Introducing Peggy Ryan- Your On-Site Program Coordinator (OPC)!

Peggy Ryan couldn’t be more grateful for her inherited curiosity for new places and people springing from her birth in West Africa, time spent with her first generation Irish-American grandparents in Brooklyn, NY, and her upbringing in the small border community of El Centro, CA. She enjoyed several years studying and working at the University of California, San Diego, and The Old Globe Theatre. Her studies then unexpectedly brought her to Bologna, Italy, where she completed a dual masters Arts Management program in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University.

After nearly four years of living, working, and loads of fun in Bologna, Peggy has now set her sites on helping new friends navigate their own discoveries in Europe, a familiar role she stepped into as a former University of Bologna teaching assistant supporting student cultural outings in Florence, Rome, Turin, Venice, and Bologna.

Along with her frequent work as an OPC, Peggy was recently an adjunct professor of theatre marketing at San Diego State University and now serves as an adjunct professor of online marketing at a small university in Kufstein, Austria. She looks forward to meeting you on the ground!

So, what is an OPC? As part of your customized faculty-led program abroad, you will be led and supported by a CISabroad On-Site Program Coordinator (OPC). OPCs are experienced and well trained staff members, there to ensure the schedule goes according to plan. Each OPC attends an extensive training program that involves a range of modules – risk management, emergency response, safety, logistics’, cultural awareness, communication, culture shock, budgeting, social media, La Vida Local and customer service.

The primary role of the OPC is to facilitate the in-country implementation of the assigned customized program, by providing safety / emergency response and logistical support. During the program, the OPC is responsible for managing the day-to-day logistics of the assigned customized program and providing in-country support to both the faculty and students. Using personal travel experience, professional work experience (and where possible language knowledge), the OPC will help create a program environment that is safe and culturally engaging. The CISabroad OPC may or may not be an in country local. The majority of CISabroad OPCs are expats from the US, who have travelled, lived, volunteered, or worked abroad in the program destination. 

The OPC is not a registered tour guide nor expected to provide tours of sites visited during the program. If the program is one that requires specific guided tours of various sites, these will be provided separately. The OPC provides a general neighborhood walking tour to help the group identify the nearest bank/ATM, pharmacy, laundry-mat, grocery store and other similar conveniences. 

 The OPC’s role allows faculty to focus on the academic objectives and the students to make the most of their time overseas!