April 2024 Volume 6, Issue 6
APEX project with Pakistan
The American Pakistan Exchange Program offers a chance for SVCC students and staff to experience Pakistani culture.
As for a little insight on the APEX project, it is a program that creates an opportunity for SVCC to interact with students and staff from Pakistan who attend Kinnaird College for women.
Paul Edleman, Glenn Bodish, and Amy Jakobsen offer their experience for SVCC students.
The project started when Professor Edleman attended a faculty development seminar, he then met a participant during that time and followed up with a grant through a workshop. Professor Edleman then met the co-director who he partnered with in Pakistan.
The previous October in 2023, 3 of Kinnaird's staff and 7 students then came to Sauk. The project then continued, and SVCC’s staff visited Kinnaird College this spring semester of 2024.
The purpose of APEX, Professor Edleman stated, is to create an “engagement that is academic oriented.” Students and staff both have the chance “to interact culturally, it becomes the center point for them to engage.”
SVCC plans to make another trip in the future. Professor Edleman goes on to say he “hopes to introduce it long term” and that he is “hoping to take students next year.”
During the staff's recent visit to Pakistan, they attended a conference where Professor Bodish stated they all met colleagues across the world and were “able to compare the curriculum and compare ideas that we’re working on within our field.”
When meeting the staff at Kinnaird, Bodish expressed that the visit had a “big impact on my life experience.” He also found the entire trip to be a “profound experience” and “opened doors” to new experiences outside of school.
Professor Jakobsen said it gave her a “broader perspective” in terms of the culture. She spoke highly of the different cultural perspectives, “looking at cultural differences, it's interesting to explore how you feel your sense of responsibility to your family, to your job, to your students, your religion. The professors we met there went 100% on everything.”
APEX created an opportunity for SVCC to work with Kinnaird College for women.
Professor Edleman states, “I’m hoping that this will have a lasting impact for us, to have this exchange every year.”