Fanshawe goes global

Globalization is becoming a reality for Fanshawe College.

Gregg Erauw, international project specialist in Fanshawe's International Department, and Bruce Wilson, assistant manager for International Partnerships, recently helped create partnerships with post-secondary institutions in Bosnia and in Russia.

Based on Fanshawe's International Business Strategy developed in 2004, one of its goals was to create more international student exchanges.

“For the next year Fanshawe is going to have fourteen scholarships available to students wishing to go on exchanges,” Wilson said.

Wilson also said the development of IT summer camps was suggested to the College by St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University in Russia, for international students to visit Fanshawe for up to four weeks at a time.

“The hope being that the students would receive certificates for the camps and entice them to come here (Fanshawe),” Wilson said.

Wilson and Erauw both said that there are many benefits for students wishing to join a student exchange program and most of the past students involved came away with very valuable experiences.

“They bring back their own personal experience of the world, finding out that it is bigger then the four counties… and they can see the political and social culture of a country not through the eye's of CNN or Time magazine,” Wilson said. “On a personal level I think it makes them a better person. It may lead them into a different area of interest for a career, it adds to their resume, or it may spark them to learn a new language.”

While in Bosnia, Erauw and Joran Velikonja, professor in Environmental Technology at Fanshawe, took part in a study tour of the Zenica area, facilitated a workshop for the founding of an Institute for Environment and Sustainable Development and completed a memorandum of understanding between the University of Zenica and the College.

“We are hoping to have assistance in future development projects and also future student exchange programs,” Erauw said.

During his trip to Russia, Wilson, among others, studied the various International Education programs offered by the St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University in IT and International Business.

“They (St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University) have a lot of well established student exchange programs already so it is foreseeable that our students at Fanshawe will go there someday,” Wilson said.

The International department is working to advance exchange opportunities and seek out potential development projects with the new partners. Fanshawe anticipates a return visit by both the University of Zenica and St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University to discuss future plans.