| Developing intercultural and internationalisation activities

by Caitlin Meredith | March 2, 2016 · 2:31 pm

Interview with Jill Doubleday, CPD Developer, Intercultural Connections Southampton

Hi Jill! Can you tell us about your role in the ICS Project?

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 School’s 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. I’m 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 ‘thank goodness there is finally a way of connecting with others in our situation’. 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. It’s 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 it’s critical that we continue to run the workshops – we have seen that demand is there, and shows no sign of decreasing yet. Ultimately I would like to see “the intercultural” embedded in everything the university does, so there is no need to have a project on the topic!

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by Caitlin Meredith | February 9, 2016 · 5:46 pm

WOW Festival- A Success!

On Saturday the 6th Feb, we ran the “Welcome to Our World” 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 Southampton’s 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. Amongst the comments we received were ‘A great day- went in a flash!’, ‘A great event- please repeat!’ and ‘Excellent! Please continue to hold similar events!’. In addition to the various positive comments we received in person on the day, we’ve 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!

Drinking in Spain

I spent one year in Zaragoza, in the north of Spain, and lived with a family in a tiny village surrounded by almond trees (it was as idyllic as it sounds!). I wanted to talk about one thing which seems to be quite different in Spain compared to the UK, and that is alcohol.

In the UK, alcohol is quite restricted, and is most definitely shielded from the eyes of children. In the supermarket, alcohol is placed separately to the aisles of sweets and fizzy drinks – the classic setting for parent child power struggles – and when found elsewhere in the store bottles are placed high up on the shelf so none but the gangliest preteen could hope to reach them. If aforementioned preteen does get to the check out with his contraband, he is unceremoniously turned away by the diligent store assistant. Drinking establishments often have clearly defined and distinct areas for eating and consuming alcohol –access to these places is restricted, and many children nowadays will not have set foot in a pub before the age of 18.

At a Spanish supermarket, in contrast, alcoholic beer appears side by side with soft drinks, near the entrance of the store. Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beers sit together – it’s often hard to tell the difference between them. A British consumer might cast an eye over the price tags to differentiate – however, in Spain this is no help as alcoholic beer is often cheaper than the equivalent soft drink! This theme follows through to restaurants, where due to the economic savings involved I was compelled to order a lager with every meal for half the price of orange juice. Pubs do not exist in Spain in the same way as in England – stop at any local café and lining the shelves will be lemonade, Colacao (a chocolately milk drink) and neat vodka. And the Spanish are just dying to give alcohol away. At the end of every meal out, tiny chupito glasses appear on the table – a 40 proof aperitif on the house.

I don’t know whether it’s the difference in taxation, a more relaxed drinking culture or just flagrant alcoholism. All I can say is that now I know why the first Spanish phrase a British person often learns is ‘dos cervezas, por favour!’