AAACE 2021 Annual Conference

intercultural, intergenerational, community, online

The purpose of this session is join the dialogue on internationalization at home by sharing a program that fosters intercultural and intergenerational learning. It spotlights the role that technologies played in facilitating meaningful and significant interactions between university students and older community members. Future directions will also be considered.

The purpose of this session is join the dialogue, both past and present, on internationalization at home by sharing a program that fosters intercultural and intergenerational learning. In particular, this session will spotlight the role that technologies played in facilitating meaningful and significant interactions between students at a university and older community members. The program is an ongoing collaboration between the Office of International Programs and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in which a suite of countries is featured by students either from the country or with experience in the country. As a result of COVID-19, the program was forced to shift to an online modality in which interactions became screen to screen. This session is relevant and timely because it demonstrates the importance of flexibility and adaptability when implementing programs during challenging times such as a pandemic. Furthermore, it offers a portrait of the transformation that can occur when programs build connections across cultures and generations.