AWL
Meeting notes for October 3, 2006

Present: Ann Berns, Bonnie Bissonette, Julie Bunczak, Liza Doering, Pulkhit Gautam, Jeanne Haverly, Nancy Hessert, Sara Murkey, Laura Place, Lori Schimmels, Shar Soto, Kathy Spencer, Vicky Thompson, Kara Torkelson, Mary Nell Reif

(Hope I got everyone, but please let me know if I didn’t get your name.)

Dinner Meeting on October 23 at 5:45 at the City Grill.
(We’ll be in the back room this time.)

Make sure you read to the end of these notes for suggestions for sending in updated material for our WEBSITE.

Janet Newman, Vice-President for Learning at NTC gave a presentation entitled, “Inspired, Connected, Strengthened.” The focus of the presentation, which Janet had given at the winter WAFLT Conference, was the importance of international experiences for all students. She had numerous stories with accompanying slides to demonstrate the unique international exchange opportunities that community members and NTC students have had over the past few years. Janet used numerous examples to demonstrate Thomas Freidman’s premise that things are “no longer a matter of geography, but of relationships.” The talk was inspiring and encouraging to world language teachers as the group doesn’t have to be convinced about the importance of all opportunities that help students to become “interculturally competent.” Experiencing another culture in their own language is the best way to understand that culture. Many thanks to Janet for generously giving of her time and for her excellent presentation.

Funding Report- We have re-written our project plans and included a vision statement and budget narrative. The budget numbers have changed because the registration and sub pay for the Business Education Partnership have been taken care of by individual school districts, individuals, and money left over from our budget. I attached the changes in an e-mail to you last week. The new documents are in draft form so I’m looking for suggestions and editing before we take it back to Gary Freels at the Alexander Foundation. (That is the suggestion of Jean Tehan who is guiding us through this process.) She has the new documents as of last Friday and feels that we have a better chance of securing funding with our revisions.

Project-We are probably looking at starting the Project in January. Julie Bunczak, Shar Soto, Kathy Spencer and Mary Nell will work on the Project.

WAFLT- A number of us have agreed to attend the New Visions in Action workshop (on Regional Alliances) at WAFLT and we are waiting to hear from Kyle Gordon as to whether the workshop is a “go” or not. It is one of the morning workshops on Friday.

Paul Sandrock asked us to talk about the Alliance during his presentation at WAFLT on Saturday morning. Julie Bunczak has agreed to do that for us.

WEBSITE- If you take a look at our website on the UWMC site at www.uwmc.uwc.edu/awl you will see that we need to make the site current. I will take care of adding the minutes, meeting dates, and plans for our Project and participation at WAFLT.

Please send me any information on your travels this summer with students or any other projects, events, learning opportunities and/or pictures that you might have and I’ll send them on to Scott Bouffleur at UWMC.

Are there any changes in the meeting times or places for the Conversation Groups that we should be making?

Business Education Partnership Summit- The Summit is Wednesday, October 11 and a number of AWL members are attending: Liza Doering, Julie Bunczak, Shar Soto, Nancy Hessert, Kathy Spencer, Bonnie Bissonette, along with Vicky Thompson and Laura Place, who are representing the Wausau school district.