Weâd like to find out more about your experience and feelings of working here. Weâve written a short online questionnaire about intercultural and international aspects of working at the university and would be very grateful if you could complete it.  You can answer as much or as little as you want. It will remain open until midnight on Friday 6 May.
Itâs for ALL staff, wherever you work and whatever your role. Â Please click on the link below to go to the survey:
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Hi Jill! Can
you tell us about your role in the ICS Project?Â
I initiated the project with Ali Dickens. My main role has been to develop the training for academic and professional services staff. The workshops for academic staff focus on how to get the best out of multicultural student groups, looking at aspects which can be challenging, such as group work and participation. The workshop for professional services staff explores cultural awareness and intercultural communication.  I also co-organised the conference that we held in April 2015. As well as this, my role includes arranging the lunchtime seminars for staff. These give colleagues across the university the chance to disseminate best practice or research more widely. The topics covered so far have been the Business Schoolâs Peer Support programme for PGT students; how internationalisation of the curriculum can be developed;  and a presentation on the curriculum innovation module Intercultural Communication in a Global World and its sister module Intercultural Communication. Iâm also working to try to develop the staff network
What kind of response have you had from around the university?
The response from staff has generally been along the lines of âthank goodness there is finally a way of connecting with others in our situationâ. The workshops and seminars give colleagues an opportunity to share best practice, and a sense of relieve that that they are not struggling with the challenges alone. Itâs been heartening to discover some of the wonderful intercultural events and projects around the university, and to help raise awareness of these.
What would you like the legacy of this project to be?
We received funding for two years, and only have a few months left. We hope that collaborations and networking will continue, which is why we are keen to develop the staff network as a way for colleagues to contact each other. We have a dedicated page on our website for this.  I also think itâs critical that we continue to run the workshops â we have seen that demand is there, and shows no sign of decreasing yet. Ultimately I would like to see âthe interculturalâ embedded in everything the university does, so there is no need to have a project on the topic!
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On Saturday the 6th Feb, we ran the âWelcome to Our Worldâ festival on Avenue Campus. With 6 zones and almost 40 different activities for the audience to participate in, the festival involved more than 50 contributors, 20 student helpers and attracted in excess of 300 attendees!
Throughout the course of the day, festival goers enjoyed a mix of storytelling performances, dance workshops, language tasters and international craft activities. The Confucius Institute contributed a great deal to the day, supplying Calligraphy and Beijing Opera Mask activities as well as a very popular Chinese Tea Ceremony session later on in the day. Various SUSU student societies also gave festival guests many opportunities to engage in intercultural exchange, with the Japanese Society providing a very popular Origami workshop, Mexican Society entertaining everyone with their traditional Mexican games, Quiz Society setting challenges with their International Quiz, stimulating and informative sessions from AIESEC and Debating Society and wonderful performances from Salsa Society, Capoeira Society and SUSingers.
The festival was also enriched by the contributions of local Southampton individuals and groups who also provided talks, performances, workshops and, certainly in the case of Bat2k, some brilliant noise! One of the aims of the Festival was to strengthen Southamptonâs intercultural ties not only throughout the university but also in the wider community, so to have such valuable contributions from local people, as well as many members of the local community attending the event, meant a great deal to the Festival Team and facilitated intercultural exchange throughout the city.
On our return to the office today, the Festival Team have been looking through the feedback forms completed by those who attended the festival. Â Amongst the comments we received were âA great day- went in a flash!â, âA great event- please repeat!â and âExcellent! Please continue to hold similar events!â. In addition to the various positive comments we received in person on the day, weâve also received many emails from university staff commenting on the success of the festival and received some lovely coverage in the Southern Daily Echo.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who participated in WOW, the volunteers, the contributors and all those who attended. It really was a great day of making connections across cultures.
Do make sure to have a look at our Facebook Page in the coming days to see more festival photos, entries to the postcard competition, contributions to the recipe swap and more!
Filed under Events, Festival News, News
