When Susan Wellington, Assistant Director of Admissions/International Student Services Departments and Kathleen McKenna, COIL Coordinator, attended the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Conference at SUNY Oneonta on September 20, they were pleasantly surprised to see one of the workshop presenters.
Alyssa Madramootoo graduated from SUNY Broome in May 2024. She began at SUNY Oneonta in Fall 2024. She was one of the presenters at this year’s conference, entitled, It Takes a Community to COIL: Building and Sustaining Global Community in Higher Education.
In Spring 2023, Alyssa enrolled in ANT 288: Storytelling and Heritage, a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) class taught by Lynda Carroll in conjunction with English professor, David Shrum at the Universidad de Celaya in Mexico.
This collaboration was grant funded, and it was the first SUNY Broome class to include semester-long virtual collaboration and travel in both directions. Under the auspices of the 100,000 Strong in the Americas initiative, the program was funded by the Mary Street Jenkins Foundation, which funded programs in the field of Anthropology.
After a delay from March 2020 to Spring 2023, the grant enabled the US partner students and faculty to travel to Mexico in March 2023, and the Mexican partner students and faculty to travel to the US and to stay with their hosts in the Student Village in June 2023.
As Alyssa pointed out in a panel discussion by COIL alumni, the grant opened up students’ worlds–it allowed students who would not otherwise be able to do so, to work with their peers in another country both virtually and in person, and to make lifelong connections with their peers abroad.
Alyssa is now exploring the possibility of spending a semester abroad during her time at Oneonta.
Coincidentally, as part of our Hispanic Heritage celebration, one of the quilts made by the US and the Mexican students will hang for a month in our Library Gallery, along with a photo of the partner quilt that hangs in Celaya.
The national theme this year is, aptly, Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together. Our Grand Opening is on September 24, from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
It certainly does take a (global) community to COIL!
Submitted by: Kathleen McKenna