A delegation of employees of the ZHAW School of Social Work reports from the visit at Wayne State University School of Social Work in Detroit.

In Detroit, we experienced incredibly exciting days. Detroit is a city of 677’000 inhabitants in the US-state Michigan which has a rich industrial and music history (e.g. Motown, Techno). Detroit experienced a substantial social crisis in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008 and the downturn of the local automobile industry. The city lost a large part of its workforce (and tax payers). For comparison: In 1950 the population was 1’850’000. Examples for the biggest social issues are poverty, unemployment, homelessness, substance abuse or crime.

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Phinu Jose from India reports from the Faculty Exchange Week in Zurich, 10th to 16th December 2017

Moving from a city where 26 degrees Celsius was the Winter Norm to Freezing -3 degrees was indeed an amazing revelation in globetrotting. All apprehensions of my inability to feel at home were wiped off immediately, thanks to very hospitable people around. The welcome walk was in the freezing Christmas Market with some ethereal sense of walking on ice and admiring snow-capped mountains, only to feel like an Ice-Maiden, literally, at the end of the sight-seeing!

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Nicole Kasielke, head of communication channels at the ETH Zurich, reports from the digital campus tour in San Francisco.

Our last day of the study tour started with another trip to Berkeley where we attended a podcast workshop. The program said: podcasts are the new “gold” in digital communications. Our instructor Laura Klivans used a different expression. She gave us a historical wrap-up on radio shows and said that audio actually is the “cockroach” of communications.

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Fabienne Haltinner, online manager at the ZHAW School of Social Work, reports from the Digital Campus tour in San Francisco.

On day 3 of our digital campus tour, we had a busy schedule and a very diversified program. To be able to be attentive in every meeting, we started by rising our blood sugar level with some delicious donuts in the Mission district, which was a great idea.

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Sandro Schönbächler, Community- and Online Manager at ZHAW School of Management and Law, reports from the digital campus tour in San Francisco.

On day 2 of our Digital Campus Study Tour we had a chance to visit two very well known but also completely different institutions. In the morning we visited Stanford University, one of the world’s most prestigious universities. We met with Amy Adams, Head of Science Communications and Dylan Conn, Senior Digital Media Associate to get some insights into Stanford’s digital communication and to learn about the challenges of coordinating all communication activities on the campus.

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Anne Dörig, Communication Specialist at the HES-SO reports from the digital campus tour in San Francisco.

On the first day of our Digital Campus Study tour we discovered the importance of storytelling. A good story will hook the reader and make him curious to know the end. It’s pretty obvious to say that but it’s definitely difficult when it comes to complicated subject such as science. To illustrate and show you this point, I’ll tell you the story of this first day :).

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