Belated Blog...You Know How Fall Is!

Welcome back to my monthly Ph.D. blog! If you're new here, I'm blogging my way through a Ph.D. program in Internationalization of Higher Education at Cattolica University. These posts combine academic content with personal stuff and bits of randomness to hopefully result in an engaging and informative blog.

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Look, you all know how fall is...sorry for the belated post. Back-to-school joys and an island vacation got in the way. It's still SUPER busy, but we'll get through....right?

Ph.D. Updates

The fall seminar for my Ph.D. program happened in September and will continue on for the next few months with various online sessions. While I was stick stateside instead of joining the crew in Italy, I was able to present my research topic to some members of the Academic Board and get their feedback. If you're interested in seeing my presentation, I recorded my own version - check that out below:

Overall, the feedback was very positive! I do need to refine the term "asymmetry" more and look at research related to partnerships. When you get feedback that your topic is "timely and exciting", it's always a good thing. Keep in mind that this is really just the starting point - the topic will evolve and be refined over the next two years before I start conducting my own research, so it's bound to change. Still, as my reviewers said, "It's an encouraging start"!

Of course, I've kept on with reading and taking in as much information as I can about COIL and how it is being adopted all over the world. It's certainly not going to go away, and so I'm eager to see what new data sources I can find over the next few years.

Work Updates

Not a ton to report here. I've been diving deep into wrapping up development and budgeting on our 13 Global Seminars faculty-led programs for summer 2022. Faculty-led programs are a particular passion of mine, and it's a great feeling to get back to the type of work that I did when I was just starting my career.

We're also continuing to build momentum with our own COIL initiative, called Global Classrooms. The first few are being implemented this fall, with many more on the way. We even have a shiny new faculty fellow to help us design in-house trainings and expand our capacity! Lots of exciting developments which I hope to be able to talk about here in the future.

​Life Updates

I'm not really one for vacations - I didn't grow up going on family trips, and it's just not something that I spend much time thinking about. Buuuut I was starting to feel burnt-out and grouchy, so I took a vacation! It's amazing what a week in the Caribbean can do for the soul. St. Thomas is a wonderful place if you ever get the chance to visit!