Today's Video: France DVD Trailer

Simpson College in France from Brian Steffen on Vimeo.

Smart Study Abroad hasn’t gone away — we’ve just been in documentary-production mode for the past month in preparing a film on our May study-abroad course in France. We’ve even prepared a trailer in support of our Office of International Education and now share that trailer here.

French University Strikes Now Threaten Year

Strikes by university students and faculty in France are continuing, U.K. newspaper Guardian newspaper reports, and the possibility that students could complete the year’s studies is now in doubt.

French education ministers are warning that if lectures aren’t started before May, French and international students will miss their examinations and therefore forfeit an entire academic year.

“The government will never accept exams being sacrificed,” Prime Minister François Fillon said Wedensday. “That would be a catastrophe for France's image in the world.”

American students studying in France have reported that they haven’t been getting much classroom instruction since the strikes began in February — but they have been getting a firsthand look at the sometimes-volatile relationships among French faculty, administrators and students.

According to the Guardian, the strikes are the single largest stoppage of work the modern history of French universities. About a quarter of the nation’s 83 universities have suspended at least some classwork, and more may join the strikes after next week’s May 1 celebrations of worker rights.

While most agree that French universities are in need of reform, faculties are incensed over proposals from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government that universities be run on the models of successful commercial enterprises.

“You can’t measure universities like a factory in terms of economic success,” says Valérie Robert, a lecturer in German history at a Paris university. “We feel our freedom as academic researchers is being totally curbed.”

French Strikes and American Students

Strikes at French universities during the spring have had an impact on students at Brown, Princeton, Georgetown and other American universities — and more is to come.

France 24 reports that teachers from preschool through university are planning massive April 28 marches throughout the country, and that may be followed by a May 1 general strike throughout the country reminiscent of the Jan. 29 and March 19 strikes that each crippled France for a day.

The university strikes are in opposition to the French government’s involvement with the Bologna Process that is leading to the standardization of higher education throughout Europe.

The general strikes by workers throughout the country are in response to the handling of the recession by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government. The strike impact is being felt in the transportation and tourism industries, many of which cater to American students during the spring short-term travel course season.

Study Abroad Preparation for Students

Today I begin prepping my nine France-bound students for our 15-day travel course to Paris, Bordeaux and Nice in April and May. It's a one-credit academic course designed to help our students appreciate the difference between our travel program as an academic experience and what they'd likely experience if they were simply tourists seeing the country EuroTrip style.

The preparation for study abroad is crucial, which most leaders know but I've learned the hard way. When I first led a study-abroad course, in 2001, the preparation was limited to meetings at which we watched a couple of videos, filled out forms, made copies of passports and distributed airline tickets. Now we're a bit more rigorous about it.

Some institutions have detailed preparation processes for students. My own institution has but a part-time international education coordinator who is doing a great job of trying to systematize our study-abroad programs and introduce standards for what constitutes acceptable study-abroad opportunities.

The prep course increases in important when, as in my case, the instructor is leading a course on his or her own without the aid of a travel-course vender such as EF Tours or ACIS. I'll update the blog as we go through the process over the next several weeks, leading to our departure on April 27.

For now, it appears to me that preparation experiences need to focus broadly on the following themes:

• Systems and procedures of travel courses: Getting the forms and passports in, explaining the rules, etc.
• Defining culture broadly and the cultural ideals of the students' destinations.
• Specific content of the course. In our case, our course is designed to expose students — most of whom speak little French at all — to the differing values and ways of life of Americans and the French.

There'll no doubt be much more than this.