Mike in Madrid

 It's funny the pictures that don't make this blog, at least until years after they should have. Here's a picture that I snapped over a decade ago on the Spain/Portugal trip that I led with my friends Mike and Kelly. We disappeared into the streets of Madrid in search of a bar with the NFL package, and, clearly, we succeeded in our quest.

I guess I had never posted this previously because we're clearly in a bar, although I can't imagine any parent who would send their kids on a student trip to Madrid and not assume that a bar (or several bars) would be in the offing. That said, that trip featured about the most nerdy, in-bed-by-ten group of students on any of the dozen trips I ran.

Cervantes

 Just a snapshot from last summer's side trip to Madrid for our mad museum trip. I love that the Spanish include these tiled signs on their major streets. Plus, it reminded me that we were listening to a podcast recently where these wankers proposed that Miguel de Cervantes's classic novel Don Quixote was a book that you didn't really need to read. Idiots.

Seriously, you really should read Don Quixote.

I Dream of Sleep

 A couple days ago I was talking about our visit to Madrid and the corresponding museum orgy. It was so lovely to get back to see them again, and I was reminded what a great museum the Thyssen is.  While roaming around their modern art section I stumbled across a Tracey Emin neon light sculpture. I've made extensive use of her art, especially her neon light sculptures, over the years in various classes so it was more than a bit exciting see one in person.

If you aren't familiar with Emin's work you should really check it out. Part of it relates to a series of her (very distinctive) sketches and hand-written scrawls that she turned into neon light art. It's like walking into her head.

God in the Funniest Places

 Or maybe not.

On this year's trip we included a side trip to Madrid, partially because Janet had never visited there before and partially to embark on a museum orgy. The drive from Evora to Madrid (and through the madness of Madrid traffic) was a bit of a challenge, made more so by the fact that it was 106 F. Still, it was so lovely to get back to the big three museums in Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, Muyseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. We almost didn't go to the Thyssen, at least until I told Janet to do a little more research; mainly, she was being sensitive to my limited mobility and thought that two long museums days in two days was already going to wear on me, let along throwing in another long museum walk for the second day. However, once she did some more research on the Thyssen it, thankfully, worked its way back into the itinerary. Even considering my pain I loved every minute of our museum tours (I had not visited them in a few years). 

I had a couple quasi-religious experiences (and I'm not throwing the term around lightly). One related to El Greco, and I'll discuss that later. The other one related to sitting down in front of Rothko's Green on Maroon. Throughout the three museums I tended to move from bench to bench, then plopping down and resting for a few (sometimes more than a few) minutes. This limited the amount that I saw, although, to bear fair, I had visited all three museums a couple times previously (again, my life makes no sense), but it also forced me/allowed me/empowered me tp devote more time and attention to individual paintings. Late in the afternoon when we visited the Thyssen I collapsed down in front of Rothko's Green on Maroon and it all but swallowed me up. I snapped this picture and texted it to a couple friends, commenting that I think I saw God in the painting. Normally, in the past, my friends would have rightly assumed that I was being facetious - and they probably would have been right - but now, they would more naturally assume that I was making a sincere point as I struggled with my understanding of the divine - and in this case they would have been right as well; essentially, I'm not the man that I used to be. If, as we're taught in the Qur'an, God is as close as our jugular vein, then God can be found anywhere, even in a painting, and maybe especially in a painting.

Over the last few years I've found myself drawn to Rothko's paintings. I'm not certain why it took so long.

Flemenco in Madrid

 And yet another set of pictures that returned from the Google unknown, this time of an appropriately subterranean Flamenco club that we stumbled across in Madrid on the Thanksgiving Spain/Portugal trip that Mike Kelly and Kelly Thomas led twenty students on several years ago. I'm thinking of repeating that trip - or maybe Spain or Portugal - in the fall of 2021, which will be the earliest I can imagine being able to take students overseas again. If I remember correctly, it was Kelly Thomas who was the driving force in pulling this off, and it was definitely a great call.

Mike Kelly and I instantly fell in love with the dancer. She completely dominated and everybody else on stage existed solely to do her bidding. The students had a ball.

Snacking in Madrid

 Another picture that returned from the ether. This was dinner at some little hole in the wall in Madrid on the student trip to Spain and Portugal in November 2016 (yeah, I don't believe it was that long ago either). I think I'm definitely locking in to making my next student trip, which sadly won't be until November 2021, a return visit to Spain and/or Portugal.

I will post this on Facebook, mainly to see all my friends from Indiana who have never left the country freak out over the thought of eating it. Ah, simple pleasures.

Late Nights in Madrid

 I guess since I've been thinking about heading back to Spain and Portugal for a November 2021 student trip it's not too surprising that both countries have been on my mind. And so I found myself scrolling back through pictures of the November 2016 trip I led along with my wonderful friends Mike and Kelly. Here are some pictures I snapped at a restaurant somewhere in Madrid (seriously, I'll do some research and figure it out). The students were sorted so the three of us grabbed a meal. As is typical in Madrid (or most of Europe, truthfully, but especially in Madrid it seems) we were there for a long time because, unlike idiot Americans who are in a rush to go everyplace, their logic was why would we want to leave (and, as I've always said, Europeans are much saner than we are). About the time we thought about leaving a waiter would come around and coup us a small drab of some local delicacy as a way of saying thanks for staying.

I think Kelly and Mike were arm-wrestling to see who got to go on my next trip, and apparently Kelly won because she later went on one of the India trips (which means, I guess, that I owe Mike a trip).

Again, I have no idea what Mike is doing.

Los Reprobatos

Recently I had my annual springtime revelation that I haven't spent my professional development funds (every year I make an oath that next year I'll remember, but, of course, I don't).  I started looking around for a suitable conference and came across one in Lisbon.  This made me think of the student trip I led to Spain and Portugal over Thanksgiving break in 2016, and in turn I reached out to a couple of the students to tell them that I was talking to the good folks at WLFT Hostel in Lisbon (which, by the way, is a fantastic hostel).  One of the student, Kirsten, sent along a picture of some graffiti (which was encouraged on the ceiling) at the hostel.  The students were Kirsten Potts, Jo Ames, John Amigo and Katie Lawrence. Last Saturday I was up on campus for an admitted student day here at Champlain to talk about the travel courses, and at one time we had a video running from the India/Sri Lanka trip, a running series of pictures from the Jordan trip, and an entire table full of artifacts from the Zanzibar trips.  I found myself wondering why we didn't have anything from the Spain/Portugal trip, which was only re-enforced by Kirsten's note.  I don't know why that trip has faded into relative obscurity, because it was an absolutely fantastic trip.  My student Eli Santos still swears up and down that it was the best week of his life.  The students uniformly had a great time. Part of the problem might be that we went in November and then as soon as we returned it was full scale mad planning for the India/Sri Lanka trip, which had enough of its own chaos.  That said, there may be another reason.  When we were in India one of the student, Mitch, who had also gone with us to Spain/Portugal, asked I had bothered taking kids to Spain and Portugal?  We were sitting in the midst of the general chaos of India and, by comparison, at least to Mitch, the Iberian peninsula just seemed awfully tame.  However, apparently it wasn't simply Mitch who thought it was tame.  Maybe I've convinced myself that you have to go much further afield for the trip to be truly transformative.  However, is that really true?  If the locale is so "exotic" that the students retreat into themselves then maybe it's not as transformative as some place that feels a bit more comfortable.  I certainly asked the students to do a lot more on the Spain/Portugal trip and gave each of them daily chores to lead, which I would never have done in India or Africa or Jordan, which in turn pushed them outside their comfort zone and made them interact to their new locale in a way that they might have in the other locations.  Either way, it's making me want to revisit that trip, so expect some posts as I get caught up.

Oh, and Katie, KT, really?  You would have thought that all those papers I made you write would have inspired your literary talents to come up with a better

Madrid and Lisbon Trip

Recently, and happily, a few of my oldest friends passed through the state (more on that later), and as part of the getting caught up chatter we talked a lot about foreign travel and specifically about my trips overseas with students.  I never think of it in this way, but apparently many of my friends and colleagues view it as "my thing."  In the spring of 2015 my friend Cyndi Brandenburg and I took nine students to Jordan, and in the spring of 2016 my friend Steve Wehmeyer and I took nineteen students to Zanzibar.  Of course, if you follow this blog then you already know this - although you still need to explain why in the hell you follow this blog?  Have you no pride - or any social life? (But I digress)  What I haven't talked about so far are my future trips.  This coming fall my friends Kelly Thomas and Mike Kelly and I are taking twenty students to Spain and Portugal over Thanksgiving Break.  And then in the spring Cyndi Brandenburg (and maybe another faculty member) and I are taking a yet to be determined number of students (which impacts whether or not we decide to include another faculty member) to India and Sri Lanka.  So, I'm busily planning those trips, either putting the final touches on Spain/Portugal or bringing India/Sri Lanka into greater focus.  In addition I'm working up proposals for trips for the following year (we have crazy early deadline at Champlain).  Steve Wehmeyer and I (and maybe a third professor) are putting together a proposal for a pretty innovative trip that would link two classes together as part of a year-long interdisciplinary arc that would include a two week trip back to Zanzibar, with the travel in between the two courses over Christmas break.  And I've also begun discussions with Cyndi and our colleague Kristin Wolf for a spring 2018 trip to Namibia.  So, yeah, I guess this has become "my thing".  It's funny to think of it transpiring this way since I didn't even have a passport until I was forty-two.

I'm really excited about the upcoming trip to Madrid and Lisbon, and I'll have a lot more to say about them soon.  Now, I just need to find someplace to get a turkey dinner in Lisbon on Thanksgiving (I promised the students) . . .

Caliente

Just when I think I'm going to be driven to distraction because of the arduous task of leading student trips overseas, both because of the students' (totally age-appropriate) buffoonery and the college's (totally unacceptable) incompetence, I agree to lead more trips.  In this case I, along with my great friend and colleague Mike Kelly, put in a proposal to embed a travel component into a COR 220, Aesthetic Expression, class for fall semester 2016.  We'd be travelling over Thanksgiving break, and I can imagine the posters already - "Thanksgiving in Madrid!"  The class would be offered in the first semester of their sophomore year, which means we have the unenviable challenge of getting a group of second semester freshmen to focus long enough to convince their parents to support the trip.  Herding cats, indeed.  However, it's a, comparatively, fairly inexpensive trip as these things go, so I would think we should be able to inspire ten students to make the trip.  Now, I'm also putting together a spring 2017 trip, with the excellent Cyndi Brandenburg, to India and Sri Lanka, and hopefully I won't be my own worst enemy by spreading myself too thin.  That said, both troops are shaping up to be fantastic educational opportunities - and also great fun - so this may actually work.

I'm sure I'll need all the divine assistance I can get to lead a group of college students to Madrid and Lisbon.

Shadows of Madrid

I took a break from grading to actually start working on one of my syllabi for Fall semester, and somehow ended up blogging (which I guess reaffirms the fact that few things are more dreadful than grading or syllabus constructions).  Here are some great shots that I took from on top of a cathedral of some appropriately somber Spanish statues on a gloriously overcast day.  Madrid is undeniably one of my all-time favorite cities. Over the last year I've finally begun printing off larger copies of some of my best overseas pictures, and I suspect that one of these - probably the top one - will be next.

If only they had something I wanted . . .

I loved the vending machines in the Barcelona metro stations. I suppose they're common in some parts of the world, but I had never seen one that big before.

Rambling on La Rambla

I've made it to Barcelona, Spain and it is my first visit here. On my previous visits to Spain I had spent time in Madrid and Toledo (and loved both of them) but, except for passing through the airport I had never been in Barcelona. So far is has been a good stay. My presentation at the EDULearn conference was well-received and I have new GM contacts in Russia, China, Austria and Serbia - and reestablished contacts with a Spanish university. The town itself is lovely - La Rambla, the main pedestrian street, runs right down to the ocean, and sitting along La Rambla at a cafe, eating tapas and drinking sangria, is one of life's great pleasures - a real New Orleans feel. I'd love to show you some pictures but, unfortunately, my camera was stolen last night at the Cafe Tomas, a great little working class tapas bar far off the torpurist path. It was a fantastic place and is supppsed to have the best tapas in Barcelona - and is so authentic they don't have sangria - and the waiter was a guy who looks like a character actor from a 1940's Hollywood movie was great - you just said tapas and he would bring you what he thought you should eat. Barcelona is notorious for pickpockets and I just got careless - I'm mad about the camera, but far more heartbroken about the pictures I've lost forever. Included in the pictures was a great visit to the cathedral Gaudi designed, which is just indescribable. So, a mixed bag, but far more good than bad. Oh, and I'm sure that anyone from Barcelona would be horrified by this statement, but I think Madrid has better tapas.

El Gatos

OK, I've made it to Vienna, and am having the usual internet problems. I could make it to this site, so I guess that is a step in the right direction. The trip here was relatively uneventful, although Madrid once again earned it's reputation for being a citz of night owls. I left my hotel at 5:35 a.m. to go catch the Metro to go to the airport and there were thousands of people in the streets heading home. Granted, there was a special celebration where everything, including the Prado, was open all night, but somehow I don't think these folks are probably any different on any other Saturday night. When I made it down to the Sol Metro station there were a couple hundred folks sitting on the steps and waiting for the doors to open. I figured this had disaster written all over it, but I didn't have a choice. However, and pleasantly, when the gates opened everyone walked down them in some sense of order (albeit a drunken one) and made their way to the tracks. Once there the people on opposite sides of the tracks, who must have spent the night partying together, began to sing songs in unison and dance. Ah, Madrid.

Hostal Persal

OK, I know I have to just let this whole Hostal Persal thing go, but this is a pretty wretched hotel. The folks at the front desk are great and very helpful, but this room is tiny and the air conditioner leaks and the wifi was out half the time and the volume on the tiny wall-mounted TV was so low that I couldn't hear it and the elevator was down for a while. Still, it does have a wonderful location and a restaurant, which, while not great, does make breakfast in the morning easier (Madrid is not a big breakfast town, as you might expect from a town that is up all night). If you ever stay here just don't accept room 211. I tried to stay at the Hostal Cervantes, where I stayed before, but I couldn't confirm my reservation because they had the telephone and fax numbers reserved on the webpage. It's only 45 euros a night and is only a block from the Prado, but it's also a place that you'd almost have to go into on a dare (although the staff is nice and it has wifi). Oh, one last thing and I'm getting off the net, take a look at the shower. If you have to curl your toes to be able to stand in the shower basin then I just think it's too small. OK, OK, I've got to let this go . . .

Toledo

On extended trips like this one weekends are a little weird. It's difficult to do any direct Global Modules business, although I send out enough e-mails to give it the old college try. Usually one of the days is a travel day, and, typically, I'll be flying out early tomorrow morning for Vienna. That still leaves one day, and it's often the only time for some actual sight-seeing. Luckily, one of the University of Alcala professors, Carmen Flys Junquera, volunteered to drive me out to Toledo. I was planning on going out anyway, but this saved me the trouble of getting back on the Spanish train system (which wasn't a problem) and also provided me with a great tour guide.

Toledo is a beautiful city with a rich Visigothic, Jewish, Moorish and Christian history. In the Catedral de Toledo is possesses one of Europe's great cathedrals, which was great to see because Madrid does not have a great cathedral. The Catedral de Toledo took around 350 years to construct so you can see a series of architectual styles as you make you way from the back of the church to the front. There's a picture of it on top, although I didn't try to take one inside - flash photographs are forbidden and I've tried to take a lot of pictures over the years in situations like that and they never seem to work out too well. Plus, the cathedral was so incredible I would have had to take a hundred pictures anyway. It wasn't quite Notre Dame, but it's about as close as you can get.

The Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes was also pretty spectacular. It was ordered constructed by Ferdinand and Isabella (the same Isabella from the Columbus stories). She was a very strong ruler (and put up with Ferdinand's constant womanizing) and there was a definite effort with about every square foot to emphasize her equality with him as a ruler. Remember, when they married the united and created Spain, and she wasn't just along for the ride. There's a picture above of chains on the side of the church. Apparently they were actually taken off Christian prisoners freed from the Moors and they were put on the church as a remembrance. The Monasterio also has a great central courtyard, complete with some great gargoyles.

There's not nearly enough time to talk about all there is to see in Toledo, at least not and still get packed before my flight. The streets are cobblestone and wind around the city at odd angles. Toledo rests on top of a hill and the river curls around the base of the hill on three sides so it was a natural for defense. It sort of reminded me of Fez, although the streets were not as narrow and it was not quite as insane. Unfortunately, the streets are wide enough for cars and, even though this was supposed to be a no car day in Toledo, they did buzz through the narrow streets at an alarmingly fast rate. It's a definite must-see if you're ever in Spain. It's only around an hour outside of Madrid.

OK, time to pack and get ready for the fight to Vienna. Don't know how much I'll be on, especially with pictures, in the next few days. The last time I stayed at the Hotel Wandl I had constant internet issues and could never get it to work with my laptop in my room, so I would spend hours in the lobby on the hotel computer. It's amazing that at one time I didn't want to come to Spain - now I can't wait to come back.

Tapas

Madrid really is an amazing place. Before I showed up here the first time I wasn't really that excited to go. My graduate work is in 16th century British history and I must have had some leftover Armada thing going on, but I just didn't think that I'd like Spain. It just shows how wrong you can be. I was coming back from Amman, Jordan and this was the connecting option and the price was right so this is why I ended up in Madrid. They say that politics is like making sausage, you don't really want to know how it's done. Putting together the Global Modules network sometimes feels that way. There's lot of time spent researching and planning, and there's also a lot of sheer dumb luck and adapting on the fly. If I know I'm going to fly through some place I'll quickly contact the local universities, test the waters, and then, depending up their response, decide whether or not to extend my stay. I had some real preliminary talks with the University of Alcala, they were positive, so I stretched out my initial stay in Madrid - and seriously began my campaign with the University, which has now borne fruit. It tends to work like that.

So, I decided to give Madrid a try and fell in love with it immediately. For some reason I thought the Spaniards were more dour - again, I think it's that whole English propaganda in painting the Spanish in dark colors. Instead, they are warm and fun-loving people. I know it seems like I romanticize all these other countries, and they are certainly not utopias, but in a lot of ways they simply seem a lot saner than Americans. The Spanish say that they, like the Australian claim, work hard and play hard. Well, I don't know if I've seen the work hard part yet, but they certainly play hard - or at least have a really nice balance between work and play. Yes, they don't work as many hours as Americans do, but they also don't own as much as Americans own or consume as much as Americans consume, and well, they just seem a lot happier to me than Americans do.

Central Madrid is a marvelous place to stay, even if you're stuck at the Hostal Persal. The place is honeycombed with all these fascinating cobblestone alleys heading off in different illogical directions. There must be hundreds of bars and restaurants here. It sort of reminds me of the best of New Orleans - the wonderful spirit, but without the silly, annoying excesses. Madrilenos love the late night so much that they are known as gatos (cats) because they only come out at night. As I've mentioned, dinner doesn't normally start until after 9:00 and going to a club certainly couldn't begin until at least 11:00. This is wonderful, of course, unless you're a 47 year old historian, who is heading back to the hotel as the party is getting started. One of my fondest memories is of watching the Spanish team play a world cup game in a tapas bar - the crowd was insane.

The bars here pride themselves on serving their own unique brand of tapas (hors d'oeuvres). All of them are fantastic and most of them are pretty cheap. A couple tapas makes for a perfectly fine dinner. You can just wander through the streets and find the tapas bar that fits your mood at the moment. Last night I tracked down the first tapas bar that I visited on my earlier trip to Madrid and relived my first tapas experience: one anchovy and two sardines and tomato on bread with olive oil drizzled on top (pictured above). It doesn't sound like much, but it's fantastic. After spending hours online today I was tired and wanted something quiet and quick tonight so I dropped into a little hole in the wall. The tapas were great - marinated salmon with onions and capers on bread, and then some sort of cooked crab dish - a few olives - and a couple beers - a nice meal for about ten euros. To top it off, they were playing country music. On the big screen TV they had on some dedication to Willie Nelson and I got to see him sing a duet with Lucinda Williams on her song Over Time - I'm a nut for Lucinda and that is one of my all-time favorite songs. And then I had the bizarre experience of seeing Willie sing a duet with Keith Richards on We Had It All. I figured that I must have gotten some bad tapas or something. The other thing that makes this like New Orleans is that the competition between the tapas bars is so intense that the food just has to be great or they can't stay in business - one of the few instances of capitalism actually working.

Retiro Park

Right in the center of Madrid lies Retiro Park, which is their answer to Central Park. It stretches over something like 350 acres and is a wonderful place to walk through - or get lost in. On my last visit to Madrid I had a meeting on the other side of the park with a professor and I took a bus to get there. After the meeting he told me I could just go into the park in an entrance on his side of the park and "keep walking diagonal" - with directions like that how could I get lost? Well, about two hours later I stumbled out the other side, armed with invauable directions from about ten well-meaning good samaritans and police officers. Obviously, it would help tremendously if I spoke Spanish, because Spain, unlike Sweden, is not a place where you run into a lot of folks who speak English. Nevertheless, they are unfailingly polite when dealing with idiotic monolingual Americans.

There are tennis courts and lakes and crystal palaces and running trails and restaurants. There is also a place to work out. If you enter the park by the Prado gate and walk in about fifty yards (being sure to leave bread crumbs to mark your trail) you'll find the building by the tennis court and the workout facility is in the basement - it only costs 4.1 euros. It's a wonderful place to sit of an evening with some ice cream and watch the world go by. Roller blading is still very big in Madrid so there are skaters all over the place. Also, Spaniards apparently really love dogs because they are there with their owners (read that any way you wish) by the dozens. There are also a large number of cats lurking in the darkness, which gave it a sort of spooky, Daphne du Maurier or Edgar Allen Poe feel.

Museo del Jamon

OK, so it's 2:30 and you're hungry - what do you do? In Madrid you would think about getting some lunch, although just barely because no one serves lunch before 2:00. On my previous trip to Madrid I had a late afternoon flight out and wanted to grab something before going to the airport. I wandered into a place around 1:00 and asked if I could get some lunch and the waiter gave me a look that I can only qualify as one of pity. I ended up going to Burger King instead because it was the only place serving lunch.

Now if it's actually lunchtime you could go to the Museo del Jamon. Yes, I know what you're thinking, "wait, my Spanish is a little rusty, but isn't that museum of ham?" Yes, you'd be correct. You can order things other than ham there, but they essentially say, "what a fascinating order, but have you considered ham?" (it sounds better in Spanish) You can get a ham sandwich and a Mahou (the national beer of Spain) for 2.3 euros (the olives are a comp), so it's a pretty good deal. You'll have to stand at the counter and the place is packed. This place would be Homer Simpson's alternative to Moe's.

University of Alcala

Thursday, 20 September 2007

The University of Alcala is located in Alcala de Henares, which is around thirty minutes outside of Madrid by train. Once again, I can’t say too much about the extraordinary Spanish public transportation system. The trains run on time and it is easy to find your way around (even if you don’t speak a word of Spanish). The university itself is beautiful and has a history that stretches back centuries. Oddly, it was all but dead for much of the 20th century and was brought back to life mainly by the efforts of the people of Alcala de Henares who refused to give up on their dream of breathing new life into the school. Thank goodness they did. While some of the buildings are surprisingly modern, others have the same look, on the outside anyway, that they did in the 15th century. In some places the architects have melded brand new buildings onto older structures, but even they have allowed the older buildings to dominate. Most of their buildings, even the ones five hundred years old, are wireless or soon will be – the challenge of which our own IT folks could understand. The university has something around eighteen-thousand students, but has the feel of a more intimate college.

The campus is full of beautiful old courtyards, often hidden behind five hundred year old facades. One administrative building has a façade dating back to the time of Charles V. Once you go through the gate you enter the first of three linked courtyards, each one progressively older. In one of the courtyards there is an idyllic tree-covered corner that is simply referred to as the Philosopher’s Garden (seen above) – my proposal would be that we retire David Kite and Alfonso Capone here (preferably sooner than later).

In a series of meetings that stretched over two days I met a number of faculty and administrators, including the Dean of Humanities, the Assistant Dean of Economics, the Director of International Relations, and the Chair of the Modern Languages department. All of this was organized by Carmen Flys Junquera who is a very big supporter of the GM program. Her parents are Spanish but she was raised in the states. She moved to Spain in the 1970’s and has been here ever since - her own experiences with two different cultures probably explains her fascination with the GM program. If she as good an ambassador for the GMs as she is for the university we’ll have no trouble succeeding here. Alcala is interested in embedding the Global Modules in several courses as an experiment for the upcoming spring semester, but they are already talking about signing a memorandum of understanding and expanding to more classes next year – maybe even taking the same approach that Champlain is doing and actually embed them in key courses. They also have an interesting bonus credit program where students can get one, two or three credits for taking on unique assignments, and Alcala is talking about using this approach for a one-credit course that would just be the Global Module itself. This might actually be a possible approach that Champlain could use as it explores ways to bring the GMs into the extracurricular realm. Carmen thinks that immigration would be a great GM topic because the Spanish (like a lot of European countries, and the US for that matter) are dealing with their own immigration issues.