Send: SWOT of programs, Bev office helper, Role of PD, Role of Rep, MOU,
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL
OF THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA
Middle Georgia State University
PSC Room 227
September 11 2015
10am
AGENDA
Ateendes: Beverly Vantine, Irina McClellan, Luc Guglielmi, Herbert Mattord, Teddi
Cunningham, Erin Rasche, Connie Gregory, Jeremy Lawhorn, Robert Costomiris, Craig
Callendar, Ron Fietkau, Dave Nelson, Sarah Egerer, Camille Bearden, Jeff Brown, Steve
Hopkins (CISI)
Presiding: Jeff Brown, Chair
1. Minutes (Jeff)
a. Approved
2. University System News
a. Someone has been hired to replace Doug Podoll for International Student Services,
however position is being reposted to hire someone for Study Abroad.
3. FTI Presentation/Q&A
a. Lufthansa has a new CEO and will not allow humanitarian fare
b. Students can deviate however there is no rerouting. Meaning students must fly in and out
of program city.
c. Two programs are left- Berlin and Madrid. The fare is high and FTI is trying to negotiate
a lower fare for the EC.
d. Berlin is high because of a trade show that’s going on around the start date of the
program. Berlin is looking into other routing options such as going through Brussels or
Amsterdam. May take train from those cities to Berlin if airfare is too high.
e. Berlin is also looking at adjusting program dates by a day or two to avoid conflicts with
tradeshow in hopes of getting a better fare.
f. Delta is now easier to work with because they changed their philosophy and want to fly
with full planes
4. CISI (Steve Hopkins)
a. CISI has worked with Georgia institutions for about 12 years, but now all Georgia
schools are operating under one agreement. UGA and GA State joined so everyone now
has better coverage.
b. The price of insurance is now based on price per day.
c. Some new benefits: 100% repatriation of remains, increased benefit if a parent needs to
fly to the student.
d. Trip delay benefit is $100/day
e. Dependents can also use the same plan but will have to pay separately. Faculty bringing
spouses and children will have the option of buying this coverage for their family
members. Coordinator will include when enrolling EC participants after the family has
paid for the coverage. Once the EC pays for the coverage, spouses, children, and deviated
students will have to pay CISI directly.
5. Old Business
Send: SWOT of programs, Bev office helper, Role of PD, Role of Rep, MOU,
a. Reports on 2015 Programs & Program Updates for 2016 (Directors)
i. Scotland
1. Minor issues with faculty: didn’t recruit, didn’t give syllabus to students
before the trip. PD will try to be more hands on; previously wanted to give
faculty their space since their tenured professors.
ii. Berlin
1. No major issues just a few sore throats and a stolen cell phone
iii. Madrid
1. Fewer students than last year but liked it because it’s easier to navigate since
all students fit on one bus
2. Colegio wants more students
3. Mentioned concerns about including faculty spouses on the program as it
seems to take the faculty away from the program.
4. Two students had to medically drop from the program shortly before
departure but were unable to get a refund
a. FTI has travel insurance for 6.5% of the cost of the program
5. PD questioned if the attendance policy should be left to the faculty since they
know the students better. Herb suggested that it’s best if the PD consult with
the faculty before making a decision, but the final decision should be up to
the PD. London has a rule that students must either go to class or go to the
clinic. Every faculty will judge things differently and thusly implement
policy differently; decision is kept with the PD to keep things consistently
6. Teddi will share London’s absentee policy to Bev and Bev will share to other
PDs.
iv. London
1. VSU sent wire to Tesco but they didn’t send the order number with it so
Tesco did not have the grocery cards ready at the beginning of the program.
The program had to buy meals for everyone in the beginning because of this.
2. One student brought friends back to the room because they missed the tube.
Student was sexually assaulted. There’s now a new policy that no one that’s
not part of the program can go past reception.
3. PDs followed clery procedure and reported the incident to the student’s home
campus (VSU). Directors also took her to a rap counselor on a regular basis
during the duration of the program.
4. At the end of the program there was a student exhibition that allowed
students to showcase their work from over the summer. Was successful and
will do again next year.
5. For summer 2016 the program has built in the cost of a student helper. The
person they have in mind has a masters, currently teaches, and was a
previous program participant.
v. Paris
1. Hired a faculty partner but didn’t work
2. One faculty brought their two little kids. This wouldn’t have been a problem
except the faculty brought them on every fieldtrip. Faculty couldn’t be
attentive to students and a few complained
3. Cite doesn’t take anyone under 18 and that will be the rule for the program as
well
Send: SWOT of programs, Bev office helper, Role of PD, Role of Rep, MOU,
4. A student from another program died because of meningitis. CISI wouldn’t
give preventative care. Everyone was supposed to take antibiotics but CISI
wouldn’t pay for it.
vi. Russia
1. No USG faculty participated in the program because of low student
enrollment. This worked great for the program because it saved money on the
budget and allowed the PD to spend more time with the students.
2. Margee flew with the students from Atlanta to Frankfurt; Irina met students
in Frankfurt and flew with them to St. Petersburg.
vii. Ireland
1. Did not attend
b. Audit- update on timeline (Beverly)
i. Bev and Irina will meet with internal audit at 9am on 9/14 to begin the process.
This is more of a procedural audit and if red flags are raised then the auditor will
start combing through the books.
6. New Business
a. 2015 program directors reports
i. See above
b. Program evaluations
i.
report from evaluation committee (Sarah)
a. SWOT report is attached in the same email that the minutes are being sent.
ii.
evaluating the results of the committee and moving forward
a. Members at large examined the evaluations and searched for key words and
trends.
b. Used a SWOT analysis (Strength, weakness, opportunities, threats)
c. Classified findings into three categories: Things that can’t be changed, things
that might be able to be changed, things that need to be changed
d. Members at large will email PowerPoints to Bev and Bev will email to
everyone along with the minutes
c. 2016 programs- meeting our expectations
i. changes and/or improvement in programs for 2016
1. Paris
a. Will visit Normandy for a weekend next year
b. Students will also be able to go to the Loire as an optional excursion.
The program will pay the bulk of the cost and students will only have to
pay a little bit
c. In 2016 students will also go the Versailles and see the light, laser,
music show
d. 2016 will continue with the dinner cruise but may make it an all night
event, depends on the budget
e. For 2015 students received a grocery cards with 100euros this year they
will received 150 euro and less cafeteria meals as the majority of the
students complained about that food.
f. Paris will be flying on a direct flight next year and there’s one extra
week to the program
2. Scotland
a. Shorter program for those that can’t leave for 5 weeks
b. Offering literature and history
Send: SWOT of programs, Bev office helper, Role of PD, Role of Rep, MOU,
c. The program is field trip based so they can enjoy Scotland but students
have pre and post trip assignments
3. London
a. Offering the typical theater, literature, art, history, and psychology
b. Branching out and trying something new, offering Biology for nonscience majors and Evolutionary Biology.
c. The dorms are located in the heart of London at the Theater districtBloomsbury.
d. Students will also be flying direct
4. Madrid
a. Flying direct this year which will allow students to arrive on site earler.
Friday students will learn the neighborhood and how to use the metro,
Saturday they’ll get a bus tour of the city, Sunday walking tour of the
area
b. Program offers 14 meals per week so students will pay less out of
pocket money for food
5. Berlin
a. 5 faculty/10 courses
b. 40 students
c. Includes metro pass and decreased program cost by $100
d. During the weekend students can visit Budapest, Prague, and Austria
6. Russia
a. Program is only 4 weeks because of visa restrictions
b. Flying on Lufthansa via Frankfurt
c. Utilize local faculty who teach all classes in English
d. Includes a cruise on the Baltic Sea to Finland, Sweden, and Estonia.
e. Ruble is weak so students USD will go further
f. Director encourages Reps to use previous students to help recruit for
the program
7. Ireland
a. Did not attend
ii. role of the program director
1. Bev will send out the role of program director
iii. role of the faculty
1. Bev will send out role of faculty
iv. Training
1. Some sort of training needs to be organized so PDs are better equipped to
handle them while abroad while also staying in compliance with clery.
v. agreements with our sister institutions
d. Marketing Program Materials for 2016
i. Brochures
1. Distributed to reps in attendance, the rest will be mailed out. Postcards will
be given to teaching faculty. Not all post cards are in, so the rest will have to
be mailed to their office.
2. For Summer 2017 the majority voted to move forward with hiring a designer
for brochures. This brochure style will be sued for three years.
ii. Website
Send: SWOT of programs, Bev office helper, Role of PD, Role of Rep, MOU,
e.
f.
g.
h.
1. Program package on website and in program guide needs to be uniform.
Directors can submit changes to Bev, but Bev has the discretion of not
changing something to maintain consistency.
2. The EC will explore the cost of an actual EC website instead of just a landing
page.
iii. Bags, pins, t-shirts
1. The global account will pay for EC study abroad shirts for students that have
signed up.
2. Once students sign up, they’ll get a shirt. EC office will mail boxes of shirts
to reps and reps can give to the students.
3. Shirt can say “I’m going abroad”
4. Use customink.com to design shirt
iv. Banner/trade show stands for campus reps
1. Reps can chose between a trade show stand or vinyl banners between the
trees in areas students most frequently walk. The trade show stand can be
used in the office or during study abroad fairs. The vinyl banner can be used
to target students who wouldn’t have thought about studying abroad.
v. Developing a three year plan for overall branding
Budgets
i. EC Budget including program balances (Irina)
1. Bev is almost done with the cost analysis and will send to those directors
once it’s done.
2. Once all cost analysis is done, Bev will organize everything in a chart for
clarity.
ii. Global account
Administrative coordinator
i. duties and responsibilities
ii. salary
1. Irina will check into the classification of EC Coordinator position to
determine what the maximum for the salary is. Position may have to be
reclassified.
EC Bylaws (Luc)
i. Dan Ross will make recommendations on changes that should be made
ii. Some policies need to be created such as how to use global money, how to create
and accept new programs.
iii. The Bylaws will mention these policies
Policies
i. MOU
1. Bev will send the MOUs to all institutions that need to resign them as the 5
year agreement is up.
ii. global account
1. Policy on how to spend funds needs to be created
iii. challenging grades
1. Students should follow the procedures for grade disputes at their home
institution
iv. developing new programs
1. Policy on creating and accepting new programs needs to be created
v. refunds and refund schedule
Send: SWOT of programs, Bev office helper, Role of PD, Role of Rep, MOU,
1. The refund schedule will remain the same. $300 application fee is nonrefundable and the money stays in the program account. This policy will be
for all students regardless of reason for dropping- what’s done for one is
done for all.
vi. use of late fees
2. Programs that require visas like Russia can use program late fees to pay for
expediting the visa instead of making students pay twice.
a. If students paid $100 in late fees, but expediting is $150, the student
will pay an additional $50
b. If the cost to expedite is $150, but student has paid $150 or more in late
fees, the student doesn’t need to pay anything else and the program
account will keep the balance.
c. Other late fees are moved to the Global account and can be used to pay
for hotel stay for PDs for overnight meetings, caterings for meetings,
registration fees for EC meetings.
vi. age requirements/addressing duel enrollment students
1. The EC will advise that students under 18 are not allowed to participate in
the program and this will remain on the application. If a student under 18
inquires about doing an EC program, it’ll be up to the discretion of the PD if
they wish to assume legal liability/guardianship for the student while abroad.
2. If a PD accepts a student who is under 18 by the time of departure then both
parents must sign a waiver.
vii. Program Directors
1. What happens after students submit the program evaluations? How are PDs
held accountable for negative reviews?
2. Members at large will make recommendations based on the evaluations
3. Chair will write a report based on those evaluations
4. Then what???
5. Evaluations need to be changed so they can evaluate the PD on different
items such as communication, addressing concerns, etc.
viii. membership- limit to GA universities or expand
i. NAFSA in Savannah
i. Students in non USG institutions will be able to send students on EC programs as
transient students through VSU.
j. Member at large position
i. accept the resignation of Jan Morian
i. Jan Morian from KSU accepted another position and will no longer serve. She
will be replaced by Erin Rasche who is currently working with the EC programs.
KSU international office has yet to decide if Erin will officially take over the EC,
if not, then the EC will need to elect another member at large.
ii. discuss possible replacement
b. Proposal- EC office student assistant scholarship (Beverly)
i. Majority voted and approved for $1000 stipend for one office assistant. The
student will work 10 hours a week from final payment deadline to about a week
after student orientation.
ii. Someone proposed $500 instead of $1000 but because of the amount of hours
required it was decided to keep it at $1000
c. Public Relations/Key Guest Policy (Luc)
Send: SWOT of programs, Bev office helper, Role of PD, Role of Rep, MOU,
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
Invite key people from institutions (president, provost, etc) so they can see the
quality of programs offered by the EC.
Program will pay for lodging and local transportation. The institution will pay for
airfare and per diem.
One admin at a time for one week so they can see how the program functions.
Once the USG board hire a replacement for Doug, this person should be invited to
attend.
ITEMS FOR NEXT MEETING:
 Guidelines for spouses and children
 Program Evaluation questions
 Role of student assistant and how are they selected
10:00am – 12Noon -European Council Executive Meeting (PSC RM 227)
10:00 am – 11:30 am - USG System Council –Int’l Education Meeting (PSC RM 212)
Lunch & Learn Breakout Meetings (3)
11:30 am – 2:00pm
Committee on International SCIE, Chief International Officers (PSC RM 239)
Students & Scholars (PSC RM 237)
Study Abroad Committee (PSC RM 212)
European Council Committee (PSC RM 212) (immediately following SAC Mtg)
2:00pm – 4:00 pm Area Council Meetings (Africa, Americas, Asia & Middle East) (RMS 227,
238 A& B, 237, 239)