The FRIENDS Project, an EU-funded international initiative for internationalization at home, held its third partner meeting at Svay Rieng University in Cambodia, from 8 to 11 October 2019. The PSU delegation, consisting of Asst. Prof. Dr. Wongkot Phuphumirat, Assistant President for International Affairs; Asst. Prof. Dr. Ophat Kaosaiyaporn, Assistant President for Media and Educational Technology Development; and a PSU International Affairs officer, took active part in the partner meeting and the subsequent Intercultural Passport design workshop.
The four-day event was an excellent opportunity for the PSU delegates to learn about fostering intercultural awareness and cultural diversity, along with the most up-to-date methods for facilitating e-learning processes via Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) support. This knowledge will be soon put into practice in the program’s next phase, where PSU students will be trained in digital storytelling and will be given the opportunity to enter a related contest, to be potentially awarded an Intercultural Passport and a trip to Varna University of Management (VUM) Bulgaria, the project coordinator’s institution.
These activities will help students to recognize and address various dimensions of culture-bound differences when learning, working, and living in multicultural environments, which aligns with the FRIENDS consortium’s greater goal to integrate intercultural dimensions into universities’ formal curriculum.
