Integrating Teaching Abroad Into An International Student Exchange Program

The electrical engineering program at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) has integrated a bilateral faculty teaching component into its international student exchange program. Considerable flexibility was needed to adjust to faculty availability and the major differences in academic calendars between the two institutions. Specifically, MSOE is a private institution on a quarter system and its partner university is the Lubeck University of Applied Sciences in Lubeck, Germany which utilizes the semester system and is a state university. Among the problems that needed to be overcome is that the semester versus quarter systems simply didn’t align and neither institution has the resources to allow faculty absences for an entire academic year. At the Lubeck University of Applied Sciences the MSOE faculty generally teach a short intensive 2 week course at the end of the spring semester. An appropriate number of credits and associated grade are given and entered on both university transcripts. The Lubeck university faculty visit MSOE in the fall quarter to participate in the project defense of their own students who perform their Diplom Arbeit (senior thesis project) at a company generally in the Milwaukee region. During the visit the Lubeck faculty also provide a series of special topic lectures in various courses depending on the expertise of the faculty member. The benefits of the faculty exchange are many. Not just does the experience foster a stronger bond to the partner abroad, but the presence of the faculty serves to assure the students that the home institution is paying attention to their welfare and academic progress. The most essential thing we have come to believe is that while good academics are essential to a program, it is the relationships between the people involved in the program that determines a truly successful international program. The faculty exchange aspect has become a lynchpin of our exchange program.