Launched in 2023 as a collaboration between MSU's Alliance for African Partnership (AAP) the Center for Global Learning and Innovation (as the Global Youth Advancement Network and the Office for Education Abroad), the COIL Faculty Fellows Program-Africa is currently promoting global learning between MSU and African institutions part of the AAP Consortium.

Below, we are happy to share more information related to some recent academic presentations and engagements about global learning and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL).

Forum on Education Abroad's 2024 Careers, Internships, and Global Learning Conference & 8th Europe, Middle East, and Africa Conference: Oct. 13-18 (Athens, Greece)

The historic Athens Conservatoire​​​​ was the venue where two Forum on Education Abroad's conferences happened this year: the Careers, Internships, and Global Learning (CIGL) Conference (Oct. 13-15) and the EMEA Conference (Oct. 16-18). Hosted by College Year in Athens, these two conferences allowed attendees to share their innovative ideas, learn from one another, and discuss the pivotal role of higher education in preparing students for global careers.

Opal Leeman Bartzis (Assistant Dean for Global Learning and Innovation and Executive Director of the Office for Education Abroad) and Leticia Cherchiglia (GYAN Faculty Liaison & Program Coordinator) attended both conferences, and presented a session titled "Developing a COIL Faculty Fellows Program through US-Africa Partnerships" together with Daniel Makini from Egerton University (Kenya), one of the appointed COIL African Campus Coordinators of the COIL Faculty Fellows Program-Africa.

Daniel's participation was sponsored by GYAN, after a competitive selection process which was open to all five African COIL Coordinators from cohort 1. We were very pleased to have him join us at the EMEA Conference so he could share first-hand updates about the upcoming COIL project between faculty fellows Benard Oloo (Egerton University) and Teresa Bergholz (MSU), in addition to how COIL is currently positioned at Egerton University.
 

Additionally, Bartzis and Cherchiglia met with MSU graduate student Nolan Rachocki at the CIGL Conference. Given his position as a Fulbright English Language Assistant in Switzerland, he was able to fly to Greece to attend and serve as a youth volunteer at the CIGL conference.

During his time at MSU, Nolan has been involved in various international programs, including working with the Office for Education Abroad and serving as a student representative in the Spartan Global Learning Initiative, a university-wide enterprise to capture and advance global learning at MSU. 

On behalf of GYAN, we wish both Daniel Makini and Nolan Rachocki all the best in their professional careers and we commend them for their efforts in advancing global learning.
 

2024 International Virtual Exchange Conference: Oct. 21-24 (online)

IVEC is "the largest and most prominent event on virtual exchange, providing a forum for an audience of instructors, administrators, instructional designers, and educational leaders from institutions around the world interested in technology, international education, and new pedagogies". This year, their annual conference was hosted by the IVEC Board of Directors as a fully virtual conference via Zoom Events, in a mix of asynchronous and synchronous opportunities for engagement.

Cherchiglia was involved in two presentations at IVEC 2024:

• "Advancing COIL Through MSU's COIL Faculty Fellows Program": an asynchronous flash session in collaboration with Bartzis and MSU Associate Professor Antoinette Tessmer (Dept. of Finance, Broad College of Business), who is also a faculty fellow of the COIL Faculty Fellows Program-Africa (cohorts 1 & 2);
   
• "Emerging Voices in International Virtual Exchange and COIL": a roundtable facilitated by the COIL coordinators at the Durban University of Technology (South Africa), who also served as external experts during the training offered as part of the COIL Faculty Fellows Program-Africa (cohorts 1 & 2).

AAC&U’s 2024 Conference on Global Learning: Oct. 24-26 (Washington D.C.)

The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) offered, through its 2024 Conference on Global Learning, a space for students, educators, administrators, and policymakers to engage in thought-provoking conversations on how to reimage global learning in our interconnected world.

Bartzis and Cherchiglia, together with Anjam Chaudhary (Director of DEI Programs, International Studies and Programs), presented a session titled "Reconceptualizing Global Learning at a Large Public Institution," where insights about the design and implementation of MSU's Spartan Global Learning Initiative were shared. Additionally, COIL was presented as one possible solution to advancing global learning in higher education institutions, given its clear connection with curriculum internationalization practices and positive benefits to students and faculty (such as the development of global competencies, gain of intercultural awareness, etc.)

2024 African Studies Association Annual Meeting: Dec. 12-14 (Chicago)

The African Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting is the world's largest gathering of Africanist scholars, featuring every year more than 300 panels and roundtables with an attendance of over 2,000 participants.

This year, Cherchiglia was kindly invited by Grace Davie (Queens College, CUNY) to join a roundtable titled "Connecting Institutions through COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning)." Other panelists in the session were Davie's COIL partner Tochukwu Okeke (University of Abuja, Nigeria) and Rebecca Hardin (University of Michigan), principle investigator of an open tool for collaborative learning called Gala.

Through this roundtable, attendees were able to learn more about how COIL can be used as a tool for strong cultural exchange between U.S. institutions and African institutions, and how such knowledge can be shared publicly in the form of case studies, hence helping advance COIL scholarship.