Category Archives: News

I’m proud to have been awarded a Comenius Teaching Fellowship, by the Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO). This grant will enable me to develop and implement a series of Intercultural Chatbots, AI-based teaching tools that enhance intercultural learning.

It is undeniable that generative AI are having a profound impact on higher education. While many challenges exist, we also believe that there is great, as-of-yet unrealized, potential for using these tools for enhancing students’ intercultural competence development.

The aim of this project is to develop and validate a new teaching tool that uses Intercultural Chatbots: AI-based conversational agents that can mimic distinct cultural communication styles. These chatbots will be implemented in intercultural education at AMSIB, allowing students to gain experience in intercultural communication, and reflect on how they respond to communication styles that are different from their own. Such experiences will provide new opportunities for enhancing students’ intercultural competences

The LLM-algorithms that lie at the heart of this project have been developed with support from the Center of Economic Transformation (CET), which funded the proof-of-concept. The Comenius Teaching Fellowship will enable us to take this project to the next level, by developing the interfaces which allow us to implement the chatbots in our education program, assessing their effectiveness at enhancing intercultural learning, and disseminating our findings with other educators in the Netherlands and beyond.

The Intercultural Chatbots project is a collaboration between experts in intercultural communication, generative AI and human-machine interactions, from Amsterdam School of International Business (AMSIB), Alphacrucis University College (Sydney, Australia), Erasmus University Rotterdam, and University of Amsterdam.

On Sept. 20th, we will host a Research Symposium on the topic of ‘Intercultural Competence in Higher Education’ at Amsterdam School of International Business (AMSIB). We will present state-of-the-art research on this theme, and provide an opportunity for networking and catching up with colleagues.

Our Keynote speaker will be Prof. dr. Lily Arasaratnam, of Alphacrucis College in Sydney, Australia.

Click here for more information: https://www.amsterdamuas.com/amsib/shared-content/events/events/2024/09/research-symposium-intercultural-competence-in-higher-education.html?origin=%2FyT197CJTjSdAP1RBigaxw

This week, all universities in the Netherlands are expressing concern about the upcoming budget cuts for higher education that have been proposed by the new national government, as well as policies to regulate the number of English-language study programs, and reduce the number of incoming international students.

In her yearly address at the opening of the academic year, Annelien Bredenoord, president of Erasmus University Rotterdam, cited our recent study that shows that internationalization provides benefits, also for students from the host society. The university press office summarizes the article here: https://www.eur.nl/eshcc/nieuws/internationale-studieomgeving-stimuleert-ruimdenkendheid-onder-nederlandse-studenten

Elsevier magazine (https://www.ewmagazine.nl/) just published the response of the Minister of Education, Eppo Bruins, to Bredenoord’s address. It can be found here: https://www.ewmagazine.nl/kennis/achtergrond/2024/09/onderwijsminister-eppo-bruins-wil-bezuinigingsklap-dempen-1429280/

Global citizenship remains a fuzzy and often contested term, especially when used in the context of higher education. In this new paper, Leonor Gaitán-Aguilar reviews and synthesizes the vast literature on this topic and provides directions on how to research intercultural learning and civic engagement in global academia.

This project is funded by the Community for Learning & Innovation (CLI) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, and supervised by Jeroen Jansz and myself.

My first foray into AI-based data analysis! Joao Goncalves, Pytrik Schafraad, Biyao Wu, and I used supervised machine-learning to study how organizations communicate about diversity on social media.

The validation of our digital tool, called Diversity Perspectives in Social Media (DivPSM) was just published in Public Relations Review. The algorithms are open source (https://github.com/joephofhuis/divpsm), so feel free use them in your own research, or contact me if you need more info.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2024.102431

In 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, I developed a new online teaching module intercultural communication. The project was financially supported by the Community for Learning and Innovation (CLI) at Erasmus University. The module was taught by experienced trainers from RISBO

Together with Mijail Fugueroa, I conducted an evaluation study, to test whether the module was effective in raising students’ cultural intelligence, and who benefited the most. The results of our study have just been published (Spoiler: the training works!).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2023.101927

It was very cool to be back in my birthplace to provide a workshop at the Gemeente Delft (Municipality of Delft) on diversity in teams. Thanks, Mark Rothuizen, for the invitation. Also nice to see my former school building in the ‘Delfts Kwartet’: What used to be the Jan Vermeerschool is now the Vermeer Centre.

Awareness of the importance of cultural diversity in the workplace is growing steadily. Research shows that successful integration of diverse cultural groups not only contributes to a fair and inclusive society, but also has benefits for the productivity of teams and organizations. However, communicating effectively on this topic remains a challenge, full of sensitivities and potential pitfalls. There are different opinions in society about what a successful diversity policy should look like. In addition, there is a lot of skepticism about the authenticity of diversity communication. Organizations are often accused of ‘colorwashing’: positive communication about cultural diversity without a link with actual diversity policy. To what extent is this skepticism justified?

Together with Gabriella Santos en Pytrik Schafraad I wrote an article (in Dutch) for www.innnovatiefinwerk.nl, in which we answer this question. Click HERE to read it.

This month, the magazine HP/De Tijd focuses on my recent research into ‘colorwashing’ – the tendency of organizations to communicate positively about diversity, with the aim of improving reputation, without correlation with actual or intended diversity activities.

Read the full article (in Dutch) here: https://www.hpdetijd.nl/2023-08-25/scoren-met-diversiteit/ (Paywall).

Starting Sept 1st, I will be working as Associate Professor at the Amsterdam School of International Business (AMSIB), of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. I’m looking forward to meeting AMSIB’s international students and staff, and working together on teaching and research projects.