“We must… build on our efforts to broaden our engagement beyond elites, so that we reach the people who will shape the future -– particularly young people. We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in Cairo -– to build networks of entrepreneurs and expand exchanges in education” -President Barack Obama, 2011
STATEMENT
SUNY Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) promotes global interaction across boundaries by connecting students virtually. COIL brings students and professors together across cultures to learn, discuss, and collaborate. We help students develop leadership skills, engage in collaborative problem solving, enter intercultural dialogue, and practice contextualized decision-making.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COIL Data
COIL & The SUNY Chancellor’s Four Pillars
National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Competencies
COIL to Career Readiness
COIL & Mental Health
COIL & Environmental & Sustainable Learning
COIL & Hispanic Heritage Students
COIL History
SUNY COIL Student & Instructor Slides & Videos
COIL DATA
- How many years SUNY EOP programs have participated: 3
- How many 3-week workshops for professors & administrators SUNY COIL runs each year: 21
- SUNY schools participating in SUNY COIL: 35
- Institutions worldwide participating in the SUNY COIL Global Partner Network: 200+
- Countries involved with university COIL programs: 34
- SUNY COIL Webinar Topics: Future of Work & COIL, Mental Health & COIL, COIL & First Nations
COIL & THE SUNY CHANCELLOR'S FOUR PILLARS
CHANCELLOR'S PILLAR 1: STUDENT SUCCESS
As a student at SUNY Oneonta, Class of 2022 alumna Nicole Bausenwein became interested in international development when she participated in the SUNY COIL Global Commons summer program, which allowed her to collaborate with a Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) in Nigeria, grant writing, and conducting research. Learn more about Nicole Bausenwein’s story here.
The American Association of Colleges and Universities – AACU recently created grants and pathways to implement COIL programs and partnerships in general across the US and recently, specifically between Japan, US, South Korea and Norway.
CHANCELLOR'S PILLAR 2: DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION & SOCIAL JUSTICE
Academia falls short of providing all students with the opportunity to engage in all that higher education has to offer. Those students who are often excluded from internationalization are also the most impacted and vulnerable to the devastation of climate change, international health crises, and other socioeconomic challenges worldwide. COIL has become a tool to guide students toward critical hope. Aligned to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, COIL creates a space to envision a future where we can protect the planet and people – each reliant on the success of the other and to engage through a lens that centers equity and justice.
CHANCELLOR'S PILLAR 3: RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP
SUNY COIL benefits both students and professors who participate, providing a space for professors to present together and individually at international conferences, write for international publications as well as write articles for international journals. Both SUNY Oneonta professors, Dr. Maria Cristina Montoya, Professor of Foreign Languages and Dr. Anu Shastri, Professor of Educational Psychology became Fulbright Scholars utilizing COIL as the basis of their application.
CHANCELLOR'S PILLAR 4: UPWARD MOBILITY
SUNY COIL has many benefits for student development. Listed below are the National Association of Colleges and Employers Competencies ad their descriptions. Here you can see the overlapping competencies that students need alongside what SUNY COIL can provide.
NACE Competency | SUNY COIL | |||
Student Success | Communication | Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization | ✔ | ✔ |
Critical Thinking | Identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information | ✔ | ||
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Social Justice | Equity & Inclusion | Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures. Engage in anti-racist practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism. | ✔ | ✔ |
Teamwork | Build and maintain collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities. | ✔ | ✔ | |
Research & Scholarship | Technology | Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals. | ✔ | ✔ |
Upward Mobility | Career & Self Development | Proactively develop oneself and one’s career through continual personal and professional learning, awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, navigation of career opportunities, and networking to build relationships within and without one’s organization. | ✔ | ✔ |
Professionalism | Knowing work environments differ greatly, understand and demonstrate effective work habits, and act in the interest of the larger community and workplace. | ✔ | ✔ | |
Leadership | Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals. | ✔ | ||
2021 NACE Career Readiness: Competencies for a Career-Ready Workforce
COIL TO CAREER READINESS
New adage: Most diverse workplaces outperform their competitors. How better to create a diverse workplace than create coached opportunities in higher ed, where instructors guide students in working through their culture locally while learning their partners’ cultural approach to work globally.
Future employees aka college students request statements of purpose, and environment and social governance. SUNY COIL creates opportunities where students are engaging with real world issues with peers internationally to find solutions while within their university setting.
Let’s reposition COIL as a necessary tool for all students to engage in critical hope. Critical hope reflects the ability to realistically assess one’s environment through a lens of equity and justice while also envisioning the possibility of a better future (Dugan, 2017).
Whether in the beginning or end of our students’ college experience, SUNY COIL continues to reshape the conversations about COIL relevance to guide students toward conquering fear with deep learning, while addressing the sustainability of our planet.
COIL & MENTAL HEALTH
New research shows the important impact of participating in global learning using virtual exchange (COIL) on the self-efficacy of learners. At a time when issues of mental health challenge our students, we found that global learning and engagement among students using virtual exchanges on team projects can be an important contributor to self-efficacy.
Research with Dr Pearl (Wilkes University) and Bridget Lockie (DePaul University alumnus in Public Policy Studies). Great collaboration between faculty members and students under the DePaul undergraduate research program (URAP- undergraduate research assistant program). It serves as an example of when faculty and students work together on what can be accomplished. Appreciation for support by DePaul’s URAP and LAS and the GLE program (COIL).
COIL & ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABLE LEARNING
Environmental sustainability learning requires global learning via virtual exchanges and collaborative projects inside the course curriculum.
COIL & HISPANIC HERITAGE STUDENTS
Courtesy of Dr. Maria Marino, Florida International University
Provides a context for:
- Identity performance
- Presence and representation
- Social and economic mobility
Provides context to connect to language/culture – cultural identity performance
Participants’ statements: “… it gave me like a refreshment to know that, you know, my first language was Spanish, and then I learned English and started school. So, it does give me some like, I guess, like refreshment to know that I can identify myself as like Hispanic.”
Strengthen sense of belonging, increased engagement – presence and representation
US-Based Hispanic Student COILing with Venezuela and Ecuador: “It [COIL experience] made me realize that when we work together, we can solve like international problems… when we listen to each other, feel welcome actually. And I feel for first time that my voice was heard.”
Participants statements: ‘fitting in,’ ‘being on the same boat,’ and ‘having their voices heard.’
Strengthen professional preparation
US-Based Hispanic Student COILing with Ecuador: “So, they [COIL classes] can open doors professionally to learn what people live outside the United States.” Getting out of their comfort zone’ or ‘mind opening’ experience when referring to how COIL helped them grow as human beings and to be more prepared as future professionals.
Engage in meaningful dialogue, global awareness and multicultural education
US-Based Hispanic Student COILing with Brazil: “It’s a much greater advantage. You get to learn real things with real people that normally we have like misconceptions or certain thoughts or stereotypes that we grow up with, and that sometimes they [misconceptions and stereotypes] can be changed when you get to meet real people and you work with people from the actual country.”
US-Based Hispanic Student COILing with Venezuela and Ecuador : “When you talked about a topic into our research online, I start talking to people. For example, from the United States, I was like ‘oh I didn’t know this was happening here in your country.’ And I place myself in their position, and they place themselves in my position. And we tend to find like that empathy.”
Global knowledge , bilingualism, and confidence building
US-Based Hispanic Student COILing with Venezuela and Ecuador: “Now that I have had experience communicating with people my age that aren’t…they weren’t raised in the United States and have received education and then Hispanic education system, I think professionally I will be able to communicate with people, professional people, from other countries that were educated in the same way. When they have a problem communicating with them I feel more confident.”
Embark in study abroad options
US-Based Hispanic Student COILing with Venezuela and Ecuador: “This is great, because you get to step outside of what of the expectations, you have, for your university it’s like a study abroad in a way, because you do …you don’t actually get to go abroad, but you do get to interact with other resources, people have had some really good research.”
US-Based Hispanic Student COILing with Venezuela-Ecuador: “You want to do a study abroad and you can’t because of the economy, because your family or something. But, if you have the COIL experience, you are leaving to study abroad, but through your computer.”
COIL HISTORY
SUNY COIL is hosted by the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oneonta, a mid-size, public university with a commitment to expanding global education, applied learning and active pedagogy, and an institutional priority of building a more inclusive, equitable and diverse campus community where all students have the chance to thrive and succeed.
Originally established in 2004 on the SUNY Purchase campus, the SUNY COIL Center was located at SUNY System Administration for more than a decade before relocating to SUNY Oneonta in fall 2022. SUNY Oneonta has a long history of incorporating COIL programming across academic disciplines and will serve as an incubator for innovative methods to engage students and campuses with peers around the world.
“We recognize the value of virtual exchange as a high-impact practice, integrating intercultural experiences into the curriculum in a sustainable way for the benefit of all students. SUNY Oneonta se enorgullece de ser el anfitrión de SUNY COIL.” -SUNY Oneonta President Alberto J.F. Cardelle
SUNY COIL STUDENT AND INSTRUCTOR SLIDES & VIDEO
Description of COIL by UCAB, Venezuela, en español