Feature Story Idea’s

1. A story focusing on the success and development of UNE’s Global Education Programs. Answering questions of what the program developers have done to warrant the success, why they have taken that approach. And what David, Sandra, and Emily bring specifically to the success of the program.
2.  Increase of live music performances in the commons. The benefits of that, why, it has been happening more frequently, and the reason behind it. What students, faculty thoughts are on it. 

First Draft

The state of the program today

What it started as

How they got there 

Why was the program found, tell me about the early days of the programs?

How the morocco campus was founded, why it was?

How does the program keep improving, what improvements are important

How does UNE’s global education program compare to other Universities in the nation?Are there any new programs in the making?

Lead: The newest developments in the program, the state of the program today

Background information: Une’s Global Education program is quite extensive, featuring four semester-long programs. The flagship program is in Tangier, Morocco where UNE has its own campus, which is the biggest program. Sevilla Spain, in which students live with host families and attend the local (TBD campus). Aix de Province, France, which is located in Paris, also having students live with host families. Last but not least,  Akureyri, Iceland, in which only a few students per semester attend. Along-side the Semester-long programs are the travel courses. UNE offers courses to Belize, Cuba, India, Thailand, Costa Rice, Greece and Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Panama, Ghana, Spain (Granada), Dominican Republic, The Galapagos, Kenya, and Mexico. While that list does list off all the countries that are offered, the experiences that each one offers is undeniably amazing.

Where it started:

How it got to where it is Today

Workshop Draft

UNE’s Global Education program has reached new heights as during the 2018/2019 season they sent 123 students abroad compared to the ten students sent abroad in 2006. With an exponentially growing interest for global experiences, the Global Education program is taking proactive steps to keep up with the interest as every year more students are drawn to studying abroad. 

UNE is unique when it comes to the experience and support that it gives students who want to take the step into a life-changing experience. From the moment they start orientation or attend accepted student days they are exposed to information on studying abroad by means of the information sessions, tours to the Global Ed office, student involvement fair. Throughout the semesters on campus, the global education office offers international-themed events to staffing a student advisor desk in the Ripich Commons. There is even a global education scholarship that is granted to accepted students. 

“We try to remove barriers that would prevent students from going abroad.” States David Suda, one of the program coordinators.  

Social media is a big factor in how they advertise the incredible experiences of students currently abroad. Every week, a different student will do a social media takeover on Instagram and post daily about the current activities in daily events they experience while abroad.” No wonder “UNE students are traveling abroad at 5 times the national average” states Suda. Along with Instagram, in which, “students tell their story while abroad”, they have a Facebook presence in which they often post about their study abroad programs.  

Emily Dragon, the director of the Global Education, states that 33% of the undergraduate class of 2019 participated in at least one study abroad experience during there time at UNE. 18% participated in a semester-long program compared to just 15% in 2017/18. The program coordinators pride themselves on their ability to make the process as streamlined as possible, “we are literally holding your hand every step of the way and paving the way for you to leave Maine and go abroad” said Sandra Larned, a program coordinator. 

Une’s Global Education program is quite extensive, featuring four semester-long programs. The flagship program is in Tangier, Morocco, where UNE has its own campus. What makes this program so attractive is that it offers extrusions to various cities in Morocco along with a trip to Sevilla Spain. If students are worried about falling behind in their academics, the coordinators have made it possible for nearly every major to find time to study abroad as the campus includes labs science classes on campus which a feature that many other studies abroad programs can’t offer. Currently, there are 44 students attending the Morocco campus with 70 accepted for the fall of 2020 which will be the biggest Cohort ever. A number of that size could not be possible without such dedicated staff. Amoung the kitchen, and maintenance workers on the Morocco campers, are three individuals who make the program flourish. Doua and Rania, the campus coordinators, and Mourad, the campus manager who are all Moroccan natives now with years of experience making the Moroccan travel abroad experience so enticing and comfortable for the students who attend. 

They also offer a semester abroad in Sevilla. Spain and Aix de Province, France, in which students live with host families Last but not least, Akureyri, Iceland, in which only a few students per semester attend. Along-side the Semester-long programs are the 15 faculty lead travel courses that go all over the globe.  

Final Draft

UNE’s Global Education Program Surges in Growth

Studying abroad at UNE has never been easier with the proactive and enthusiastic steps the program coordinators take to boost enrollment.

UNE’s Global Education (study abroad) program, has reached new heights as during the 2018/2019 academic year when they sent 123 students abroad compared to the ten students sent abroad in 2006. With an exponentially growing interest for global experiences, the Global Education program is taking proactive steps to keep up with the interest as every year more students are drawn to studying abroad. 

UNE is unique when it comes to the experience and support that students receive when taking the step into a life-changing experience. From the moment they start orientation or attend accepted student days they are exposed to information on studying abroad through information sessions, tours to the Global Ed office, and the student involvement fair. Throughout the semesters on campus, the Global Education office offers international-themed events to staffing a student advisor desk in the Ripich Commons. There is even a global education scholarship that is granted to students accepted into one of the semester-long programs.

“We try to remove barriers that would prevent students from going abroad.” States David Suda, one of the program coordinators.  

Social media is a big factor in advertising the incredible experiences of students currently abroad. Every week, a different student takes over the UNEglobal or UNEMorocco Instagram to post about the current activities and daily events they experience while abroad. They are able to share a glimpse into their study abroad story. Students interested in the program can view these posts to get a better understanding of the types of experiences they would be having if they choose to spend a semester abroad or embark on a travel course.

No wonder “UNE students are traveling abroad at 5 times the national average” states Suda.

Along with Instagram, they have a Facebook presence in which they often post about upcoming study abroad events, study abroad student articles, and faculty developments.

Emily Dragon, the director of the Global Education program, states via an email that 33% of the undergraduate class of 2019 participated in at least one study abroad experience during their time at UNE. 18% participated in a semester-long program compared to just 15% in 2017/18. The program coordinators pride themselves on their ability to make the process as streamlined as possible.

“We are literally holding your hand every step of the way and paving the way for you to leave Maine and go abroad,” said Sandra Larned, program coordinator. 

Une’s Global Education program is quite extensive, featuring four semester-long programs. The flagship program is in Tangier, Morocco, where UNE has its own campus. What makes this program so attractive is that it offers excursions to various cities in Morocco along with a trip to Sevilla, Spain. If students are worried about falling behind in their academics, the coordinators have made it possible for nearly every major to find time to study abroad. A big asset is the campus includes labs science classes on campus which is a feature that many other study abroad programs can’t offer.

“I was afraid that applying to study abroad was going to be daunting and challenging, but the Global Ed office made it really easy. They took the stress of applying out of the equation.” Says UNE student Mitch Becker who spend Spring 2018 in Morocco.

Currently, 40 students are attending the Morocco campus with 70 accepted for the fall of 2020 which will be the biggest cohort ever. That size could not be possible without such dedicated staff. Among the kitchen, and maintenance workers on the Morocco campus, are three individuals who make the program flourish. Doua Ben and Rania Chentouf, the campus coordinators, and Mourad Benkirane, the campus manager, who are all Moroccan natives. They all have years of experience making the Moroccan travel abroad experience enticing and comfortable for students who attend. 

They also offer a semester abroad in Sevilla, Spain and Aix de Province, France, in which students live with host families and last but not least, Akureyri, Iceland, in which only a few students per semester attend. Along-side the semester-long programs are the 15 faculty lead travel courses that go all over the globe.

A travel course entails attending a class on campus in Biddeford leading up to the travel portion in which students apply what they learned in the classroom to practical scenarios on location. These courses range from spending three weeks traveling throughout Kenya for an environmental course to spending a week with a host family in Mexico doing community service. More information on the semester abroad and travel courses can be found at: https://www.une.edu/global/ed.

Students who study abroad come back as changed individuals having lifechanging cultural and personal experiences. The faculty, professors, and students behind the Global Education program understand how valuable it is and that’s why they wholeheartedly encourage and develop the growth of the program.

On her study abroad experience in Morocco, Hannah St. Germain said, “Looking back on studying abroad feels like a past life. All the things you experience, places you see, and people you meet are so phenomenal that it’s almost difficult to accept that it was real, and I was able to live that.” 

Workshop Experience

The feedback I got today was really helpful and definitely is pushing me in the right direction with my article. First I definitely need to do some reformatting of the organization of it. I also need to break apart my second to last paragraph and some other aspects of my article to have it look more like an article rather than an academic paper. I also need to find two more students for quotes in my article, one that exemplifies how easy the global education program made the study abroad process go and one from Sevilla who just loved the experience. Also ending the article with a quote like that I think will strengthen the article as a whole. I also think I should extend the last paragraph to fully flesh out those ideas. Also, make sure to put in the source of some of that information will increase my credibility. I need to expand the social media part more and possibly get a quote from someone who used it to explain how awesome it was. Overall, I know where I need to improve my article and how I am going to do so. After some reformatting, quotes, expanding on ideas, and extensive proofreading, I will be in a place where I am ready to publish my article. 

Editorial- Team Reflection

The editorial-team experience with this class was one of the best I’ve ever had due to the collaboration of the group. Nearly everyone had insightful comments, critiques, and suggestions to a variety of the articles reviewed in class. As for the highlights of the workshops on my comments, I found that a recurring theme was that I focused a lot on adding perspectives to people’s articles in the forms of suggesting that people interview more people and or people with a  differing opinion for their article. In my experience, I tend to find quite a few people to interview for articles as I like to have different perspectives when it comes to covering subjects. Some of the people in the class tended to have limited sources for quotes that sometimes only explored one side of an issue. I find that it is important to suggest that people try to step more out of their comfort zone and interview more people. Another theme of mine that I noticed was I tended to have many thoughts on how people write their leads. The lead is such an important part of the article and not getting that right will lead to people only reading some parts of the article and not getting to fully understand the point you try to get across in an article. Often some of my peers lead either weren’t very attention-grabbing or falsely represented the main subject of the article. Helping my peers to understand how important the lead is was something I always looked out for during the workshops.

Another aspect of the workshop experience was seeing learning from how my peers critiqued my other peer’s works and vice versa. From thoughts on the lead to storytelling, voice, angle, sources, quotes, article structure, there was a lot to learn from such a diverse group of people all working on the same type of things with differing subjects, opinions, and writing styles. I loved taking mental notes of what the group had concurring opinions of and what everyone seemed to find in articles that worked really well and what didn’t. One example of something that I found everyone like was paragraphs that had a lot of descriptive language to them, along with a strong voice for that description. One thing everyone seemed to try and correct with long paragraph structure and making sure that the writer had a clear and concise subject to the article. Overall, enjoyed the workshop experience very much.

Feature Story Reflection

I’m not a beginner in writing journalistic style articles, but I do learn so much from each one I write. Doing the feature on the Global Education department was a fun and educational experience. I really enjoy the process of piecing everything together to form the kind of story I want to tell. I paid a ton of attention to the process for this assignment, which I think was the point.

 First, I find that I really need to focus on topics that I have an interest in, or if the topic isn’t super intriguing to me, find an angle that makes it exciting. I found I like to get right to the interview and or trying to gather as much information as I can about the topic. As I have been gaining experience interviewing people over the past few years, I have found I really enjoy it and am getting good at it. What I’ve found I like to do, is get a few points of interest mapped out, a few questions are written down that open up the main points of the topic, but for the most part, I  try to turn the interview into a conversation. This way, the information comes more naturally and leaves room for adding follow up questions or opening up a rabbit hole I’d like to dive a bit deeper into. Over-preparing is not my thing. Another reason I like this way of conducting interviews is that I tend to be more present for them, rather than stuck in my notes, this helps me remember not just what the say but how they say it, queueing in on their body language and queues that I can’t get from my recording. 

When listening to the playback, I found it helpful to jot down little summaries of main points they make, while pulling a couple of good quotes that I can sort through. After that, I make a blueprint for how I would imagine the article to flow, which pieces of content would make the most sense in which order. Of course, after writing through a first draft, this order is subject to change along with how the content is presented. 

I found the workshops to be really helpful because other people catch things that I simply do not see within my own work. Many of my peers were able to make helpful suggestions that I am able to learn from and apply to my next article process. 

When revising my article, I really enjoy going back and deciding where I should move certain information to make the best story. Deciding what information is most relevant and interesting and including that towards the top. Then seeing which information would be interesting to someone who is intrigued by my article to make it to the bottom.

 After this feature article, it was made me more aware of the structure of my articles, the sources I use, and how I present the information. Making sure to take good care into my lead and opening paragraphs, and fully forming ideas that may to understandable to me but not my reader. Overall, I really learned a lot from this feature article process and I can’t wait to apply these lessons to the next beat I write.