Faculty Exchange

Because faculty exchange has been a part of the project since its inception, it might be easy to overlook or take for granted this element of the project. However, what we have come to understand is that regular, face-to-face interaction is absolutely crucial to the life of this sort of project. To be sure, the internet makes possible this exchange and allows for the promise of even more online exchanges. But, we can never take for granted how another institution, one complete with different power structures and pressures, may interpret and present knowledge.

Even more, all of the faculty who have had the privilege of taking part in a real-time exchange report significant changes in their approach to the classroom and understanding of diversity. Faculty exchange is needed not only because it is far simpler and faster to communicate when you are sitting together in a room, but because in being together we have the opportunity to really get to know who the other is. We have a chance to question ideas, to seek explanation, to offer each other ideas, and to realize and feel the cultural realities in which each of us lives.

To this point, it seems obvious that both CCC and NMMU value the faculty exchange and have made evident commitment to this facet of the project. We all acknowledge this support and are grateful.

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