Penn State Berks collaborated and shared their research with students from the National Technical University of Ukraine as part of an Experimental Digital Global Engagement collaboration offered through Penn State Global Programs.
WYOMISSING, Pa. — As part of an Experiential Digital Global Engagement (EDGE) collaboration offered through Penn State Global Programs, Penn State Berks students collaborated and shared their research with students from the National Technical University of Ukraine (NTUU).
The NTUU team comprised undergraduate and graduate students in a linguistics and language program. Their team was led by Professors Nataliia Glinka and Iryna Voloshuk. The Penn State Berks team comprised communication arts and sciences and global studies undergraduate students enrolled in the college’s "Intercultural Communication Theory and Research" course, led by Cheryl L. Nicholas, associate professor of communication arts and sciences.
The groups first exchanged their research digitally, through short videos. Then all students and faculty met via Zoom, where they participated in a question-and-answer session about each group's projects. Both groups of students were particularly intrigued about each other's research process and inspiration, according to the professors.
Penn State Berks students discussed their research projects, which ranged in topics from negotiations of infidelity in romance movies, gender representations in parenting, dance and sports magazines, oral histories of Brazilian migrants in Pennsylvania, government websites and environmental policy, Taylor Swift documentaries and gender-bias in short stories developed by artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, the NTUU students shared a digital project on Ukrainian culture and identity, which highlighted cultural heroes and movements in engineering, sports, music and film, folklore and languages.
Emily Jones, a senior majoring in communication arts and sciences at Penn State, commented that being able to complete a project in an area she was interested in was particularly rewarding. Jones studied how pop star Taylor Swift used her documentaries to cultivate her public persona. She noted that the project was very personal to her, and it was nice to be able to share it with students from another country who identified as "Swifties."
Nicholas noted that this collaboration was a good opportunity for students to meet other researchers and learn to talk about their research within an international context, without having to leave their homes.
About Penn State’s EDGE Program
Experiential Digital Global Engagement (EDGE) is a project-based international virtual exchange program housed in the Global Learning team within Penn State Global. EDGE provides international education and global accessibility regardless of student resources or limited, unpredictable mobility. EDGE projects, which are developed jointly by Penn State and international paired faculty, are embedded into Penn State courses where Penn State students team remotely with students from around the globe to solve a problem, thereby developing and strengthening their global awareness and perspective.
