle trip that is now a feature of the semester. What is being “bandied about” is moving the jungle trip to the start of the semester and putting the Galapagos back into its previous slot during the mid-term break. While this would be an exciting change, it would mean an increased cost to the students. The people at CEDEI and Apullacta (the travel agency that organizes the trips) are currently assessing how much this change would cost the students. Our feeling is that even though the semester cost would increase, students would find this change very appealing.
When Ryan left on Friday to fly back to the QCA, we were very excited about what has been mapped out. Now all that has to happen is that we “jump a couple of hurdles”, and we can begin to “market” what has been a very good program for many years as something that will appeal to a larger audience. It is Ryan’s hope that we can host meetings with students in early May.
