After spending the past four years at Georgetown as the Director of International Programs and leading a multi-university research project to measure the effects of study abroad on students, Dr. Michael Vande Berg will leave Georgetown in April.
Vande Berg will become Vice President for Academic and External Affairs and, within the coming year, Chief Academic Officer at the Council on International Education Exchange. CIEE is the largest international exchange organization in the United States.
In his new position at the CIEE program headquarters in Portland, Maine, Vande Berg will work with over 100 different institutions to collaborate on study abroad programs and approach the challenges students encounter while studying abroad.
His work will involve cooperation with deans, international program offices, professors, provosts and students at domestic and foreign universities.
“The scope of CIEE relationships with other institutions both in the United States and abroad and the nature of education abroad are changing dramatically,” he said. “Each institution evolves differently, so this will be an exciting challenge.”
During his tenure at OIP, Vande Berg directed the Georgetown Consortium Project, which attempts to measure the benefits of studying abroad, and particularly whether or not students are learning what their home professors hope they are.
Vande Berg described the project in the Nov. 2, 2004 issue of Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad. The combined effort by the faculty of various departments at Dickinson College, Georgetown, Rice University and the University of Minnesota measures second language acquisition, cultural integration and learning within a disciplinary context.
Provost James O’Donnell expressed pride in Vande Berg’s contribution to Georgetown.
“He has helped lead efforts to assess student learning abroad and to develop pilot community-based learning programs abroad,” O’Donnell said in a March 1 press release. “In the wake of 9/11 he has helped to enhance the safety and security measures of students abroad as well as support our international students on campus.”
Vande Berg lauded OIP’s progress overthe last four years, emphasizing the office’s three-pronged efforts at improving strategic planning, internationalizing the campus and encouraging and promoting the number of students studying abroad.
“We have a tremendous staff here in OIP,” he said. “I’m very optimistic about the future of international programs at Georgetown.”
Current Assistant Dean and Director of International Student and Scholar Services Katherine Bellows will act as Interim Director.
