Vereinbarung zwischen unseren Universitäten

On January 22, yesterday, I walked with my colleague Juergen Muthig to the Rektorat(administration building) at Hochschule Karlsruhe to visit the Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Dieter Hoepfel, and Dr. Joachim Lembach, the director of the international office at the university. We signed an agreement between our technische redaktion (technical communication) programs to the effect that we agree to develop our virtual collaboration and look at the possibility of developing further joint programs like internships for technical communication students, double degrees for our students, and student exchanges.


The internship idea was particularly intriguing to me because, as I learned during my time here speaking to industry representatives, there are internship positions available for speakers of English who know only English. I had not thought of that possibility. Such firms as Siemens, Porsche, Haefele, Comet Communication, and SAP would welcome interns who can write in English. I am told that there is a raft of small high-tech companies in Karlsruhe, some of which would be willing to do the same thing. As for online collaborations between our students, Herr Muthig and I hope to continue that work in the fall semester 2009. I believe that we will continue our conversations about working together, and will certainly, at Mankato, work with Tom Gjersvig and Caryn Lindsay at the International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) to facilitate our planning.

From 8:45 to 1 p.m. I observed 3rd semester (Gruppe B) students present their final team projects (Praesentationstermine). The computer lab is located on the 3rd floor of the building (Gebaude F). Their presentations included detailed information about their team time management and decision making. Again, my German gets me some purchase and the context does as well, but I still miss some meaning because of my lack of vocabulary. Lunch was at our favorite sushi bar (second time already) and then off to to meet the administrators (see above).

I set up a Connect virtual meeting for 5 p.m. Karlsruhe time on January 23 during which we hope to learn how well we can use this tool to bring Karlsruhe and Mankato faculty and students together virtually.

This morning I returned to my favorite Karlsruhe running route in Gunter Klotz Anlage for my 4.8km run.

Getting ready to go

I am a faculty member at Minnesota State University, Mankato on sabbatical for spring semester 2009. Here you can see what I do at work.

Fulbright has generously agreed to award me a research scholarship to work at my host university of Birzeit, in Birzeit, Palestine. The university is located in a town by the same name just northwest of Jerusalem. My award allows me to work with the Center for Continuing Education there on the topic of online learning (also known as distance learning or e-learning). I plan to arrive in Jerusalem at the end of January and work until the end of May. I am looking forward to my sabbatical adventure.