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Connections February 2009
AJCU and AUSJAL Adult and Distance Educators to Meet in Miami
Richard Vigilante, Executive Director
Jesuit Distance Education Network
Adult and distance education administrators from the AJCU colleges and universities will join colleagues from the Association of Latin American Universities Entrusted to the Society of Jesus (AUSJAL) for a March 12-13, 2009 conference at the Doubletree Hotel in Miami. Previous AJCU-AUSJAL conferences were held in Guadalajara, Mexico (2003), Managua, Nicaragua (2006) and San Salvador, El Salvador (2008),--all on Jesuit university campuses. Although no Jesuit institution is located there, Miami was selected for this fourth conference due to its accessibility from cities across the hemisphere.
Jesuits and their partners offer education, healthcare, and social services to countless millions of persons in over 130 countries, from wealthy world capitals to impoverished refugee camps. Technology is opening new opportunities for this network to further serve the poor—through distance learning, knowledge and resource sharing, and other innovations. The newly-formed and worldwide Jesuit Commons seeks to find and grow these opportunities.
The two-day conference will focus on Jesuit Commons-appropriate projects for the Western Hemisphere. It will serve as a prototype of a Jesuit Commons regional effort, and will see university administrators and their Jesuit social services colleagues discussing and committing to a set of Inter-American projects such as the following.
· Developing an AUSJAL and Jesuit Refugee Service-Latin America distance education project on human rights
· Launching an Online Consortium of Jesuit Higher Education in the Americas.
· Analyzing the experiences, tools, and lessons learned by AUSJAL universities in the evaluation and assessment of competences in online courses
· Using Skype, Webcam and related technologies by AUSJAL and AJCU institutions to conduct joint Spanish and English lessons
· Instituting a hemispheric day of service to offer a variety of service projects on the same day by students on dozens of AJCU and AUSJAL campuses
· Evaluating how the hybrid online/on-site Gonzaga University online course for Burmese refugee students might serve as a model for similar instruction to isolated groups in the Western Hemisphere
· Implementing a common process and resource structure for the concurrent development of online English-Spanish courses by AJCU-AUSJAL faculty teams
AJCU and AUSJAL recognize the benefits of providing to students enrolled at their colleges and universities the opportunity to study under the auspices of sister institutions sharing the overarching educational mission of Jesuit higher learning. Jesuit institutions throughout the Americas share a commitment to the potential positive outcomes of curriculum and enrollment sharing: an enriched educational experience for students, curriculum enhancement and innovation, professional development opportunities for faculty, and the conservation of institutional resources.
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