Bronx Community College of the City University of New York Selected to Receive This Year’s $20,000 CIEE Access Grant
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CIEE is pleased to announce that it has awarded its 2018 CIEE Access Grant to Bronx Community College of The City University of New York (BCC/CUNY). BCC/CUNY was founded in 1957 to meet the growing need for access to higher education in the borough of the Bronx. The $20,000 grant will support an innovative cultural and sustainability program in Palma de Mallorca and open doors for BCC/CUNY students who have never studied abroad.
CIEE’s Access Grant recognizes innovative programs that increase access to international educational opportunities for students in groups that are traditionally underrepresented in study abroad.
Dr. Neal Phillip, chairperson and professor of the Chemistry and Chemical Technology Department at BCC/CUNY, will work with CIEE’s Faculty-Led & Custom Programs team and Antonia Ferriol, resident director of CIEE’s Study Center in Palma de Mallorca to create and execute the program.
Students from BCC/CUNY will travel to Palma de Mallorca and take part in an intensive program designed to monitor the effect of weather, climate, and water quality on the local ecosystem.
Dr. Phillip also intends to introduce the students to the concept of Collective Social Learning (CSL), to “see how, as concerned world citizens, we can positively impact fragile environments and ecosystems through positive behavioral changes.” He applied for the grant hoping to provide underserved students from BCC/CUNY a firsthand look at how they can impact the global environment through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and civic engagement. According to Dr. Phillip, “Our students largely come from low-income, urban communities and would not otherwise have the opportunity to study in Palma de Mallorca.”
In addition to gaining a greater appreciation for the environment and the opportunity they will have as STEM professionals to protect fragile ecosystems, Dr. Phillips believes students will also come away “with life-long cultural and global civic skills from their interactions with the people of Mallorca.”
The CIEE Access Grant is part of CIEE’s Generation Study Abroad pledge to break through the barriers of cost, curriculum, and culture to double the number of students from all backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and majors who study abroad by 2020. More than 250 grant proposals were submitted by colleges and universities across the United States, including more than 50 from minority serving institutions and almost 40 from community colleges.
“CIEE is honored to partner with BCC/CUNY as the recipient of the CIEE Access Grant to support our shared goal to increase access to international learning opportunities for all students—especially for students from Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs),” said Dr. Maritheresa Frain, executive vice president of Study Abroad, CIEE. “We are excited to bring together the challenges of science, research, and intercultural learning to provide this unique group of students with the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to be successful in an increasingly competitive global workplace.”
The first CIEE Access Grant was awarded to Northshore Technical Community College (NTCC). Based in Louisiana, NTCC used the grant to develop a faculty-led program in Sharjah and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for freshmen and sophomores pursuing STEM degrees. The program, which ran in January 2016, focused on providing workforce training and industry credentials relevant to NTCC students’ future employment, as well as intercultural skills training to help prepare them to enter the global economy following graduation.
The 2017 grant was awarded to Tennessee State University (TSU) to fund an innovative faculty-led study abroad program led by Professors Rebecca Dixon, Ph.D., and Jennifer L. Hayes, Ph.D., in Paris, France, titled, “Intersecting Lives: Reading African-American Literature through a Black Feminist Lens.” Students applied a black feminist critical framework to examine the historical contexts that led African-Americans to travel abroad to resist levels of oppression in the United States. The program ran in June 2017.
For more information about CIEE’s Faculty-Led & Custom Programs, visit: https://www.ciee.org/faculty-led-study-abroad/