By Beth Kalisiak and Aimie Pizano
IVCC students and staff are being offered an opportunity for an exchange program to China.
The participants, who will not have to speak Chinese, will live in dorm rooms and study at the Shanghai Teacher's University where they will an opportunity to interact with Chinese students.
They will also have opportunities to earn money teaching English to the Chinese.
The exchange program is being offered in conjunction with Rock Valley College and the Illinois Consortium for International Studies and Programs.
Instructor Steve Alvin, who is the campus ICISP representative, said the cost of this one-month study abroad program is approximately $2,600, which includes airfare to China, health insurance, room and board, and other travel expenses.
Alvin encouraged students to take advantage of this opportunity.
"This is a great time to do it (travel)," he said. "You have no responsibilities, no family, no mortgage. It looks good on job applications and it's lots of fun."
Other ICISP programs allow IVCC students to study and faculty to teach in Canterbury, England or Salzburg, Austria. In those programs, participants live with host families for an entire semester.
ICISP also offers two-week professional and cultural exchanges for faculty and administrators. The 2001 exchange will be with the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland.
Instructor Jill Urban-Bollis and counselor Jane Sack will be going to the Netherlands in May for two weeks. Their exchange was with their Dutch counterparts who visited IVCC last fall.