Voice Narrator:
Santa Fe College hosted a delegation of South American community college administrators from Ecuador, Brazil, Peru and Colombia as part of a Community College Administrator Program (CCAP) funded by the US Department of State.
The goal of the visit was to learn best practices in the U.S. Community college system.
Cynthia Regina Fischer:
My expectation about this visit was to learn more about the ways the community college, say, do business. So the way they have their governance, their financial area, the organization environment...
Dr. Ricardo Jose Silva:
We are currently in the process of redesigning technical education in Ecuador. So our expectation was to learn from the system of the US the best practices so that we could see what we could take and replicate in our country.
Dr. Sasser:
When did you advance at the highest level possible? Maybe in a class... maybe in a family...maybe in a community? You advanced when you were totally free to exercise all of your intelligence, all of your experience, without any inhibitions. Totally free.
Susana Perez Alegia:
What I find really interesting is that everybody in Santa Fe looks like they love what they do. They want to develop people. They understand that they don't just have students, they don't have people here learning things...they have here people who want to change their life.
Franklin Amador Hawkins:
And the feeling, the love, the passion...you see every day in every minute in everyone.
I was very most impressed with the student government. I don't see that anywhere else. They work as a real government. They have eh, branches, the executive branch, the legislative branch, the judicial, and the programming branch.
Cynthia Regina Fischer:
Our visit was really interesting and profitable in terms of learning, eh with all the aspects so the governing, financial, students, programs, cultural programs, academic programs.So these are the things that really taught us that we can be much more creative and we have many things to learn.
Dr. Ricardo Jose Silva:
You have here a shared governance that is actually an informal structure. But that informal structure has actually a lot of power in making decisions. So informal is something that is good for us because it is something that we can implement.
Franklin Amador Hawkins:
The policy of inclusion and diversity are very outstanding.
Susana Perez Alegia:
I'd like to bring my teachers here so they can see what I saw, so they can experience the Santa Fe culture and they say "yeah..you can send your teachers here". I love the way that Santa Fe believes in people's potential to do new things because they understand that it is all about passion for education.
Dr. Ricardo Jose Silva:
It's not just about the United States or the Florida education system. We've been learning about Brazil, Peru, Colombia. We've been learning even amongst our own country of Ecuador- what are the things that our colleagues are doing. But the ideal thing is to actually establish a follow up program, not just for our country of Ecuador but for the five countries that have been involved in this program.
(music and singing)
Dr. Sasser:
You build relationships by spending time together. I'm just honored that we were the common denominator. I'm honored that the college was the place that you decided to meet because what we've learned from you is just immeasurable.
(applause)
Although the participants came from different countries, they all shared a common challenge: to produce the skilled labor force their countries need to promote economic growth. The South American participants engaged in a rich multilateral conversation with each other and American counterparts during this CCAP as they compared the strengths and weaknesses of their respective systems. The video below captures some of what these South American visitors experienced and learned.