Final Days in Trinidad and Tobago

Finished up our final days here in Trinidad and Tobago working with University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) 🇹🇹 student leaders and Student Affairs staff. Our students worked through topical collaborative problem solving sessions on topics that included: social justice, diversity and inclusion, assessing student satisfaction, fundraising and revenue generation, maximizing student services with reduced budgets, student involvement and engagement, and student leadership and governance. Our UofL students also worked with UTT student leaders to host and judge a student debate competition on the topic of student affairs services and the impact on student success.

Over this week our UofL students, who most will work in higher education for their career, had the opportunity to study, perform community service, and engage deeply with the student services offered by three different higher education (tertiary) institutions (Tobago Hospitality & Tourism Institute; University of West Indies; University of Trinidad and Tobago) across both islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Through lectures and expeditions in country, we learned the historical impact of colonization and evolution of the multi-cultural population of Trinidad and Tobago.
It is such an impactful component of career growth to understand the globalization of our world, the history of cultural understanding of a country and its impact on the needs of services to college students, and to connect higher education experiences in another country to the experiences we have on our campuses in the United States.

We have bonded together as we performed community service in another country while also watching the world events unfold around us. As the Muhammad Ali influenced motto of ISLP says: “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth”