Do any of your usual course offerings lend themselves to being taught at a particular site? Think about what advantages the site lends to your course material. Try to choose courses that will allow you to get the students out of the classroom and incorporate things like attendance at performances, visits to companies or museums or natural attractions, city walkabouts, interviews, observations (data collection), interaction with locals . . .
Will you be able to cover necessary course material abroad? Remember that, as a rule of thumb, a 3-credit course meets for approximately 35 hours (not counting breaks); courses abroad should hold to similar standards. Courses should also be completed during winter session, not in fall or spring semester.
Is there someone at the host institution who could teach? Are there experts on site who could offer one of your program’s courses at a reasonable cost? Oftentimes local instructors bring particular skills, areas of expertise, or perspectives to a program that a UD faculty member could not. For example there is someone local who teaches History of South Africa on the South Africa program, and a local art historian who teaches Art and Architecture of Paris. (Foreign faculty must be pre-approved by the UD department offering the course.)
Should the program be co-sponsored (one course taught by co-director)? Think about what disciplines go well together. Is there a colleague in another department with whom you might like to travel? Co-sponsored arrangements work best when both faculty are recruiting from the same large pool of students (for example Political Science and Foreign Languages) and when they are equally committed to the program. If your department is large enough, both directors could come from the same department; this is a good way to train new faculty directors. Enrollment is also a consideration-a co-directed program must enroll a minimum of 24 students.
Try to choose courses that fulfill requirements for your target audience (such as group requirements in Arts and Science, major/minor requirements, multicultural requirement).
Try to choose courses that work well together so that out-of-classroom experiences can be used for both classes. Try building the program around everyone enrolling in TWO courses. This has in fact become standard among virtually all winter and summer programs.
