On March 6, Charles Braymen from the department of economics and finance gave a lecture on “Global Perspectives in U.S. Business Education” to foreign students attending Universidad Iberoamericana en Leon, Mexico via Elluminate’s video live stream. This lecture was the first of its kind at Creighton.
According to Maria Mena, Creighton coordinator for the Dual-Immersion for the Modern Languages and Literatures (MLL) Spanish program, this lecture, which is part of the department of modern languages and literatures’ Dual Immersion Project, was prompted by a request she had received for a webinar in international business for students in a Mexican university delivered by a member of the Creighton faculty.
“The Dual-Immersion Project at the Hitchcock Language Resource Center (HLRC) offers students real time interaction with native speakers of Spanish,” Mena said. “It is called the Dual-Immersion because students collaborate with their Latin American partners at mainly Jesuit universities to learn each other’s language and culture via video chat.”
The Dual-Immersion Project operates under the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) including those in Latin America. This association encourages interdisciplinary collaboration among the participating universities, which is exactly what this lecture accomplished.
Business senior Jared Dorhout assisted Braymen with the lecture.
“It was a unique opportunity as a student to answer questions posed by students my age from a foreign university on global trade and the importance of an international component on a business education,” Dorhout said.
The lecture was delivered in English and lasted approximately one hour. According to Dorhout, it covered topics such as the importance of global trade, foreign direct investment, trade between the U.S. and Mexico and an overview of the international component of Creighton’s business curriculum.
In addition to students in an Introduction to Business Class at Iberoamericana-León University, two other Mexican universities – Iberoamericana-Puebla and ITESO-Guadalajara – tuned in as well.
“Dr. Braymen and Jared Dorhout did an outstanding job as a team, and having two speakers made the presentation very lively,” Olaf Böhlke, director of HLRC, said. “The potential for the HLRC [and communication via video chat] goes beyond languages because it’s the network of people with similar interests that creates the potential of becoming a world communication hub among Creighton students and international students.”
As for future plans, Mena explained that she feels that students like to hear from their peers in other countries, and will therefore try to schedule a lecture given by a student or graduate student in the fall semester.
In addition, according to Böhlke, their next project may deal with connecting foreign business leaders who would speak with Creighton students for free and without any cost of travel, a major benefit of web communication.
“We could have lectures on any topic,” Mena said. “And it could move in the other direction as well, for example Latin American professors talking to US students.”
For further information and to find out when these prospective lectures will occur, check the HLRC homepage in the Google calendar section.