Proposal

The Office of International Programs (OIP) is FAU’s “Global Gateway,” coordinating international education activities for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff across all of FAU’s campuses and colleges. OIP creates access to study abroad programs, student research and academic internships, reciprocal student exchanges, faculty teaching opportunities abroad and international research exchange. OIP also pursues international partnerships abroad and manages international exchange and research agreements with universities around the world. OIP prides itself on providing FAU students and faculty with opportunities to experience new countries, cultures, languages, and educational experiences. These experiences can not only reinvigorate their academic goals and passion, but keep them current on a world that has gone global.

At the present time OIP lacks up to date communication tools that will allow the office to reach out to and work with our technologically savvy students, faculty, and current and potential overseas partners.   We need updated laptops that offer multiple communication uses to our office.  New state of the art laptops can provide the ability to a) Skype with students, faculty, and current/potential partners, b) take pictures that can be used in the marketing of study abroad to students and faculty, project presentations to students, faculty, and current/potential partners, and c) be portable so that the technology can go with staff as needed across FAU campuses and even abroad, to maintain a high level of service to students and faculty in day to day life and crisis situations.

OIP prepares students and faculty for their overseas experiences through pre-departure orientations. Sometimes students and faculty are unable to attend sessions due to class conflict or early departures for abroad. When this happens we have to make alternate arrangements to ensure students understand their academic expectations and address safety, security, and living concerns, and that faculty understand how to manage program funds and students on an abroad program. This can be successfully accomplished through Skype, which is available on the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga laptop through its built in camera, speakers, and microphone. OIP can speak face to face with our students and faculty to make certain they are ready for their cultural and academic experiences. An additional benefit is the ability for students or faculty to Skype with OIP/FAU in the event of an emergency situation. On these rare occasions when a problem or situation does arise overseas, the portability of these laptops makes it possible for OIP to visit and set up Skype with other departments and offices as needed for a quick response. It also allows students and faculty a platform for asking questions while abroad.  Likewise, Skype would help prepare FAU’s newest students, our incoming exchange and cooperative students. Often time’s these students are nervous about traveling to the US and Skype would be one way for our office to advise these incoming international students and start their experience with FAU on the right foot. Skype will keep communication costs down for both the student and FAU as there would no longer be a need for long distance and international calling. 

Another function of our office is to gather information about study abroad programs and international partners for students and faculty. The best way to convey this information is through photographs and videos. The targeted laptop can be converted to work as a tablet to take pictures and videos. From time to time, OIP needs to make site visits to our partner institutions to ensure they are meeting FAU standards and the academic needs of our students. During these visits we can utilize the laptop for gathering photographs of student housing, university grounds and facilities, important offices students will need to locate when they go abroad, and photographs of the country and people they will have the pleasure of learning from during their stay. These laptops could also be loaned to FAU study abroad faculty leaders who are looking to create digital projects with their students or capture the experience to share with future study abroad students. Further, due the versatility of the lap top it can be used to explain FAU study abroad programs to students through presentations and sharing with them our exchange partners’ websites allowing for review of academic programs and course offerings that will ultimately become part of their FAU degrees.  

Finally, with the new technology we can more actively search out and begin discussions with potential overseas institutions. As FAU grows, its students and faculty are demanding more international study opportunities. To keep up with this demand OIP needs to continually look for new partners that meet the academic needs of FAU’s student and faculty. This includes offering diverse locations for language acquisition and variety, and meeting the needs of FAU’s STEM students, as well as other majors that have been underrepresented in study abroad programming at FAU. Skype will speed up the process of developing an overseas partnership by allowing both OIP and the overseas institution to carry on a conversation about the pros and cons of a partnership, while keeping costs down. 

To conclude, OIP is requesting support to purchase three Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11s – 11.6” laptops. The laptop offers a 360-degree flip and fold design, which allows the laptop to be used as a traditional laptop, folded back 90 degrees to be used as a display, folded back 180 degrees to be used as a tent, or folded back 360 degrees to be used as a tablet (see attachments).

Thank you for considering our proposal and for helping us keep FAU students and faculty academically challenged, prepared, and safe.

This project has no software requirements.

This project will not require any personnel costs.

Implementing this project wouldl be quick once funds are approved and received. Upon receipt of Technology Fee Funding the Office of International Programs would order the three laptops following university procedures through the Purchasing Department. We are therefore proposing a start date of March 2014 and a completion date of June 2014 (or sooner).