Dear Colleagues
Apologies for cross-posting and to those outside the UK or not concerned with student mobility. In the UK, there is a severe threat over Government funding to support students going abroad for study or on work placements during their undergraduate degree.
UCML is working with the British Academy to demonstrate urgently the value of the year abroad. If you might be able to help, please read and disseminate the message which follows - many thanks.
Elizabeth Andersen
UCML rep for Germanic Languages
Dear Colleague,
The Value of the Year Abroad
UCML is working with the British Academy and ThirdYearAbroad.com on a project to demonstrate the value of the year abroad to UK graduates. We are seeking to gather short reports from recent graduates – whether language specialists or not – on the importance that the year abroad has had for them.
I’m sure I don’t need to stress the importance at this moment of demonstrating publicly and robustly just how valuable the year abroad is for our students. There is a great deal at stake in terms of funding support.
The British Academy will use edited extracts covering different destinations, placement types and career paths for a Position Paper, and for a high-profile launch event at the British Academy in March 2012, involving international participants and UK opinion-formers from Government and business. UCML will make all appropriate submissions available on ThirdYearAbroad.com, an online resource in support of the year abroad, with access via the UCML Facebook page as well as the UCML website.
We are looking for:
- Brief written accounts, in English, up to 500 words
- Videos and audio podcasts, up to 2 minutes in length.
We need student accounts to cover:
- First name, degree title, university and year of graduation
- A thumbnail sketch of my year abroad – where, type of placement, duration
- What I got out of it
- Job on graduation and subsequent career path
- Further use of skills gained during the year abroad
- How the year abroad has enhanced my subsequent life (not just employment)
Please set your graduates the deadline of 9th December to fill in the online survey on www.thirdyearabroad.com/graduates, in order to meet the British Academy’s deadline of 23rd December.
All featured entries will be covered by a non-commercial, non-modification Creative Commons licence, allowing departments to repost/re-use videos and texts. Inappropriate language or content will invalidate an entry.
Please use all means at your disposal to maximise contributions. Your Alumni Office will probably have contact lists which will complement your own. If other departments in your university also send students abroad, please get them involved too – the year abroad brings benefits to graduates of all disciplines and we need to show that. There is no direct reward for contributing, but we are confident that graduates will themselves want to speak of what their year abroad has meant in their lives.
Written reports should be submitted online via www.thirdyearabroad.com/graduates, and audio reports can be sent, as email attachments, directly or via your department to [log in to unmask]. Links to videos hosted on YouTube or Vimeo, along with the required information about the graduate, can also be sent to this email address.
Many thanks for your support in helping UCML, the British Academy and ThirdYearAbroad.com to promote the year abroad at a time when its funding is under threat.
Jim Coleman,
Chair, UCML
James A. Coleman MA PhD FHEA FCIL FRSA Chevalier des Palmes Académiques
Professor of Language Learning and Teaching, Department of Languages, The Open University, UK
j[log in to unmask] +44 1908 659909
Editor-in-Chief, System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/335/description#description
Chair, University Council of Modern Languages
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