Spring 2018 Faculty Exchange Cohort

A Glimpse Into International Academic Collaboration

The Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) is pleased to share with you the work and activities of the Spring 2018 cohort of participating faculty in our Short-Term Faculty Exchange Program! 

   

Jessica Gerlach (Left) History of Graphic Design, Graphic Design Projects, Eastern New Mexico University

Ana Isabel Pérez Gavilán (Right) School of Plastic Arts, Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Arteaga

​Professors Gerlach and Pérez Gavilán will be linking the history of design with practice and development of contemporary methods and styles. They will pair the students from classes in their home university with each other to work on a research and design project. The students will create a graphic design project with Mexican art motifs, in particular, they are looking at traditional Native American, New Mexican, and Saltillo blankets (including research, writing, and creating designs inspired by this style of art).


  

Dan Hoffman (Left) Department of Architecture, University of Arizona

Antonio Gallardo (Right) Department of Architecture, Universidad La Salle

Professors Hoffman and Gallardo will collaborate by connecting architecture designs on urbanism in desert regions with the poetics of architecture. During Dan Hoffman’s last visit, University of Arizona students and La Salle students participated in a site visit to Xochimilco for work and collaborated on a joint site analysis presentation. Both classes are following up with a design studio based on the site analysis. They are planning a series of video conferences in the Spring of 2018 so that students can share and discuss their work.


   

Carlos Cáceres Martínez (Left) Fishing Engineering Department, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur

Douglas Eernisse (Right) Department of Biological Science, California State University - Fullerton

Professors Caceres and Eernisse will collaborate to not only lecture but also perform field work in order to study the marine communities in intertidal areas. The professors will work together and take their students on an overnight visit to the University of California Kenneth S. Norris Rancho Marino Ecological Reserve in Cambria, San Luis Obispo County in central California, where they will study intertidal organisms of the White Rock State Marine Conservation Area. They will also do a joint trip to the Calerillas coast in Baja California Sur to perform field work in order to learn study intertidal vertebrates, particularly focusing on mollusks. These trips will provide the students with the opportunity to apply basic methodology and share experiences in order to study the intertidal communities. A Moodle platform for each marine course will be available to students of both institutions and we will plan for a designated time for a live collaborative chat among students from both universities.


   

Deanne Steven (Left) School of Business, Selkirk College

Francisco Velez Torres (Right) College of Business, Centro de Enseñanza Técnica Y Superior (CETYS) Universit

Professors Steven and Velez-Torres will collaborate by teaching about Canadian and Mexican culture, respectively, and connecting this new knowledge to the business world. The goal of this project is to investigate a new product or service by working together with students from the other country. Each Canadian team will be joined by either 1 or 2 Mexican students. Together the group will select either a product or service from one of the countries that would work within the other country. Using the appropriate template (product or service) from the website, they will create a 2-page business plan. 


   

Josh Davidson (Left) School of Hospitality and Tourism, Saskatchewan Polytechnic - Saskatoon Campus

Claudia Llanes-Canedo (Right) Departamento de Ciencias de la Naturaleza, Universidad de Guadalajara CUSUR

Professors Davidson and Llanes-Canedo will collaborate on recreation and tourism management. Professor Davidson will teach a class on environmental sustainability while professor Llanes-Canedo will teach a class on the challenges for ecotourism in Mexico. On teams, students will design a recreational day for environmental education with teenagers at Mexican high schools on wetland preservation theme. Canadian students will have a similar task, except this one will be focused on working with elementary-aged students from King George Community School. 


      

Felipe de Jesus Diaz (Left) Department of Culture, Art, and Human Development; Universidad de Guadalajara

Lee Mason (Middle) Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching; University of Texas, San Antonio 

Alonzo Andrews (Right) Department of Education, University of Texas, San Antonio 

Professors Diaz-Resendiz, Andrews, and Mason are collaborating on verbal behavior assessment and intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Research is needed to validate these language constructs for Spanish-speaking children with ASD. Dr. Diaz-Resendiz's expertise in the experimental analysis of behavior, along with Andrews and Mason's work in the applied setting, provide for an innovative and rigorous experience for students in classes at both Universidad de Guadalajara - CUSUR and the University of Texas at San Antonio. Together they are demonstrating the foundational techniques of applied behavior analysis toward language assessment and intervention for children with ASD through live functional assessments via video conferencing with the Bloom Children's Center in Monterrey, NL, Mexico.


   

Ángel Tuninetti (Left) Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics; West Virginia University

Paola Jeannete Vera Báez (Right) GastronomyUniversidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla

Professors Tuninetti and Vera will both be working on providing their students with lectures on culinary tradition and culture in Latin America. Professor Vera will be providing a lecture on Mexican Cuisine for Latin American Studies and Anthropology program open to the public. While Professor Tuninetti will provide a lecture on Argentine Culinary Traditions to the community. To connect the two courses and perspectives, the professors plan on having students participate in a blog in which students from both classes will write entries about the class readings. To further enhance the Exchange, the professors will include students in conversation activities in pairs.


   

Remy Arteaga (Left) McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, University of Arizona 

Jesús Antonio Gaxiola (Right) Department of Computing and Design; Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora 

Professors Arteaga and Gaxiola will collaborate with a small group of incoming students from McGuire’s New Venture Development program. The students will participate in a virtual cross-cultural design-thinking exercise with the participating international exchange students . Students will interact with each other over a digital video platform.


   

Rebecca Janzen (Left) Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; University of South Carolina

Luis Alberto Pérez-Amezcua (Right) Department of Arts and Humanities; Universidad de Guadalajara

Professors Janzen and Pérez-Amezcua will be collaborating through textual analysis, focusing on Mexican literature and authors. The collaboration will be centered around virtual student group activity that will allow students from both institutions to interact with each other sometime during the semester. The goal is to have students discuss the social and cultural implications as well as repercussions of literature in the construction of reality.


    

Roland Arthur Lee (Left) Department of Physical Sciences; MacEwan University         

René Alejandro Flores Estrella (Right) Department of Technological and Industrial Processes; Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO)

Professors Lee and Flores Estrella will be uniting chemical and biological processes in their exchange. Professor Lee will be teaching a course of the chemical process and flow chemistry design automation and analysis for dry reforming of methane to syngas. Professor Flores will focus on the modeling and control of the biological process. Biological processes can be modeled by a set of ordinary differential equations based on mass and energy balances. Overall, both professors will make an activity uniting students by a simple lab practice from home. By means of homemade instruments, it will be possible to check some properties of the modeled gases in an ideal way.


   

Juan Manuel Cárdenas Gándara (Left) Department of Culture, Justice and Democracy; Universidad the Guadalajara - Centro Universitario del Norte           

Wesley Curtis (Right) English Programs; University of South Carolina 

Professors Cárdenas and Curtis will be uniting technology with language education and socio-economic mobility. To do so, an Instagram account will be set up for sharing university life at both institutions. Over the course of the project, different students will have the opportunity to show important aspects of their universities on a daily basis. During the faculty exchanges, each faculty participant will be responsible for documenting their experiences at the host institution, as well as their interactions with students, faculty, and staff. The images will represent daily life at each partner institution, and they will serve as a starting point for further discussion and deeper understanding of the institutional and community context of each university. Each week, all students will be required to comment on a defined number of posts with either questions or comments.


   

Luis Galaz (Left) Departament of Economics and Administration; Universidad de Sonora 

Ferdinando Guerra (Right) Department of Economics; California State University Fullerton

Professors Galaz and Guerra will work together by integrating the fields of Economics and International Business and will expose undergraduate and graduate students to North American International Business. They will be utilizing a case study on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as well as another international economic case on the economic integration between the states of Arizona and Sonora. 


Congratulations professors for strengthening North American academic collaboration!