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Academic
Program
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| At the Latin American Center (LAC), we host the Foundation Year
of Global College of Long Island University. During the
fall semester, students in this program, as well as continuing, visiting
and transfer students will have the opportunity to take courses ranging
from global issues to cross-cultural research methodology as well
as different levels of conversational Spanish and English composition.
During the spring semester, students will engage in field work and
independent study and take a course on Latin American studies, while
also having the opportunity to continue improving their skills in
Spanish. Furthermore, during the spring semester, students will be
offered several elective courses namely Peace Studies and Conflict
Resolution, Holistic Health and Traditional Healing, and Global Environmental
Issues. To complement required and elective courses, students at the
LAC also have the choice of pursuing independent studies, service
learning and internships in areas of their interest depending on their
level of Spanish and their Learning Plan. As an effort to give students
an integral educational experience, we link subject courses to English
composition and Spanish. Thus students find themselves practicing
Spanish about topics covered in other courses and writing about subjects
studied in still other courses.
Students enrolled at the LAC, are expected to develop and carry through a semester long learning plan based on the different areas of the academic program offered at the LAC. They are also expected to periodically hand in short academic papers to show evidence of progress and to present a portfolio of learning at the end of each semester. Students are evaluated by their academic advisors based on advising sessions records, fulfillment of the learning plan goals, final version of portfolio of learning (including a self evaluation), and feedback from the Spanish professors and seminar coordinators. At the LAC, and all through Global College, we base our instructional methodology on different forms of experiential education where students play a very active role and work side by side with their academic advisors and professors. As part of this experiential education approach, we implement numerous short visits, one to three-day field trips and an extended two-week field trip at the end of each semester. For the academic year 2005-2006, we plan to visit Nicaragua for two weeks by the end of fall and Ecuador by the end of spring. This combination of case study field trips will give students a well rounded knowledge base about global issues and how they are manifested in Latin America. We do not have any doubt that all students attending the Latin American Center will have an enriching experience not only within the academic realm but also at a personal level. |
| Long Island University | Global College |