Final Project Proposal

During my interview with the subject of my profile story, I came across some information which proved to be quite interesting, and will hopefully become the subject of my final project for communication 422.

I would like to interview Professor and Vice Provost for Globalization studies, Dr. William Brustein. Dr. Brustein comes to Ohio State from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and brings with him some great ideas which he intends to implement to our study abroad program.

The University of Illinois has an involuntary tax which they place on their students called the study abroad scholarship tax. This is comparable to taxes placed on OSU students for the RPAC, COTA bus system, and the new Ohio Union fee which will be implemented beginning Spring quarter 2010. This tax charges every undergraduate student 10 dollars a year.

It is assumed that in response to this, University of Illinois has a 38 percent rate of students who study abroad. Ohio State’s rate is only 18 percent. I believe that the implementation of this tax to Ohio State would be very beneficial, and that Brustein has the capability and knowledge to implement a similar program at OSU.

On 2/8/2010, every undergraduate student at Ohio State received an e-mail from Brustein and his colleagues which provided a survey to students on the study abroad program at OSU.

I think this plan for a tax, and a change to the study abroad program is beginning to take action, and I think this would be a great time to cover the story.