ABROAD
Back when I was a junior in college, I studied abroad for a semester in Oaxaca, Mexico and the experience really opened my eyes. While I fully expected to learn more about my host country, looking back at the United States from the outside also gave me a newfound understanding of my home culture. Years later, I returned to Latin America for a much longer stay, teaching at the Universidad de Cuenca and Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador over the span of two years. And now, as a professor at the University of Tampa, I get to share similar experiences with my students through our Travel Course Program. Unlike a typical semester abroad, travel courses combine an on-campus class with a 1-2 week travel component so students can have an international experience along with their UT classmates. Course fees cover airfare, lodging, ground transportation, meals, excursions, on-the-ground support staff, and teaching, supervision, safety training, and medical assistance from two full-time time tenure track faculty members at the University of Tampa. Tuition is paid separately and financial aid and scholarships are available. The application deadline is typically Oct 1st for the following Spring. In the meantime, if you’d like to add your name to the interest list for future versions of either of the courses below, please email me at cboulton@ut.edu
MEDIA PRODUCTION
COM 212: CO-CREATIVE DOCUMENTARY ABROAD is a 4-credit faculty-led travel course that takes students abroad to produce documentary films about local changemakers solving problems in their own communities. We went to Ecuador in 2014, Morocco in 2016, and Thailand in 2019 with Actuality Abroad. In 2023, we went to Mexico on our own and plan to return there in 2025. The course begins with pre-production preparation at UT, then travels to the destination country for an intense period of research, planning, and filming along with group excursions. Upon returning to the States, the students meet weekly to edit together short documentaries advocating important social justice issues through visual storytelling. You can see pictures on Flickr, assignments on the sample syllabus, and other highlights through this student blog and conference presentation. There are no language or production prerequisites for this course, and its focus on media activism, public policy, and social entrepreneurship will interest students majoring in Communication, Entrepreneurship, Government and World Affairs, International Business, International and Cultural Studies, Public Health, and Sociology.
The student films have screened internationally and won awards. Most recently, Cadena en Cadena (Stitch by Stitch), produced in collaboration with Artesanías Lol-Chuy, a Maya embroidery collective, won Special Mention in the documentary category at The Americas Film Festival New York hosted by the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. Los Guardianes (The Guardians), produced in collaboration with Meliponario U Baàalamo’ob, a stingless bee apiary, won Best College Documentary at the MY HERO International Film Festival and screened for a month at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. And Na'aybi Lu'um (Dreamland), produced in collaboration with the Tuumben K'ooben conservation collective won Third Place in the Vegan Film category at NHDocs (the New Haven Documentary Film Festival). To view the students' work, along with a few peeks behind-the-scenes, see below.
The student films have screened internationally and won awards. Most recently, Cadena en Cadena (Stitch by Stitch), produced in collaboration with Artesanías Lol-Chuy, a Maya embroidery collective, won Special Mention in the documentary category at The Americas Film Festival New York hosted by the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. Los Guardianes (The Guardians), produced in collaboration with Meliponario U Baàalamo’ob, a stingless bee apiary, won Best College Documentary at the MY HERO International Film Festival and screened for a month at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. And Na'aybi Lu'um (Dreamland), produced in collaboration with the Tuumben K'ooben conservation collective won Third Place in the Vegan Film category at NHDocs (the New Haven Documentary Film Festival). To view the students' work, along with a few peeks behind-the-scenes, see below.
The Guardians: Carrillo, Mexico
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Cadena en Cadena: X-Pichil, Mexico
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Dreamland: Carrillo, Mexico
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Perception: Chiang Mai, Thailand
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Solace in Amal: Marrakesh, Morocco
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Ecuador: behind-the-scenes
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MEDIA STUDIES
COM 227: MEDIA IN THE AMERICAS is a 4-credit faculty-led travel course that takes students abroad to engage with Latin American media producers, regulators, scholars, and audiences to experience first-hand how media policies, institutions, and technologies intersect with the politics and processes of media production, distribution, and consumption. Previous versions travelled to Cuba, but the next section will go to Puerto Rico. During the first half of the semester, students prepare by reading, writing, and presenting reflections based on Latin American cultural industries, public and performing arts, indigenous media, journalism, cinema, radio, and television. Then, over Spring Break, students travel to San Juan to visit centers of media education, activism, creativity, and commerce (including El Vocero newspaper, WAPA TV, and student media outlets Sagrado TV and Radiorama Universitario) along with excursions to Old San Juan, the murals of the Santurce district, the National Museum of Art, Culebra Island, El Yunque National Forest, and the bioluminescent waters of Laguna Grande. The ability to speak Spanish, while helpful, is not required; all site visits will include a translator. See more details in the course syllabus. Travelogues from 2017 and 2019 offer glimpses of the course's previous trips to Cuba.