DRUMMOYNE, Australia—Kimberly Spragg, the CCCU’s student programs director since 2001, assumes leadership of one of the Council’s two International Partner Programs on July 1, 2005. Spragg has been named director of the Australia Studies Centre at Wesley Institute, located in Drummoyne, Australia, a suburb ten minutes outside of Sydney.
Since 2004, the CCCU has worked with two international affiliate institutions to create International Partner Programs, semester-long study experiences specifically for the larger CCCU community.”
Wesley Institute is an internationally recognized provider of Christian education, best known for its integration of ministry and the creative arts. Classes offered fall under the categories of art, music, dance, drama, graphic design, integrative studies and theology. The setting for the Australia Studies Centre is culturally diverse, non-denominational and immersed in creativity, where both students and faculty—who are practicing experts in their fields—are committed to authentic scholarship and Christian growth.
Spragg says that while she enjoyed her administrative role at the Council headquarters in Washington, D.C., she missed the personal interaction with students. “I also want to be more involved with creating curriculum around experiential learning, to put into practice all that I’ve learned at the CCCU,” she says.
As director of Australia Studies Centre, Spragg will have leadership responsibility for all aspects of the program including student behavioral issues, curriculum, safety planning, experiential learning components and focus/processing groups.
“Australia is a Western context, so I need to discern how to make the program more than an interesting experience, to make it life changing,” she says. “The kind of pivotal experiences you have in Uganda or the Middle East, you have because the environment is challenging. Even though Australia is pretty comfortable it is distinct and holds great potential for student learning. My job is to use the Australian context to help students realize how small their world is, to affect the scope of their worldview and continue the work our campuses are doing. Students may come thinking it will be fun and touristy. My task is to make it a challenging, growing experience for them.”
The CCCU’s two International Partner Programs, the Australia Studies Centre and Uganda Studies Program, are different from CCCU-managed programs in that the Partner program’s day-to-day management and staffing is stewarded by the affiliate institution. The experiential-learning and rigor of Partner Programs is modeled on traditional CCCU study programs, and Partner Programs are subject to the same academic standards and on-site evaluations as Council-managed programs. For this reason CCCU International Partner Programs enjoy the full endorsement of the CCCU and are considered members of the CCCU “family” of student academic programs.
The other ten semester- or summer-long student programs offered by the CCCU are categorized as either culture-crossing programs or culture-shaping programs. Included in the culture-crossing programs are: China Studies Program; Latin American Studies Program; Middle East Studies Program; Programmes in Oxford; and Russian Studies Program. Culture-shaping programs are: American Studies Program (Washington, D.C.); Contemporary Music Center (Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.); Los Angeles Film Studies Center (L.A., Calif.); and Summer Institute of Journalism (Washington, D.C.).
The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities is a higher education association of 175 intentionally Christ-centered institutions around the world. There are now 105 member campuses in North America and all are fully-accredited, comprehensive colleges and universities with curricula rooted in the arts and sciences. In addition, 70 affiliate campuses from 24 countries are part of the CCCU. The Council’s mission is to advance the cause of Christ-centered higher education and to help its institutions transform lives by faithfully relating scholarship and service to biblical truth.
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