We will be continuously adding conference sessions and are currently working to finalize multiple sessions. Please check back for a more complete listing of sessions.

SESSION TOPICS INCLUDE:

- Assessing the Impact of Study Abroad on Educational Goals
- Back to Basics: The EEO/Workforce Diversity Interface
- Challenges of a Multi-Cultural Workforce
- Contrast Culture Simulation: The Khan Exercise
- "CULTURE'S COMPASS": Revealing the Destiny of Nations in a Global World
- Current Challenges and Opportunities in International Education
- Electronic Diplomacy
- Getting Published
- How Gradations of Time Zones Impacts Performance in Global Teams
- Intercultural Careers - Panel
- International Business Negotiation and Promotional Strategy: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
- Keeping Students and Institutions Safe on Study Abroad Programs
- Leadership Across Cultures
- Make it Stick: Interactive Learning in the Training Room
- Managing an NGO in a Multicultural Context - Panel
- Managing Space: Cultural Difference in Perceptions of Space and Their Implications for Managers
- Managing Your Way in Emerging Markets
- Negotiating Culture: The Eco Tonos Simulation
- The Policy Climate for International Education and Exchange
- Through the Prism of Culture: Interest Based Negotiations and the U.S. Air Force - Panel
-Understanding New Markets: The South Asian Diaspora

Assessing the impact of Study Abroad on Educational Goals
Rick Detweiler and Derek Vaughan

Objectively assessing the impact of study abroad - moving beyond anecdote and self reports on the experience - is challenging. In workshop format, this session will first engage participants in learning and using the principles of outcomes assessment for study abroad. Then, to give a concrete example, in presentation format the development of a specific learning outcomes set or instruments will be reviewed and findings from the analysis of pilot data reported.

Back to Basics: The EEO/Workforce Diversity Interface
Benjamin Alexander, Jr.

One of the strongest recurring themes in the diversity consultations that we have conducted with our client organizations over the past ten years is that they should treat EEO and workforce diversity as highly interactive and overlapping entities which are not interchangeable. EEO is basically about compliance with legal and regulatory mandates which prohibit certain forms of employment discrimination against individuals based upon their membership in categories such as race, gender, religion, national origin, age, disability and others. Workforce diversity has to do with recognizing and responding to situations where dynamics created by experiences linked to these different categories are morale, retention, team work, and dispute resolution.

In this session, participants will learn to recognize when and how EEO and diversity dynamics are manifested in conflict situations; use an A.C.T. EEO Action model to determine what action must be taken to satisfy EEO requirements when illegal discrimination or harassment is present in the situation; use a Gestalt based model to determine what approaches to diversity driven conflict may be most effective in resolving the problem or issue; take away a practical list of do's and don'ts for dealing effectively with conflicts involving EEO and diversity dynamics.

Challenges of a Multicultural Workforce
Ursula Leitzmann

Building a multicultural workforce is one of the fastest routes to global competitiveness. This session will give you the "why" and "how" of making a multicultural workforce more effective and building your global business. In addition to looking at the competency needed to work effectively with a multicultural workforce, participants will explore the nature of cultural differences and their impact on the workplace; multicultural group effectiveness; cultural challenges to hiring and retention; and, strategies to strengthen and implement intercultural competency.  


Contrast Culture Simulation: The Khan Exercise
Mr. Khan

The simulation is designed for cultural self-awareness and developing interpersonal cross-cultural communication and analytical skills. It uses the role-playing technique based on scenarios with specific problems or tasks involving a participatin American, often representing his or her particular organization and job, and Mr. Khan as his or her counterpart in a country overseas. Teh scenario usually takes place in a generic non-American and non-European culture, and Mr. Khan is always culture-general. he represents no paritcular culture, but is instead a contrast to the mainstream American culture.

"CULTURE'S COMPASS": Revealing the Destiny of Nations in a Global World
Dean Foster

Globalization may have flattened the economic playing field for many nations, but the world is, despite some current revisionist thinking, anything but flat. In fact, in the global 21st century, the challenge for organizations, individuals, and nations, is to succeed across the mountains and valleys of cultural differences that a globalized world so easily allows us to encounter. This presentation will take a look at the impact that culture has in the globalized world of the 21st century, as it affects the ability of organizations to achieve their global work goals, individuals to function successfully in their day-to-day work with colleagues in other cultures, and nations, as they make political, economic and social decisions that affect the destiny of their people, and the rest of the world. This presentation explores how traditional cultural theory needs to be re-interpreted through the lens of globalization, and presents a model for using culture as a compass for understanding the behavior of nations in a globalized world.

Current Challenges and Opportunities in International Education
Fanta Aw, Shoshana Sumka, Kristina Thompson

This session provides an overview of current trends in international education with a focus on challenges and opporutunities. The session will discuss international service learning, U.S. style campuses overseas and study abroad trends. Panelists include: Fanta Aw, International Student Advisor, American University; Shoshanna Sumka, Coordinator for Alternative Break, American Universtiy; and Mark Hayes, Associate Director, AU Abroad, American University.

Getting Published - Panel
Judee Blohm, David Bachner, Chuck Dresner, Ray Leki, Chris Saenger

This 90-minute panel session will give individuals who are interested in publishing intercultural content a sense of the opportunities and processes for doing so. Following brief presentations by the panelists, there will be ample time for audience questions and discussion. The five panelists represent a range of perspectives and experiences regarding this topic. Judee Blohm is the author and co-author of several books, is an online editor for a professional association newsletter, and writes/edits and helps with the publishing of technical assistance materials for the Peace Corps. Chuck Dresner’s Intercultural Press is a key publisher in the field, and Chuck has also worked for Random House, Harvard Business School Press, and Rockport Publishing (now Quayside Publishing Group). Ray Leki, the author and producer of numerous intercultural products, recently had a book published by Intercultural Press. Chris Saenger edits the Intercultural Management Quarterly, which provides refereed publication opportunities for prospective authors at several levels, from students who have never published to experienced practitioners and academics. David Bachner will discuss journal and academic publishing and also serve as moderator for the session.

How Gradations of Time Zones Impact Performance in Global Teams
Erran Carmel and J. Alberto Espinosa

We've all dealt with the wicked issue of time zone differences: we're working and they're asleep; we need an answer and they just left for the day; we come in the morning and their email shows that they completely misunderstood our request, but they're having dinner now; colleagues are working in multiple time zones and we lose track of when colleagues are around. The problem is further compounded when we consider differences in holidays, workweeks, vacation schedules, etc.

Intercultural Careers Panel
Fredda Haines and Michael McCarry

In this 90-minute panel session, four experienced interculturalists from a range of organizational sectors will describe their own career tracks and offer perspectives on career opportunitites in their particular areas. The session will be evenly divided between presentations by the panelists and Q&A/discussion with the audience. Panelists include Fredda Haines, Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton; and Michael McCarry, Executive Director of the Alliance for International Educational & Cultural Exchange. The discussion will be moderated by David Bachner, Scholar-in-Residence at American University's School of International Service.

International Business Negotiation and Promotional Strategy: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Bagher Fardanesh

More than ever before, organizations are expanding their business operations and marketing activities across national boundaries. This unprecedented movement is for gaining a larger market share, economies of scale, outsourcing for more abundant and cheaper resources, are a few motives for such movement. The presentation will explore the dynamics of international promotional strategy and business negotiation process relevant to the intercultural settings. The presentation will further explore how the notion of ethnocentrism impedes competiveness in global settings, and offers a set of guidelines for corporate prosperities.

Keeping Students & Institutions Safe in Study Abroad Programs
Ray Leki

This session examines the factors in voloved in running safe and secure student study abroad programs. It condenses content from a two-day public service program offered by the Department of State's Foreign Service Institute for study abroad program administrators and leaders. It focuses on the range of challenges program managers face in expatriating students to areas that are often beyond their control - but still within their responsibility. The program also deals with the heavy emotional workload and toll program administrators face when tragedy strikes. This program is designed as an introduction for those interested in study abroad administrator and leader jobs and for those whose careers have led them to these responsibilities without the benefit of background security and human resource management training.

Make It Stick: Interactive Learning in the Training Room
Judee Blohm and Elizabeth Erickson

Is training (or teaching) successful when you've covered all of your information or when the participnats have learned? Are interactive lectures an oxymoron? Can the participants design the quiz? Can they learn enough to teach each other in a class period? Leave this session with three techniques you can use tomorrow, whatever your training.

Managing an NGO in a Multicultural Context
Joe Eldridge

This 90-minute panel session will focus on trends, issues, and best practices from the perspectives of three NGO leaders. The session features Joe Eldridge, university chaplain at American University and an active participnat in organizations that focus on social justice issues; and Mike Finnell, president and CEO of Youth for Understanding USA, a volunteer-based international home-stay program for teenagers. David Bachner, Scholar-in-Residence at American University's School of International Service, will moderate the discussion.


Managing Space: Cultural Differences in Perceptions of Space and Their Implications for Managers
Richard Harris

All managers realize that context is vital in intercultural encounters. Our tendency, however, is often to think primarily of social context (business, domestic, academic, recreational) while overlooking the importance of the physical context in which an interaction takes place. In fact, people of dissimilar cultural backgrounds perceive and conceptualise space in very different ways, and these differences, often unconsciously, help to shape values and influence behavior. By understanding more about the range of culturally conditioned reactions to physical space in its many manifestations we can greatly reduce the potential for misunderstanding and conflict in intercultural situations. In this session, I shall present a six-part framework for the analysis and discussion of cultural difference in the perception of space.

Managing Your Way in Emerging Markets
Richard Linowes

This session introduces a framework for strategic vigilance when operating in emerging market countries. Based on a collection of 80 in-depth, field-based cases profiling business situations in emerging market countries, the framework identifies the environmental, organizational and personal challenges that must be monitored and managed to operate effectively.



The Policy Climate for International Education and Exchange
Michael McCarry

Coming Soon!

Through the Prism of Culture: Interspace Negotiations and the U.S. Air Force
Stefan Eisen, Kenneth Lechter, Gary Weaver

Coming Soon!