East meets West: The Role and Value of Inter-Cultural Competence in a Short-Term Academic Exchange Program

Abstract

In October, 2014, eleven Masters students and one professor from the University of Puerto Rico Graduate School of Planning visited Feng-Chia University, located in Taichung, Taiwan, to participate in a week long academic and cultural exchange program. Both Taiwanese and Puerto Rican students actively participated in a curriculum centered on three urban intervention projects located in Taichung. We will explore how cultural disequilibrium affects students‘ ability to work together in an assigned Planning project. There were two key parallel learning processes: one centered on bridging the culture gap and another on sharing knowledge and applying tools to solve a planning problem. Changes in visions, values and practices that transcended the duration of the academic exercise in Taiwan were also studied. We conducted two focus groups with participating Puerto Rican and Taiwanese students, to describe learning processes and overall cultural experiences during the short-term exchange program. Findings show that both hosting and visiting students were able to benefit from the learning experience, although in different ways. Taiwanese students strengthened their leadership and language skills, while Puerto Rican students gained insight that allowed them to view urban problems and processes differently. Both groups gained competency as intercultural communicators, as evidenced by the ways they faced communication challenges, their capacity to overcome them, and an increased sensitivity, acceptance and respect of cultural differences.