PROSPECTUS
Institute For Education in International Media

Mission
Executive Summary
Purpose
A Broader Reach
Globalization: A Context for the Institute
The Institute, Future
The Institute, Now
Undergraduate Programs
The Summer Project Model
Faculty and Institutional Development

Mission

The mission of the institute is to prepare American college students and young media professionals to function with cultural sensitivity in a global environment and to use converged media effectively to tell the stories of diverse peoples. Our long-term goal is to position our students to contribute to the cross-cultural dialogue both as producers and consumers of media information.

The Institute for Education in International Media (ieiMedia) was founded in 2005 to continue the work (begun in 2001 at Loyola College-Maryland) of a group of professors, most affiliated with Jesuit universities, who cooperated in developing a unique experiential learning program involving cultural immersion. Now with a multi-disciplinary faculty drawn from several universities and the media professions, we offer summer programs in Italy and Northern Ireland and are poised to expand our involvements to other international venues and into the regular academic year.

Executive Summary

The Institute for Education in International Media is currently organized as a limited liability corporation, but in order to fulfill its mission it is prepared to re-organize as a non-profit or to be wholly absorbed within the corporate structure of an accredited university or to maintain its independent status through private investment.

The purpose of ieiMedia is to set up “media convergence” programs that expose students to international reporting practices at various international sites in the summer. These sites are off the beaten tourist path in towns where students work at creating a web documentary on the host community: its people, its culture, its public life, its history and its commerce.

Beyond summer programs, the institute is interested in developing a master’s program in International Reporting and establishing its own campus abroad.

The current business plan calls for students to apply through accredited colleges that give credit for the summer course. Students may also register directly with the institute for a non-credit practicum.

An important area of growth involves professional development: training faculty in the practice and design of experiential learning and offering media professionals opportunities to specialize in other journalistic genres. There is a significant high-end adult population that will take short-burst courses in travel writing, food writing and wine writing. These are under development.

The institute welcomes inquiries from institutions that want to work with us to set up their own turn-key international program in communications or affiliate with our on-going programs or host the Institute on its campus.  

Purpose

The Institute for Education in International Media (ieiMedia), building on the director’s and faculty’s experience since 2001 in establishing and operating a university-based web journalism program in Cagli, Italy, began in 2006 offering undergraduate students from disparate disciplines an opportunity to practice international journalism at the grass roots level. So much that passes for education in international media is purely theoretical – focusing on comparative media systems, media law, and forays into the centers of global media power. This approach is incomplete because it lacks the experiential component that should be central to education in the communication disciplines, providing students with a basis for making decisions about future career possibilities and the need for more advanced course work.

The institute now sponsors several Cagli-style international projects that would introduce American undergraduates to working as “foreign correspondents” in one of the most intense immersion experiences available in higher education today. The institute brings together faculty and students from many colleges and forges close links to practicing correspondents through such organizations as The Overseas Press Club. The Institute  accepts its own students in non-credit practica (internships) and is the outside provider to colleges and universities offering both undergraduate and graduate communications or journalism credits for international programs. The institute is also positioned to assist groups of colleges in forming consortia to offer international communications programs more economically and efficiently.

Currently the emphasis is on four-week summer programs which are experiential in nature; students work together to create multi-media webzines on small towns where the local culture is deep rooted and intact. The institute also conceives a future that includes professional development seminars for faculty and media professionals, a master’s program in international reporting, and adult education in international venues.

Our aims are manifold:

  • To expose students to working in a “converged media” environment.
  • To introduce students to the protocols of “professionalism,” and to get them working as part of a team.
  • To enable students to learn the basic skills involved in digital photography, video shooting and editing, podcasting, and web design.
  • To expand student  career and educational horizons through work in a international setting.
  • To immerse students in a spectrum of foreign cultures, including non-western.
  • To expose students to the practice of international journalism at the grass roots level, far from the political and economic power centers.
  • To teach students the journalistic form of the “web documentary.”
  • To educate students in the language and customs of another culture and impart the requisite survival skills.
  • And finally, to teach students how to write gracefully and perceptively.

The rationale behind the Institute is that as a distinct entity, whether attached to a host college or not, it will have the ability to “fast track” the opening of multiple sites and accumulate resources at a faster pace. There is a high degree of confidence that the financial return to the institute and its partner institutions from multiple sites could be substantial. But most important, combining the income from various projects into an Institute budget would enable us to move support where needed (such as when one project is beset by sudden shifts in foreign exchange rates) and to equalize amenities among areas that may normally be more costly. With its proven curriculum, the Institute’s expansion would be a logistical matter of “opening new sites” rather than seeking new administrative and curricular approval as though each site were a new program.

Our expansion strategy involves opening up new sites in popular destinations in order to accumulate enough capital to carry the less popular destinations. 

A Broader Reach

The Institute is now in the process of initiating dialogues with the professional international media community – such as the Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) which is interested, through its foundation, in promoting student interest in careers as foreign correspondents. We have been told that ours is the only undergraduate program in the country that has students functioning as foreign correspondents at the grass roots level, and the OPC has created a special class of student membership for students who complete our program.

This work can best be done through an institute with a global sweep that engages students and faculty from many colleges in this groundbreaking program. We started in Italy because this was a gentle and convenient place to get off on a firm footing, as will be future sites in France, Spain and other Western Europe locations. Our move to Northern Ireland in summer 2007 was a little edgy. We look forward to sites in Russia, China, South America, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East. As we consider future locations for possible expansion, we hope to take into account a commitment to “peace and justice,” “social justice,”  “reconciliation,” and “conflict resolution” -- thereby providing students an experience that is not as “vanilla” as many study-abroad programs.

True to its founding Jesuit tradition, the Institute remains dedicated to the education of the whole person. Not only are students graded on skill-sets, but also on good practices in areas such as citizenship, professionalism and initiative. Thus we emphasize that high standards of personal comportment and commitment to the project are required of any student who seeks to be evaluated as “exceeding expectations.”

Globalization: A Context for the Institute

Globalization drives much that is new in higher education today. It has its roots in the “global economy” and seems relevant mostly to the business disciplines. But there is a sub-text to globalization that resonates throughout all our institutions, and that is “diversity.” When we speak of diversity, we mean it in all its forms – ethnic, religious, racial, cultural and geographical. On the campuses of big state universities, diversity is a function of being public. But at most private colleges, especially the smaller ones, diversity exists mostly in programs and outreach activities. The institute avoids placing programs in those areas where an American student ghetto is already thriving; rather we create opportunities for our students to “immerse” themselves in national cultures off the beaten tourist track.

The Communication discipline is uniquely positioned to respond to both globalization and diversity. This is the age of the “foreign correspondent.” Embedded or not, there have never been more opportunities and outlets for journalists to practice their profession in foreign lands -- for cable news outlets, for radio and TV stations, for newspapers, for web journals, for magazines. And as the media landscape changes from “big” to “boutique,” the independent operator using multiple media tools becomes increasingly important. Very little is being done at the undergraduate or graduate level to direct journalism students toward the career possibilities in being foreign correspondents or just working internationally. Nor is the discipline reaching out to students in other areas -- history, classics, economics, political science, philosophy, theology, languages, and area studies -- to welcome them into what was once a highly specialized and clubby field. International projects (like Cagli, Italy and Armagh, Northern Ireland) accomplish this in a bold and innovative way that will redound to the benefit of any department or college that participates in or sponsors such a program.
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The media projects operated by the Institute combine a unique emphasis on
converged media, teamwork, writing, experiential learning and internationalism.
Our experience indicates that sponsoring or cooperating institutions will have an advantage in recruiting highly motivated and accomplished journalism students to their programs. In addition, our project centers, with their attendant publicity and their visibility on the web, could be a focal point for attracting international students to sponsoring colleges, and we would make this one of our priorities.

The Institute has been joined in this venture by Gonzaga University, which offers graduate credit at all our sites. A 12-credit certificate in International Media (offered through Gonzaga University’s Master’s Program in Communication and Leadership Studies) includes six credits for special participation in any of our projects.

Past sponsors of undergraduate credit include Loyola College, Temple University and Berry College. Over the years students from more than 20 colleges have worked with us.

The Institute, Future

While our primary focus is our summer programs, we see them as providing a firm foundation for future developments:

  • Undergraduate Credit: in Cagli-like multi-media projects, such as Camerano, Italy and Armagh, Northern Ireland;
  • Graduate Certificate and Credit:  through Gonzaga University in international communication within GU’s Master’s Program in Communication and Leadership Studies
  • Practica (guided internships): available at all sites either for credit (through special arrangement with an undergraduate student’s home campus) or as a non-credit experience;
  • Professional Certificates: offering specialized international reporting packages in Travel Writing, Wine Writing, Food Writing, Sports Writing etc., aimed at media professionals seeking new career options or adults pursuing post-career passions;
  • Graduate: summer courses in international reporting at our already established sites;
  • Master of Arts Degree in Media and Religion: Designed to prepare graduate students to report on the complex global interplay of religion, politics and culture;
  • Master of Science Degree in International Reporting; An experientially based program combined with advanced study to prepare graduate students to become foreign correspondents (incorporating full time internships or paid practica with major media organizations that have overseas operations.)
  • Sponsorship of International Reporting Seminars, working with such professional organizations as the Overseas Press Club of America;
  • Book Publishing on topics directly related to international media;
  • Plus a range of Think-Tank activities on international journalism that will bring together as Fellows outstanding foreign correspondents and academics.

As the Institute formalizes, we remain open to the possibilities of working as a consortium of like-minded institutions, or even locating our operation within a university or journalism school with the vision and entrepreneurial spirit to embrace a turn-key operation that will give them an immediate and unique presence in the area of global communication programs.

The next level of development would be the establishment of a Global Communications Company that would disseminate international news from our various program sites and provide post-graduate opportunities to former program participants to work as international reporters.

The Institute, Now

The Institute for Education in International Media (ieiMedia LLC) is incorporated as an independent educational organization. It holds the copyright and trademark to a unique short semester curriculum developed by its founder, Prof. Andrew Ciofalo.

The Cagli Project is “a multimedia summer program in a small Italian town” involving the creation of a web documentary, a new and evolving form of journalism that is being pioneered under the auspices of Prof. Ciofalo and his colleagues. The details can be fully examined in our site handbooks available in pdf format on our web site (www.ieiMedia.com).  The work of students in past years is posted to www.InCagli.com or www.InArmagh.net or www.InCamerano.com.

The emergence of new opportunities to replicate The Cagli Project all over the world has hastened the coalescing of the Institute concept. While we seek individual university sponsorships for each of our sites to domicile the six undergraduate credits attached to the program, the institute remains open to affiliating with one college or university.

Over the next few years, we would like to establish projects in Russia, Eastern Europe, China, India, the Middle East, Africa, and South America to name a few. We are focusing on areas of real cultural difference, places that American students may be reluctant to go for a full semester, but will consider in a short semester program, which may eventually lead them into trying a full time program in a challenging location.

Undergraduate Programs

The immediate focus of the institute is summer semester undergraduate programs.

The undergraduate projects of the institute are open to majors in all disciplines. The rubric around which the projects are organized are four-person production teams. Though we prefer to have at least one communication  major assigned to each team, when the teams include majors from different disciplines (e.g., history, theology, biology, sociology, philosophy, area studies, gender studies, classics, etc.), it enriches the content of the project.

For those interested in an international educational experience that is a combination of classroom instruction and experiential learning, the projects and programs of the institute offer unique opportunities to explore in depth another culture in the most challenging form of immersion available today.

At Loyola College the project was given 6 credits under a specifically designed course:

Professional Summer Semester in Media

As part of a semester-long, directed study under faculty guidance, outstanding students are assigned part- or full-time responsibility for a major project or operation with an outside media organization or a campus-based entity.

While we recommend a maximum six credits for the project, colleges may assign transfer credits based on a selection from the following generic courses:

  • Writing for the Web. 3 credits
  • Web Design (including digital photography and video) 3 credits
  • Intercultural Communication (including language and culture) 3 credits
  • Internship 3 credits

Project description and customized design can be tailored to the sponsoring institution.

When undergraduate students participate in the program, they are able to make two entries on their resumes. For instance, past students in the Cagli Program entered the following notation in the section of their resume labeled “Study Abroad”:
Cagli, Italy (Loyola College): Studied intercultutral communications, media arts, and Italian language and culture in an experiential multi-media program.
In the section of their resume labeled “Professional Experience,” they can note:
Institute for Education in International Media: Served as part of a multi-media production team creating a web documentary on the town of Cagli, Italy. Practiced skills in web writing, web design, podcasting, digital photography and video (www.InCagli.com).

The Summer Project Model

Our summer programs, which involve students in producing a multi-media web documentary on the host city, follows the exact same syllabus perfected in Cagli over a four-week program.  The format is as follows:

  • The formal instructional modules are compressed into an initial week “media boot camp,” with the last three weeks devoted to writing, reporting and production.
  • Students will study the host language and culture one hour per session day for the full period of the program.
  • Students will attend classroom modules in intercultural communication, reporting, writing, podcasting,  digital photography and video during  week one, and web design during week four.
  • Weeks 2 and 3 will be devoted to fieldwork and one-on-one work with faculty at Open Desks.
  • While in session, labs will be opened every afternoon and some evenings and weekends as determined by the faculty.

Other Cagli features that would be replicated include:

  • Use of interpreters for field work (in non-English speaking countries)
  • A portable MAC lab, with digital still and video cameras
  • Students organized as four-person production teams
  • Each team is led by a graduate assistant
  • An approximate 4-1 student-faculty ratio

Faculty and Institutional Development

Faculty participation in our media projects is a form of professional development because faculty must also learn how to work as a team. This is an alien activity to most traditional faculty, but is important if one is to develop the nurturing one-on-one or small group style normally associated with “coaching.”

To staff our sites we have a growing base of experienced faculty (professional and academic) to draw upon, plus a growing resource of faculty applicants, many with special interests or qualifications in our project sites, who have discovered us through our publicity and word of mouth.  

Our current human resources include faculty from Loyola, Creighton, Temple, Gonzaga and San Francisco State. We will be adding faculty from sponsoring institutions, which will be provided opportunities to teach in various summer programs as they are established.

Sponsoring institutions will have only three responsibilities: publicizing the program, promoting it to their own students, and appointing a faculty member of record, often a summer adjunct from the ieiMedia group. All associated costs involving faculty stipends/fees, airfare and housing, student housing, equipment, insurances etc. are the responsibility of ieiMedia, which protects the sponsoring college from sudden fluctuations in exchange rates, etc. The Institute charges one base price for every registered student, to which each sponsoring college adds that that percentage of its tuition that it normally recoups to its general fund for any course.

Institute faculty is hired as contract consultants for a moderate weekly stipend, which may provide certain tax advantages. Assignments range from one week (copy editing) to up to four weeks (on-site directors and teaching faculty). Where possible, housing for dependents is included, and extended stays can be arranged

Contact: Prof. Andrew Ciofalo (aciofalo@yahoo.com); Phone: 410-823-0647