Events and Activities Ideas
Hey want a six-pack? What a great experience! Spend a semester abroad studying at one of Israel’s six universities and earn college credit for it. Spend time exploring your roots, forwarding your academic career and celebrating your heritage in Israel.
Background: Study Abroad in Israel
Israel's six universities offer high academic standards. It is most likely that your college or university already has a study abroad program with one of the six universities.
Hosting information tables and letting others know about study abroad opportunities in Israel is important. Each institution has something different to offer based on your area of study.
Each institution maintains recruiters or representatives here in the United States and would be more than happy to assist you with promotion of their programs or in getting a study abroad program started at your institution.
Mark Twain once said, "that in 20 years you will be more ashamed of the things that you didn't do… than the ones that you did do." So why don't you take six months and study in Israel and have an experience to last you a lifetime.
Event Ideas:
1) Table...Table...Table - An important part of being a successful Israel campus activist is promoting of study abroad and extended stay programs. An often over-looked activity for activism is tabling.
It is an easy activity that should be conducted once a week or once every two weeks. The goal is promotion of your organization and the 6 universities in Israel and long-term programs. The table is not meant to be political in nature.
They key to effective tabling is consistency and having an ongoing presence in a familiar location. For most, study in Israel will not be a thought until they see your presence. Once you have planted the idea in their heads, you want to make sure you are there as a resource for their decision to go abroad.
Make sure to have the most recent information from each of the Israeli campuses available for interested individuals. Take down contact information of interested students and forward it along to the appropriate university.
2) Can I Get Credit For This? - Another important aspect of the study abroad process is being able to receive college credit for your semester abroad. The best way to find this out is to see if your campus has an established program in place with any or all of the Israeli universities.
If there is no formal program in place, inquire as to why this is the case. Then contact the US representative for each of the Israeli universities along with the contact person you met with and any important information that they might need to know and let the US representative take care of the rest.
Lastly, from time to time, you might want to stop by the study abroad office and make sure that they have well stocked on information about Israel and its 6 universities.
3) Flyer the Campus - If you want to take an effortless approach to study abroad in Israel, get promotional posters from each of the universities and flyer them around campus.
The trick to effective marketing on campus is to flyer where those most likely to benefit will be. You need a plan for flyers on campus. The "shotgun" or random approach to flyer placement is not the best strategy. For example, your efforts would not be best spent placing study abroad flyer in areas where the French department or Music department hold their classes.
Also, this doesn't need to be a one-person effort. Solicit the support of your members to post a few flyers as they are coming to and from classes. Lastly, know and obey campus flyer rules and make sure that those helping also understand the rules. This will save you a ton of heartache at the back end.
4) Hype it Up - Beyond tabling, you should also take the time to meet with the Judaic Studies professors. Your goal in the meeting is two fold:
First, you would like for the professors to view you as a resource, along with the study abroad office, for study abroad in Israel.
Second, for the most part, the study abroad office is reactive office, meaning they only act when someone comes in to see them. You want to see if you can get the professors to let students know about opportunities to earn academic credit in Israel. If you are lucky, you might even be able to convince a professor to allow you 5 minutes at the start of class to make a quick announcement about these opportunities.
5) Have a Six-Pack Party - Host a night at a local bar or restaurant to promote study abroad. Have representatives from a few of the Israeli campuses along with fellow students who have already spent a semester in Israel available to talk with prospective students. Make sure to distribute flyers and advertise with the six-pack theme.
Another alternative if you don't want host the event in a bar or restaurant is to host a study abroad fair in your university union or Hillel. Make sure to have plenty of information on hand about the six major universities and all the other long-term programs. Don't forget to invite all the returnees from Birthright Israel trips.