A new chapter in 福利亚洲国产精品鈥檚 global sport education programming officially began Sept. 7 in Pistoia, Italy.

Five Elon students arrived in the Tuscan city as the inaugural cohort participating in the university鈥檚 partnership with Lumos Pistoia Basket 2000, a professional basketball organization, and the Accademia Europea di Firenze (AEF). Their arrival was marked by a from the club as the students prepare to begin a semester combining study abroad with hands-on experience in the professional sport industry.

As part of their initial visit, the students explored Pistoia鈥檚 historic center before making their way to LumoSquare, the 3,835-seat home of Pistoia Basket and a growing community hub. Accompanied by Professor Marco Bracci and Elisabetta Santanni, academic director of AEF/福利亚洲国产精品 in Florence, the group toured the facility, met members of the club staff, and received a personal welcome from Pistoia Basket President Joseph Mark David.

The visit offered the students their first look at the organization, where they will soon become part of the day-to-day operations. Beginning in mid-September, they will work alongside Pistoia Basket staff on projects involving sport management, marketing and social media.

鈥淭his experience is over a year in the making and couldn’t have come together without the amazing work of our partners at AEF, especially Elisabetta Santanni and Marco Bracci,鈥� said David Bockino, professor of sport management. 鈥淎s we launch the partnership this semester, we’re already discussing how to make it accessible to more students moving forward. The reception on campus has been great 鈥� we have students lining up to participate in the future.鈥�

A global professional experience

Announced last fall, Elon鈥檚 partnership with AEF and Pistoia Basket was developed in collaboration with the Department of Sport Management to expand experiential learning opportunities for students studying in Florence. It combines two hallmarks of an Elon education 鈥� global engagement and professional experience 鈥� placing students inside a European professional sport organization while they study abroad.

鈥淭his experience was the logical next step as Elon grows its sport-related experiences,鈥� Bockino said. 鈥淎s a university, we’re great at study abroad and at helping our students get internships. Why not put those two together? When these students eventually hit the job market, they’ll arrive with a true resume differentiator: an internship with a professional Italian basketball club that allows them to better understand sport from a global perspective.鈥�

As part of a mentored, two-credit internship with Pistoia Basket, students will spend approximately 10 hours each week gaining practical experience in event operations, fan engagement, marketing, communications and social media. Their responsibilities will be tailored to their academic backgrounds and professional interests.

For example, students interested in media analytics may evaluate the club鈥檚 social media performance, while students studying sport management or strategic communications will work to increase Pistoia Basket鈥檚 visibility among college students studying abroad in Florence. Participants will also meet regularly with accompanying professors and complete applied and reflection-based assignments.

The cohort will also contribute to a video storytelling project designed to introduce Pistoia Basket to new audiences in the United States. Funded by the Elon Innovation Council and coordinated through Elon鈥檚 Sports Media Lab and Elon Sports Vision, the project will use footage captured by the students to tell the story of Pistoia鈥檚 2026-27 season. According to Bockino, the resulting videos are expected to appear on Elon social media channels and during Elon Athletics broadcasts.

This fall鈥檚 inaugural cohort includes Robbie Pataky ’28, a strategic communications major; Amelia Weaver ’28, a sport management and media analytics double major; Riley Greenwald ’28, a sport management major; Olivia Tichnor ’28, a marketing major; and Max Edelstein ’28, a sport management major.

Their chapter, titled , is intended to serve as a comprehensive guide and 鈥渉ow to鈥� resource for academics seeking to engage in partnerships with community organizations in international settings, using the principles of Fair Trade Learning as a lodestar. The abstract for their chapter is as follows:

This chapter explores the complexities and ethical considerations of international community-engaged learning, highlighting the experiences of sustained partnerships between 福利亚洲国产精品 and two international organizations (the Comprehensive Rural Health Project in Jamkhed, India and Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka). Drawing on the Fair Trade Learning (FTL) model, the authors emphasize core principles such as cultural humility, reciprocity, and critical global citizenship, while addressing challenges unique to international contexts including positionality, narrative humility, accessibility and sustainability.

Through practical guidance and case examples, the chapter conveys the importance of co-creating community-engaged learning programs with community partners, prioritizing mutual benefit, and avoiding exploitative or colonialist dynamics. The chapter highlights various assessment tools to measure community impact. By integrating the UN Sustainable Development Goals and engaging with students鈥� identities and motivations, this chapter advocates for intentional, transformative community-engaged learning programs that support student, university, organization, and community development and global equity.

The students have already been immersed in their new city, where they met alumni at the Queen City Connections ice cream social and heard from local alumni about living and working in Charlotte. Several former Study USA Charlotte participants attended, some of whom now work full-time for the organizations where they interned as students in the program.

Students completed a scavenger hunt to familiarize themselves with the Queen City, public transit and major landmarks. They also conducted test runs to their internship sites, many of which are located along the light rail, which provides easy access from South End to Uptown, and into the university area.聽Since many students are living in an apartment without a meal plan for the first time, they participated in a cooking class to learn meal preparation basics.

Cara Picariello ’28 sees this fall as an opportunity to grow both personally and professionally.

鈥淟iving in a city is something that I have never experienced before, so I wanted to take聽full advantage of the opportunity to step outside my comfort zone and experience a different lifestyle,” said Picariello. “In addition, Charlotte is a rapidly growing sports hub with many career opportunities, and I wanted to build connections and gain experience in the area before graduating.鈥�

Aidan Sweeney ’28聽also understands聽the many benefits of this program. 鈥淚 wanted to experience living in a big city while also working and furthering my career. I came in knowing very few聽people, but I’ve already became friends with everyone by exploring the city together or finding a room to chat in with people.鈥�

Five classes are offered this fall: Sport Sales and Promotion, College Athletics Administration, Sports and Media,聽Event and Venue Management, and an internship course. Students are required to complete 320 hours at their internship.

Students are interning with a variety of organizations including the Big South Conference, NASCAR, Sports Business Journal, Charlotte Knights, Charlotte Checkers, the National Junior College Athletic Association, the Atlantic Coast Conference and more.

Daniel Towery ’28 signed up for the Study USA Charlotte Sport and Community聽Experience program because 鈥渋t’s the perfect way to combine classroom learning and real-world experience in the sports industry. I am especially excited to intern with both the Charlotte Knights and the ACC Football Game Day Operations Center to continue to develop my hands-on professional skills. Exploring the city and making memories with my cohort has already made this semester unforgettable.鈥�

Griffin Conway ’28聽is聽excited about the聽program because it gives him the聽鈥渙pportunity to get an early start on my professional career, while balancing academic courses and living in a city.鈥�

鈥淚’m looking forward to my internship with ACC’s Student-Athlete Programs and getting to learn the ins and outs of how a big organization works,” Conway said. “Over the past week since I started, I have met and networked with so many wonderful people through events that Elon has provided, and I’m very excited for the rest of the semester!鈥�

Components of a fall Study USA experience include housing, academic courses, internship, enrichment activities and networking opportunities with alumni and industry professionals. Contact Study USA with any questions at global@elon.edu, 336-278-6700 or www.elon.edu/studyusa. Applications for the inaugural spring Study USA Charlotte program are currently open, while applications for fall 2027 are accepted Sept. 1-Dec. 1. Enrollment is limited. Non-Elon students are invited to apply.

The daylong workshop, co-sponsored by the聽Isabella Cannon Global Education Center聽and the聽Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, was designed for faculty and staff who teach or lead study away programs, though it was open to anyone interested in strengthening global learning.

This year鈥檚 workshop centered on 鈥淓mbracing Ambiguity: Multiple Ways of Knowing, Reflection and Preparing Students for Cultural Curiosity.鈥� The theme invited participants to consider how students encounter different knowledge systems, histories, identities and relationships to place through global education.

Following welcome remarks from Dean of Global Education Nick Gozik and Provost and Executive Vice President Rebecca Kohn, the workshop began with a keynote by Laura M. Pipe, director of the University Teaching and Learning Commons at UNC Greensboro.

Pipe, an Indigenous educator of 厂办补谤霉:谤臋 (Tuscarora) and 贬辞诲颈苍枚丑蝉枚:苍颈鈥� (Haudenosaunee) descent, explored how global learning can move beyond a single tradition of knowledge. Drawing on Indigenous and decolonial pedagogies, the Toward a Liberated Learning Spirit model and reflective practice, she encouraged participants to cultivate curiosity, humility and reciprocal learning relationships.

The workshop continued with three breakout sessions:

• In 鈥淓xploring History and Identity through Elon鈥檚 Campus,鈥� Amanda Laury Kleintop, assistant professor of history and coordinator of the museum studies and public history minor, used Elon鈥檚 campus history as a model for place-based learning. Participants considered how monuments, historical sites and museums can help students critically examine history and identity in both local and study away contexts.
• 鈥淪tory Circles for Intercultural Learning,鈥� led by Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler, director of the Center for Research on Global Engagement, and Sandy Marshall, associate professor of geography, introduced participants to the UNESCO Story Circles model. Through a facilitated experience and debrief, participants explored how storytelling can foster intercultural learning and dialogue.
• Corey Roberts, assistant professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies, led 鈥淟ayers of an Abroad Experience.鈥� The session encouraged participants to consider travel in relation to land, history and personal identity. Participants developed activities to help students reflect on their relationship with the places they visit and the histories those places hold.

The day concluded with reflections from Gozik, associate dean of global education Jessica Gisclair and assistant director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching Jill McSweeney, followed by a wrap-up session.

鈥淭he Global Pedagogy Workshop gives us an opportunity to think carefully about how we prepare students to learn across difference,鈥� said Gozik. 鈥淕lobal education asks students to encounter new places, perspectives and ways of knowing. Our role as educators is to help them remain curious, reflective and open when those encounters do not fit neatly into what they already understand.鈥�

“The workshop was a success and continues to be an important and valued partnership between the GEC and CATL,” said McSweeney. “Faculty are able to dedicate time to thinking deeply about the pedagogy they actively practice in country, while also learning in community from their colleagues. Dr. Pipe offered a range of theoretical frameworks to ground that deep thinking, emphasizing the connecting into Elon鈥檚 goals of evidence-based practices across learning experiences.”

The event will introduce students and families to Elon鈥檚 study abroad and Study USA opportunities and provide information about programs in more than 30 countries. Attendees can explore options connected to students鈥� academic interests, compare program locations and formats and learn more about the process of planning a study away experience.

The fair is open to all students and will be especially helpful for those beginning to consider studying away or ready to explore potential programs. GEC staff, program representatives and colleagues from other campus offices will be available to help students and families identify next steps.

More information about Family Weekend is available on the聽Family Weekend website.

The Study Away Fair is part of the GEC鈥檚 ongoing efforts to connect Elon students with opportunities to learn across cultures and engage with communities around the world.

The event will celebrate the unity of the Elon community through an afternoon of free food, music, activities and opportunities to connect with others. Students can also learn more about study abroad and Study USA programs, whether they have already participated in a GEC program or are just beginning to explore global engagement opportunities.

鈥淐ommUnity on the Lawn is an opportunity to bring students together and celebrate the many experiences, backgrounds and perspectives that make up the Elon community,鈥� said Rose Danthon, program coordinator. 鈥淲e want all students to feel welcome, connected and encouraged to explore how study abroad, Study USA and other global opportunities might fit into their interests and goals.鈥�

CommUnity on the Lawn reflects the GEC鈥檚 ongoing commitment to making global education accessible, welcoming, and inclusive. This event supports the broad participation that has helped Elon earn top national ranking for study abroad according to the Institute for International Education’s Open Doors Report.

The event is free and open to all Elon students. Faculty and staff are also welcome to attend.

The course asked scholars three of the biggest questions they’ll face heading into college and beyond.

• Who are you?
• How does the world around you work?
• Where do you belong in it?

Answering those questions meant building a team that could bring three different lenses to the room, not one guest lecturer parachuted in for an afternoon, but three weeks, three educators and one shared arc.

The design work started long before anyone boarded a flight. Jess Savage and Yanyan Li, both from Warwick, along with Aoife Prendergast from TUS Ireland, worked with Ritchie from early on to shape the course’s structure and pedagogy. Amanda Lang and Jo Kukuczka from Warwick also helped shape the wider exchange from the start, thinking through how a course like this could work across institutions with genuinely different academic cultures. Elon Assistant Teaching Professor of Wellness Evan Small, Elon Academy Director Emily Wiersma, and the Elon Academy team helped the team turn their planning into a course that actually happened, on the ground, with real scholars.

In June 2026, that design became three weeks of teaching. Savage led the first week, taking scholars outside to investigate the natural world of Elon’s campus, observing and mapping the environment and asking who shapes it and how they could begin to understand sustainability differently. Li led the second week, turning to the digital world, unpacking what AI is, whose values it carries, and how to use it with honesty and critical thought. Prendergast led the third week, joining the class from Ireland as the s first Transatlantic Teaching Fellow. She turned the lens on the scholars themselves: their story, their strengths, their future, and what belonging looked and felt like for them.

Belonging wasn’t confined to Prendergast鈥檚 week; it ran through all three, as the thread underneath the environment, the AI and the identity work alike. Scholars kept a reflective journal throughout, used photography in the first week to document their experience, and carried a logo and motto project across all three weeks: hand-drawn in Week 1, recreated with AI in Week 2 under a co-created and scholar-drafted honor code, then made personal in Week 3 as their final project, representing their own identity, values and vision for the future.

鈥淭hat arc worked because an international team built it together, then taught it together, each trusting the ones before and after them to carry it forward,鈥� said Ritchie. 鈥淪o much of Fulbright’s work is about building bridges between UK and US institutions. But a bridge only matters once people walk across it, and once the people crossing it have had a hand in building it too. That’s what this collaboration set out to do: curriculum design, planning, and teaching, shared genuinely across three institutions, not handed from one to another.鈥�

Olivia Guarino 鈥�26, Ella McGlynn 鈥�26, Anna Grace Gilbert 鈥�27 and Jessica Garcia-Bastida 鈥�27 presented their research at the from July 6-9 in Panam谩 City, Panam谩.聽Attendance at the conference regularly includes over 1,100 attendees and members from various fields such as developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, pediatrics and education.

罢丑别听, which is directed by Perkins, focuses on understanding the acquisition of motor skills in infancy (such as crawling and walking), and how they relate to other cognitive and social skills.

Guarino and Garcia-Bastida presented a poster titled, 鈥�’Can you get the toy?: How walking infants use whole-body problem solving during an object retrieval task.” The two have been working on the project over the past year and have contributed meaningfully to data collection appointments with infants and behavioral video coding and analyses.

Gilbert and McGlynn presented a poster titled, “Take a step!: Links between infant play and mother vocalizations as crawling infants learn to walk鈥� and were co-authors on a symposium presentation titled “Tiny hands, big transitions:聽Analyzing crawling infants鈥櫬爐arget interactions during play as聽they learn to walk,” and presented by Perkins. This work is part of an ongoing collaboration with , who is a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Gilbert has made meaningful contributions to the project for the past two years and presented preliminary findings at a different international conference in Prague, Czech Republic last year. McGlynn鈥檚 contributions spanned the past year in behavioral video coding and analyses.

Student members of the Infant Development Lab benefitted from networking and professional development opportunities at the conference, including meeting authors whose work they had read for literature reviews, group discussions, and lab meetings, and participating in an Undergraduate Networking Session designed to help researchers and students in making valuable connections for employment and/or graduate study. A notable event was the civic reception, which is usually themed based on the conference location. This year鈥檚 reception was on an outdoor terrace and featured dancers and music in culturally traditional attire.

The group also had opportunities between conference sessions to explore Panam谩 City,

Student travel to the conference was supported by the Undergraduate Research Program and the Department of Psychology, and Perkins鈥� travel was supported by Dean鈥檚 Office of Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences. Mentored students in the Infant Development Lab come from a variety of diverse backgrounds and go on to graduate and professional programs.

Perkins is an active scholar in developmental psychology and mentoring relationships in higher education. Her research has been published in journals such as “Child Development,” “Infancy,” and “Infant Behavior and Development,”聽 “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology,” the “Journal of First-generation Student Success” and “Perspectives on Undergraduate Research Mentoring.” She is currently working on a co-edited book on mentoring and/as meaningful relationships as a high-impact practice聽published by Routledge, cross-listed in the AAC&U series, and the series on engaged learning and teaching.

This year, an international teaching team from England and Ireland designed and taught a course called Your Place in the World: Exploring Identity, Sustainability, and AI. This interactive course engaged Scholars in several central questions: Who are you? How does the world around you work? And where do you belong in it?

Engaging pedagogical approaches like photovoice, campus mapping and reflective journals allowed scholars to engage deeply with course content. Scholars participated in activities to learn about the environmental landscape, the ethical use of AI, and navigating belonging in different spaces. One member of the teaching team, Aoife Prendergast from the Technical University of the Shannon in Ireland, said that a highlight of the course was

“Diving into the rich, lived experiences shared through the narratives of the group. The most powerful moments came from hearing the scholars weave their personal life stories into their visions for the future,” said聽Aoife Prendergast from the Technical University of the Shannon in Ireland, one of the members of the teaching team. “Watching everyone reflect on what ‘belonging’ truly means both personally and professionally created a deeply collaborative and resonant atmosphere in the room. It is clear that these narratives are shaping some truly inspiring and thoughtful pathways for the future!”

This international teaching team and transatlantic approach to this course allowed scholars to engage with a different set of cultures and a different concept of what education can be. Scholars were able to form deep connections with each other, their teaching team and the course content in ways that encouraged them to apply it to their futures.

鈥淭hroughout the three weeks, this class really opened my eyes and drew me to a new perspective of the world,” one scholar said. “We learned about perspectives of the world and how we all see the world differently, and we connected it to AI and how AI picks up on our culture and creates its own perspectives through patterns. The instructors always made me feel like I belong and they allowed me to open my mind and curiosity.鈥�

Another Scholar shared how the course inspired them to see community in a different light.

鈥淭his class gave me the opportunity to meet people outside of the country where I live and to see how community can be built in different environments,” another scholar reflected. “Every day was engaging and we were always doing something hands-on that made the course exciting. The instructors all came from different backgrounds, which felt so diverse, and I loved hearing about their cultures. I felt both academically and intellectually challenged in the course, which made me critically think about who I am in this world and how we can connect that to AI.鈥�

Tom Ritchie from the University of Warwick in the UK served as the lead instructor and designed the course in partnership with Evan Small, the Elon Academy faculty scholar. As a Fulbright Scholar, Ritchie was able to provide Elon Academy students with an exposure to additional post-graduate international education opportunities.

“This course exemplifies what makes Elon Academy so special – the willingness of our faculty, partners and supporters to create transformative learning experiences that expand our Scholars’ perspectives and help them see themselves as part of a much larger world,” said Emily Wiersma, director of the Elon Academy. “Through this collaborative course, our scholars were challenged to think critically, embrace new perspectives, build meaningful connections across cultures, and develop the confidence, curiosity, and global mindset that will serve them well in college, their careers, and their communities.”

The University of British Columbia (UBC) recently welcomed Assistant Professor of Education, Nermin Vehabovic, as a guest lecturer in its Refugee Education course. Invited by Sofia Noori, assistant professor in UBC’s Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Nermin engaged teacher candidates in examining the role of stories in refugee education through the guiding question, “How do we listen to the stories of others?”

Situated on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people in Vancouver, and connected through the broader traditional territories of Indigenous nations across British Columbia, UBC is recognized as a global center for research and teaching and is consistently ranked among the top universities in the world.

Noori’s Refugee Education course prepares teacher candidates to better understand the histories, lived experiences and educational realities of children and youth from refugee backgrounds. The course explores how schools, classrooms, and community partnerships can foster equitable learning environments while strengthening relationships with newcomer families and communities.

Rather than delivering a traditional lecture, Nermin designed an interactive, participatory session grounded in the principles of his scholarship on humanizing 聽education. He invited teacher candidates to reflect on their own stories before considering how educators can cultivate classrooms where the stories, languages, identities, and ways of knowing of children, youth, and families from refugee backgrounds are genuinely heard and valued.

“My intention was for us to be in community with one another as colleagues and educators,” Nermin said. “I wanted the experience to model the very practices we hope to cultivate in schools鈥攍istening, relationality and learning with others rather than simply teaching to them.”

Throughout the session, participants explored the importance of unlearning deficit perspectives, assumptions, savior mentalities and monolingual expectations that can limit meaningful engagement with students and families. The discussion emphasized ethical listening as a foundational practice for building culturally sustaining and humanizing classrooms.

Nermin also shared examples from Welcome New Neighbor, the community-engaged initiative he founded through 福利亚洲国产精品’s Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education. The program partners teacher candidates with families from refugee backgrounds through home-based literacy experiences that position families’ languages, cultures, and knowledge as educational assets. During the session, he highlighted how the initiative prepares teacher candidates to build reciprocal relationships with multilingual families while reimagining homes as important spaces of learning, belonging, and affirmation.

Drawing on his research, Nermin also discussed the interconnected roles of transnationalism, translanguaging, picturebooks and family literacies in supporting refugee-background children and youth, as well as their families. Participants considered how storytelling can become a vehicle for cultivating belonging, honoring identities and strengthening relationships between schools and communities.

The invitation reflects Nermin’s growing international collaborations in literacy and teacher education, as well as his ongoing scholarship centered on humanizing educational practices and preparing educators to work alongside families across culturally and linguistically diverse communities.