While all of these reasons resonate with Ken Bussema, CCCU vice president for student programs, he adds a few more to the list. “Study abroad gives students opportunities to look both inward and outward,” says Bussema. “Interacting with differences they encounter challenges students to look at the shaping influences in their lives, and examine what their core, important values are, and why.” He also points out that study abroad builds self-confidence in those who participate and effectively expands their sense of vocation.
The CCCU programs also strive to explore faith and worldview questions from a global perspective. “Not only do students get a sense of a global community, but they really learn what the Apostles Creed means by the universal catholic church, to worship with and take communion with believers from very different walks of life,” says Bussema.
According to the Congressional resolution, the U.S. Senate encourages schools, universities, business and government programs to promote and expand study abroad opportunities. The Senate also resolved “to encourage the people of the United States to support initiatives to promote and expand study abroad opportunities and to observe the ‘Year of Study Abroad’ with appropriate ceremonies, programs and other activities.”
The Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program released a report in Nov. 2005 asking Congress and the President to create a new fellowship program to increase the number of American undergraduates studying abroad a decade from now to one million a year. Less than 200,000 students studied abroad during the 2003-2004 academic year.
Bussema is encouraged by the resolution and the commission’s suggestion to increase grants for study abroad. “It’s a commentary that we’re learning in our world today that we must discover ways to make connections with people very different from ourselves, to build bridges of cooperation rather than walls,” he says. “I’m glad to see the government recognize that we have to find ways to relate to other people and other cultures.”
Bussema oversees 12 semester- or summer-long student programs offered by the CCCU, all of which are categorized as either culture-crossing programs or culture-shaping programs. Included in the culture-crossing programs are: Australia Studies Centre; China Studies Program; Latin American Studies Program; Middle East Studies Program; Programmes in Oxford; Russian Studies Program; and Uganda 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 Washington Journalism Center (Washington, D.C.), which is scheduled to launch in Fall 2006. All programs undergo regular site visit evaluations by the Student Academic Programs Commission (SAPC).
The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities is a higher education association of more than 170 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, 71 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.
