College manager featured speaker at TEDx Event

College of the Rockies Manager of International Education, Jeff Cooper, looks forward to sharing his personal stories and hearing others’ perspectives on internationalization at Selkirk College’s TEDx event.

College of the Rockies’ Manager of International Education, Jeff Cooper, will be a featured speaker at a Selkirk College TEDx event on Friday, October 3.

Many people are aware of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks which operate under the slogan ‘Ideas Worth Sharing’. TEDx events are TED-type events organized on a local level. Selkirk’s TEDx talk, entitled Crossing Cultural Borders: Sharing Culture, Linking Stories, Creating Vision will take place at the Shambhala Music and Performance Hall in Nelson from 11am to 3pm.

Cooper, who responded to a request for College of the Rockies participation from Theresa Southam, Coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Institute at Selkirk College, will be speaking on Internationalization: From Awareness to Promotion.

“I will be sharing personal stories of my own process of becoming more aware of other cultures and how I’ve now come to encourage and promote internationalization through the work that I do at the College,” Cooper says. “I am honoured to have been asked to speak and am looking forward to hearing others speak on the theme of crossing cultural borders.”

College of the Rockies currently hosts 203 international students from 34 countries. Cooper is quick to point out that internationalization means more than bringing students from other countries to attend school here, however.

“Of course we love having students from other countries attend the College. It adds so much to the college experience for them, our domestic students, as well as the staff. We don’t stop there, however. The International department manages and coordinates projects overseas which provide opportunities for staff, student and community participation, we are involved in other community opportunities including developing friendships through our Homestay program, and the College builds on the experiences brought back from international travel from staff and students, including bringing these experiences into the classroom and incorporating them in curriculum development,” Cooper adds.

The work being done by College of the Rockies’ International department has not gone unnoticed. In April, they were ranked number one in the world for international student satisfaction by the i-graduate International Student Barometer 2013 Survey and in May were awarded the Association of Canadian Community Colleges’ (now Colleges and Institutes Canada) Gold Internationalization Excellence award.

Click to learn more about International Education at College of the Rockies.