Thursday April 19th, 2pm

"Before you go: preparation for crossing cultures"
Jane Edwards, Associate Dean for International Affairs, Yale College
Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall

Yale has made it a primary goal to prepare students for leadership and service in an increasingly interdependent world, and as one strategy plans to provide an international experience for all undergraduates. This points to an assumption many of us share: that simply spending time abroad can have a transformative effect. Given the widespread expectation that experience abroad should now be part of a liberal arts education, it is interesting to consider some questions about how cross-cultural encounters function, and examine the extent to which students abroad really engage with other cultures. As we think about our students’ travels, we can also reflect on our own: how effectively do we engage with the societies we visit, and what is the best preparation for this engagement? Murder mysteries set in Sicily or in China, ethnographic accounts of travelling up the Amazon, sad but funny French movies, a Canaletto exhibition – how can we use the rich resources around us to deepen our own experience and to understand that of our students?

All are welcome

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