A.C.T.S. Seminar - Supporting International and Culturally Diverse Students

The premise of the A.C.T.S. Seminar (Advising, Counseling, Teaching, and Supporting International and Culturally Diverse Students) program and its activities was to implement training that would increase the intercultural competence and cultural awareness of participating Central Texas College (CTC) faculty, counselors, advisers, and staff charged with serving and supporting the college’s international, community, foreign, and culturally diverse student populations.

Lectures, presentations, and activities were coordinated by CTC professionals with experience and expertise in relative fields such as international and cross-cultural studies, English as a second language, international student support services, communications, social behavioral sciences, social work, and counseling psychology.

Objectives

• A.C.T.S. is a professional development seminar designed to provide cultural competency training for CTC faculty, counselors, and student support staff.
• Participants acquire information and tools that will help them better advise, counsel, teach, and support international, community-foreign and culturally diverse student populations.

Activities

• Lectures on Assimilation, Acculturation, and Alternation; Culture Shock; Effective Communication and Language Barriers; and Cultural Competence
  
• Conversation Café
• International Theater and Luncheon
• Jeopardy: The Awareness Edition
• The Foreign Student Experience (based on the Blue Eye/Brown Eye experiment)

Participating Institution

• Central Texas College (multiple departments)