Taking the IC Reputation Abroad

College officials express high hopes for a Caribbean center and are confident it will enhance the school’s reputation. Adrian Sherman, director of international programs at Ithaca, will travel to the Dominican Republic in June to help prepare for the center’s opening early next year. Provost and vice president for academic affairs James Malek says he, too, plans a trip to the island within a year.

After taking a scouting trip to the Central America and Latin America region, Sherman believes the Dominican Republic is a good spot for Ithaca to develop an education center. "This area is very important to the United States, politically and economically. There has been a great migration north from this area, and with NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] in place it will become even more important," he says. The College also wants to promote second-language learning, Sherman says, and Spanish is a logical choice since so many Spanish-speaking countries are U.S. neighbors and sources for immigration.

Ithaca would develop its own curriculum, with its own professors as well as local professors in the Dominican Republic, says Sherman. "We would like the center to embrace communications instruction — the Dominican Republic is a hub of communication for that region, which most people don’t know, and we hope to include internships with business and communications interests there." Each of Ithaca’s five schools would be involved, including, for example, a broad-based program with health profession internships for HS&HP students, who could work there after their semester of study is completed.

"This is an important effort on our part," Sherman says. "If we create a center in the Dominican Republic, we will keep more tuition dollars in house — and we want to expand this way, to take the Ithaca reputation overseas." For the first semester, he says, the target population is about 25. "It’s more important that we keep it manageable and do it well," he says, than to attract large numbers of students. "If we’re successful, we would expand dramatically — and probably also invite extramural students in." also cites the Caribbean center’s potential as a way to develop relationships with other institutions of higher learning. North American colleges and universities would contribute students, and Latin American and Caribbean institutions would contribute both students and faculty. "We have been working to set up a Caribbean studies center for a while," Malek says, "and not just to focus on one country. There is a growing interest in the whole region. We hope to have a wide range of academic disciplines there. It would diversify our curriculum, especially by adding other cultural perspectives."

The objective of studying abroad is to complement what students learn in the classroom with knowledge of the people and the culture, says Saunders. "This experience should affect how the students approach their chosen field and their future careers, which may include making a decision to improve the conditions in the Dominican Republic and the United States. There is a world of opportunity for Ithaca to establish more connections with the outside world after building a solid foundation in the Dominican Republic."

David Justice says he didn’t want to leave the Dominican Republic when his three weeks were up, and he is convinced a semester-long program would only enhance the experience. "After this I have new goals for my career when I graduate in May," he says. "I know I want to deal with issues of poverty. Thirty years from now, when I look back, I will remember this trip as the highlight of my college career.