Communication, Leadership and Community Development
During this faculty-led immersion, you will gain practical training that will help you better understand the development needs of a local community.
You will work with community groups in Cali, putting your communication and listening skills to work. Community leaders use creative and inclusive approaches based in story-telling, media and the arts to build relationships, create consensus, accomplish goals and work for social change.
The leadership skills you will gain are applicable to organizational development, intercultural collaboration and team building.
Cali, Colombia Experience
This program is run in partnership with Javeriana University. A typical day includes working with a community partner for half of the day, classroom instruction, group debriefs and project work, as well as tours and free time.
You can use your financial aid toward the cost of this study abroad program.
Learn more about why Alumna Linda Hobrook choose to travel to Cali while a student and after graduation: Coming and Going: For Innovation and Immersion.
Learn more about a recent project in this article: Global Engagement in the Digital Age.
You must be a current student (active in class) to apply to Study Abroad programs.
Questions?
Contact:
Heather Schmitt
Call or Text: (509) 313-6240
Email: schmitth@gonzaga.edu
Program Details:
Dates:
- July 13 - 26, 2025
Estimated Costs:
- Tuition (3 credits): Est. $3,240*
- Tuition - 6 credits: Est. $6,480*
- Study Abroad Program Fee: $1,110*
*Tuition and program fees are an estimate and subject to change.
Includes:
- Shared accommodations at Villa Javier at Javeriana University
- Most group meals
- Local group transportation
- Group excursions and activities
- Student insurance
Not included:
- Airfare
- Some meals
- Textbooks
- Personal expenses
Curriculum
ORGL 690 is a required course. You may also choose to take COML 521 at the same time. The courses are hybrid with online components. When you return home, you will continue to complete coursework.
ORGL 690: Communication, Leadership and Community Development - 3 credits
Instructor: Pavel Schlossberg, Ph.D.
Emphasizing face-to-face, as well as the use of digital communication tools, the course provides classroom instruction and practical training to help leaders better understand community development needs, as well as how individuals and organizations might work inclusively in partnership with local community institutions to engage and build up local community capacity and empowerment.
This course is eligible as an elective for the Global Leadership and Servant Leadership concentrations.
COML 521: Travel Writing - 3 Credits
Instructor: Pavel Schlossberg, Ph.D.
Leadership involves recognizing and developing collective and individual strengths, assets and opportunities, where others might only see challenges and needs. In Cali we work with and within a set of vulnerable, yet resilient communities that have commonly been stigmatized and presented in negative ways. Coming to terms with the complicities and possibilities of travel writing, we will identify and work within ethical, socially and interculturally aware forms of travel writing and representation, which seek to overstep stereotypes and to make visible dynamics of community empowerment, positive leadership and rich and vibrant community culture that have all too been ignored in travel writing depictions of certain neighborhoods in Cali and can be applied across the world.