Reflections on Volunteerism in the Lao PDR; Strategic Considerations From

Reflections on volunteerism in the Lao PDR; strategic considerations from Souphanouvong University’s first unsponsored volunteer Ross Hartley Key words : Souphanouvong University, Laos, Volunteerism, Case study, Retirees, Tourism Abstract This paper explains the origin of unsponsored volunteerism at Luang Prabang’s Souphanouvong University (SU) and chronicles opportunities and challenges the author encountered. It explores limitations to SU’s current system for attracting and managing volunteers arguing that by inviting unsponsored volunteers additional to traditional pathways it would better position itself internationally as the disconnect between its vision and the reality is substantial. Laos is among the world’s poorest countries. It is a popular destination for tourists. Arguably, with these come a diversity of untapped knowledge, skill, and talent applicable to SU and indeed across Laos and the developing world. Until recently SU had accepted just 30 volunteers and these solely through sponsoring agencies and primarily for teaching. A direct approach by the author challenged this. Consequently, more opportunities now exist for advancing the university. It’s a volunteerism model successfully implemented elsewhere. However, to be replicated in Laos fundamental change is needed in volunteerism programmes. Success hinged on establishing personal relationships. Such a model complements, though might also challenge, more traditional volunteerism. Its advantages, however, do open volunteerism to be considerably more flexible and focussed. A much broader array of people and with very specific skills could offer their talents, virtually perhaps, on micro and episodic projects through third parties simply using as little technology as smartphones from home. Introduction The Lao PDR is a landlocked nation bordering China, Vietnam, Myannmar, Thailand and Cambodia. Its legacy from the Vietnam War is well documented, as is its resurgence as a communist country following that war. Considered a developing country, the International Monetary Fund places it 48 th in their table of 184 countries from poorest to richest (Pasquali, 2015). Luang Prabang (also spelt Louangphabang) where SU is located is the fourth largest city after Vientiane, Pakxe and Savannakhet and has a population of about 47,000. The Lao PDR has a population of about 6.9 million, the majority of which is rural (World Population Review, 2015). Luang Prabang’s major claim to fame is its UNESCO World Heritage listing back in 1995 (UNESCO, 2015). Situated at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, the word- famous old part of the city sits on a peninsula one kilometer long by half a kilometer wide. In 2015 it was again voted ‘best city’ to visit by Wanderlust Travel Magazine, an award it has won many times before (Wanderlust Travel Magazine, 2015). Clearly, Luang Prabang attracts a lot of international and domestic visitors each year and with these come a diversity of untapped knowledge, skill, talent and application. And as Wearing and McGehee (2013) point out in their review, volunteering tourism is a growing trend, as applicable to Laos as elsewhere. Despite its obvious prominence within the Lao PDR, the city’s only university is a relatively recent addition. SU commenced operations in 2003 and funded largely by Korean investment (Yohan & Somsamone, 2011) . Named after Prince Souphanouvong, who was the first

President of the Lao PDR, it is just one of five universities in the country. With little written about SU, its Wikipedia page offers a source of description as to its existence, describing it as a “ public national educational and cultural institution under the Ministry of Education. The University carries out the educational functions of preparing specialists, researchers and multidisciplinary scientific scholars; organizing scientific research; protecting and promoting Lao’s unique national and multiethnic arts and culture; and delivering academic services to society” (Wikipedia, 2014).

There are two campuses, the Faculty of Education which borders the old city and the newer campus nine kilometers out along Northern Road, which accommodates the faculties of Economics and Tourism, Agriculture and Forest Resources, Engineering, Architecture, and Languages. SU offers 20 undergraduate degrees, each of four years duration. There are no postgraduate qualifications on offer. A staff of almost 400 service the learning needs of about 4000 undergraduate students.

SU has a vision of becoming a world class provider of learning and research. As this paper will show, there is a noticeable disconnect between that vision and its reality pointing to just how little has been achieved to date, and how much more, even basic progress, needs to be achieved. Slow as progress is, however, a strategic start has been made with formal academic relations established with 33 universities and organizations in nearby countries. These relations have focused on scholar and student exchanges, library book and computer supplies, and international seminars, workshops and meetings.

It is against this backdrop that the role of volunteers at SU is now explored. Until late in 2014 SU accepted volunteers only through well-established sponsoring agencies such as foreign governments and NGOs. A direct approach made to it early in 2014 by two Australian retirees, the author and his brother, effectively challenged this status quo with the result that, for the first time, SU opened its doors to unsponsored volunteers who had no affiliations with any volunteering organizations.

This paper explains the origin of private volunteering at SU, but from a personal perspective. It deconstructs the shared journey undertaken by both the volunteer and SU. It concludes with a road map into the future, arguing that by opening the university to unsponsored volunteers alongside of the more traditional volunteering pathways, SU could more effectively and efficiently position itself to fast-track the realization of its strategic vision to become a leader in teaching and research.

Initial approaches to volunteering at SU

After a dozen visits to various Asian countries over more than two decades, the author decided that for his next visit he wanted to volunteer. Luang Prabang was his destination of choice, having visited several times already. Wanting to contribute meaningfully he researched organizations most likely to be interested in his knowledge, skill and application in research, publishing and teaching across the disciplines of agriculture, health, education and communications. By chance he discovered that Luang Prabang had a relatively new university, about which he had previously not known. Finding its website, however, proved to be an impossible task, and one not concluded until after his actual arrival at SU. A Google search on Souphanouvong University yields few results, not one of which is its website. The reason for this is that SU has an unconventional web address by international protocols: http://www.lpb-su.edu.la .

By contrast, SU did have a Wikipedia entry, in fact it had two, both of which were mere shells and devoid of substantive information. Most notably absent was anything on how to contact the university. So despite much searching, the author remained ignorant of how to approach SU in relation to volunteering.

The LinkedIn website ( www.linkedin.com ) solved the contact problem. A number of staff had entries, one of which fortuitously was the Vice President for Academic Affairs. He redirected the author’s initial email query to other staff, the result of which was six months of back and forth communications between SU’s International Affairs Office and the author.

It was clear from the ensuing email exchanges that an unsponsored offer to come and volunteer for a month challenged SU because it had never before had a direct approach by a volunteer. Volunteers had always been engaged through formalized contracts with foreign governments, NGOs and other sponsoring agencies. There simply were no guidelines for any direct approaches outside of this norm.

Closer to the arrival date the International Affairs Office requested detailed curriculum vitae and passport details, so it seemed approval had been granted, at least in principle. Close upon departure from Australia the author’s brother also decided to volunteer. He is well renowned for project management, having run his own consultancy business for decades and authoring several textbooks on the subject. So early October 2014, the two Australian unsponsored volunteers arrived at Luang Prabang for a month’s volunteering at SU.

The first volunteering experience Arrival at the International Relations Office on the first day meant another form to complete, a brief and warm welcome by the Vice President for Academic Affairs, and a tour of SU, which sits on 110 hectares along the Mekong River on the outskirts of the city. The impression was that despite numerous emails to SU, nothing had been organized for our arrival in terms of which staff to work with or what they might like from having the volunteers onsite. One of SU’s two information technology laboratories became the volunteers’ office, five days a week, from 8am till 4pm, for four weeks. The volunteers spent 90 per cent of their time there, which proved not to be a bad situation despite the protracted isolation from staff. Unexpectedly, it was the Faculty of Engineering (FE) that finally sought the expertise on offer, being primarily interested in workshops on project management and writing submissions and applications. A number of such workshops were run, typically for the same eight to ten academics from a faculty of about 40, many of whom had very limited English language skills. From the author’s perspective, the main interest among staff seemed to be on how to get grants and international study acceptances. The majority of academic staff at SU have undergraduate degrees only, some hold master degrees with a handful having doctorates. The drive to gain postgraduate degrees abroad was very noticeable. However, it seemed to the author that there was a dearth of any research, writing and publishing philosophy at SU, a fact later confirmed by the Office of International Relations, with the exception perhaps of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. Given the amount of on-campus down time, the volunteers decided to write various documents - precedents - that they thought might prove useful to SU in both managing future

volunteers, but also in advancing its strategic goals. The first of these updated and populated the previously mentioned Wikipedia entry. Duplicate entries were merged and the SU marketing flier transcribed and uploaded to the site. This Wikipedia entry still houses the only relatively comprehensive information in English about SU and enjoys around 300 hits each month (Wikipedia Statistics, 2015). Another was an English version of SU’s opening webpage, which the volunteers had had translated. There was also an attempt at drafting policy and procedure guidelines for managing volunteers. It is important to reflect on the dynamics of the volunteer/university relationship at this point. Well intentioned and experienced as volunteers might be, their desire to affect a hosting organization’s operations must certainly be approached with much circumspection. The last thing wanted is accusation of ‘seagull’ or ‘parachute’ volunteering, that is, where people fly in, dump the expertise, and fly out. Working alongside SU staff gave the unsponsored volunteers opportunities to explain possibilities for change and improvement to management practices and to show what these might look like through drafting various documents. Importantly, discretion was left with SU as to whether or not to then adopt this material. Subsequent volunteering experiences Soon upon returning to Australia the author deemed it imperative to return to SU, sooner than later, in part to demonstrate ongoing commitment but more importantly to foster the budding relationships forged with individual academic staff. Thus began a second flurry of email exchanges. What differed this time was the targeting. Not only were the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the International Relations Office emailed, but so also were individual academics who had expressed interest in research. It became clear that FE academics wanted a return visit. Communications were well received by SU; there was even a hint of surprise on its part that the author was returning, and, so soon upon the first visit. Not only this, but it was also negotiated that the author wished to operate mainly from his guesthouse in the old city during the second visit, with academic staff travelling to meet him, rather than the additional expense to him of having to travel to the university each day, as had been the case previously. To this end, the university agreed to undertake an initial reconnaissance enquiry among its academic staff to identify those specifically interested in meeting individually with the author. Whereas the author’s first visit was very much managed along the lines of ‘just turn up and we’ll see what we can do with you’, and hence the inordinate amount of non-productive time, the second was specifically targeted to those academics committed to undertaking and publishing research. As an aside, while quite a few FE academic staff do have masters degrees, mainly from China, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, most seemed to have been coursework based postgraduate learning rather than research degrees, which is a significant drawback in attempting to establish a research culture. It had been obvious from the first visit that while FE academics were highly motivated to score research grants (in fact attracting funds seemed to be their main focus), there was clearly a dearth of research and publishing experience. Arguably, it was likely that this same lack continued to work against success in applying for research grants. Hence the author’s specific focus on academic staff undertaking the most modest of research projects, a basis from which a research culture could develop. In other words, in order to succeed, the author reasoned that the faculty needed to build-up a body of modest research and publication, seemingly from scratch.

As well as relying on email for fostering relationships between the two visits, an attempt was made to shift the communication medium from email to online discussion forum, which the author foresaw as an appropriate innovation, introducing staff to a ‘new’ (for them) technology ( www.quicktopic.com ). While well intentioned, this experiment failed dismally. Despite recording over 100 hits, few people posted, the cause of which was suggested to be poor English writing skills. Significantly, many staff had never heard of online forums. Finally, with the permission of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Engineering, and other academic staff, the author returned to SU late in March 2015, just five months after his first visit. Significantly, less than a total of eight hours was spent on campus this second trip spread over four weeks. Despite this very limited presence, a handful of academic staff did accept the author’s offer to work with them from his guesthouse with the result that several research projects were initiated and progressed. In relation to the research projects themselves, these ranged from a study in the Faculty of Languages on English pronunciation and diction among its teaching staff to a project in FE using student feedback in redesigning faculty authored textbooks on English technical engineering terminology. A third visit took place in September of 2015, this time for six days only, and again working from the guesthouse not on-campus. A fourth visit, for ten days, occurred in February 2016, a total of four visits in 17 months. Towards a research focus Despite the novelty of the author’s direct approach asking to volunteer at SU and how this unfurled across three subsequent visits, considerable and tangible inroads were made with academic staff, a handful of which are now committed to learning about research, not in the classroom but by doing it. The process is modest enough, starting with finding out what a particular academic teaches. In one case, for example, this was English technical terminology to engineering students. The academic had written, and the university published, a series of five textbooks, though these might better be described as course notes by western standards. The academic wished to rewrite and update his textbooks. His usual practice would have been to do the task without necessarily considering the best approach, or what best-practice might be, or how others might have approached the task, or even what his students thought about the current editions. So a short questionnaire of 14 open and closed questions (tested neither for reliability nor validity) was designed and given to his first year class of 40 students. Overnight he had a valuable dataset from which to start considering how his rewrites might look. This research tied in with a rudimentary internet search of the literature on writing such books, something he had never done before, will help to ensure production of better second editions simply because the improvements he makes will be evidence-based. He wants to publish his modest research project in the English research literature, his paper currently under review by a journal. From the Australian author’s perspective, this is a remarkable outcome. And as important is the fact that success in engendering an embryonic research culture is measurable. Whether this particular research study, along with the others of similar ilk, do find publication in the English research literature is almost a secondary, yet still important, consideration. The primary learning objective is about mastering the research/publishing process itself.

As previously flagged, academic staff seem particularly keen on chasing research grants. Yet it is nigh impossible to find evidence of any research, apart from agricultural, actually being undertaken at SU. In fact, it has no central repository file on research. As pointed out above, funding bodies tend not to fund novices, hence the urgency to demonstrate a growing body of research capability. And herein lies another argument for promoting SU internationally. People need to know of its existence, its vision and its achievements. In promoting itself internationally, it opens itself to good things happening, one of which would be more research grants. Another is more volunteers, but increasingly this would be dependent on volunteer needs being met as Dury et al. (2015) point out. From four visits, it has become clear to the author that birthing a genuine research culture at SU will be a slow process. Nevertheless, from an initial success in turning novices into researchers, interest should grow. And the advantage of this particular focus and strategy is that it does not require the author to be on campus, or even in the Lao PDR, as so much of the subsequent communication can be done online, thereby freeing the need for the volunteer to visit as often. So success in these projects will depend very much on academic staff working very closely with the author, accessing his hands-on guidance from inception to publication. This in turn raises ethical considerations. One of the reasons academic staff do not undertake research, apart from not knowing how to in many instances, is their deficiency and confidence with written English. This then results in considerable overwriting on the volunteer’s part necessitating joint authorship. However, it becomes important that readers do not presume the English skills of academic staff, as expressed through their joint publications, is better than is in fact the case. Ethically, it’s a fine line as Cleary et al. (2013) discuss. Discussion One thing can be said for certain about volunteering in the Lao PDR and that is there is a lot of it, whether formally organized or simply a drop-in service like helping locals with conversational English. And as argued above, there is a huge and largely untapped gene pool of visiting talent that comes to the Lao PDR each year. With huge demand on the one hand and unlimited supply on the other, the opportunity that presents itself becomes one of joining the two through a seamless and transparent sustainable management system. Research shows huge interest in volunteerism, particularly among retiring baby boomers. In Australia for example, estimates suggest up to five million or one-fifth of the population engages in volunteerism (Anon, 2011). Relatively young as SU is, it can be argued that it has been slow to capitalize on the galore of potential opportunities volunteers could afford. The total number of volunteers to have worked at SU since its start is 33, the majority of whom have visited in the previous two years only (Table 1). Over one half of all volunteers emanate from Korean universities with which SU has signed Memoranda of Understandings (MOU), Korea having been the major funding body in establishing the university back in 2003. The admission of both Australian and American volunteers is very recent. Significantly, the author’s approach is still the only unsponsored one, evidence that the notion of volunteers approaching SU directly, thereby bypassing the need to be sponsored by any recognised authority, is very new indeed. Table 1 History of international volunteering at Souphanouvong University No Country Volunteering Duration Responsibilities Year organization 1 Korea KOICA 1 2 years Technical Assistant 2007-9

2 Korea MOU 2 1 year Agriculture Assistant 2007 3 Korea MOU 6 years Teach 2008-13 4 Korea MOU 8 years Teach 2008-15 5 Korea KOICA 1 year Teach 2010-12 6 USA US Embassy 3 months Teach 2009 7 Thailand MOU 1 year Teach 2010 8 Korea MOU 2 years Teach 2011-12 9 Korea MOU 2 years Teach 2011-12 10 Australia ABV 3 4 months Teach 2011 11 Korea MOU 3 years Project 2012-15 12 Korea MOU 2 years Teach 2012-14 13 Thailand MOU 1 year Library 2013 14 Thailand MOU 1 yeas Library 2013 15 Australia ABV 4 months Teach 2013 16 Australia ABV 4 months Teach 2013 17 Australia ABV 3 months International Affairs 2013 18 Australia ABV 3 months Teach and research 2013 19 Australia ABV 2 months Teach 2013 20 Korea MOU 4 months Teach 2014 21 Korea MOU 4 months Teach 2014 22 Australia ABV 3 months Teach and research 2014 23 USA ELI 4 1 year Teach 2014 24 USA ELI 1 year Teach 2014 25 USA ELI 1 year Teach 2014 26 USA ELI 1 year Teach 2014 27 Australia Self-funded 1 month Teach and research 2014 28 Australia Self-funded 1 month Teach and research 2014 29 Korea MOU 2 years Project 2014-15 30 Korea MOU 2 years Project 2014-15 31 Korea MOU 2 years Project 2014-15 32 Korea MOU 6 months Project 2015 33 Australia Self-funded 1 month Teach and research 2015 1Korea International Cooperation Agency; 2MOU Memoranda of understandings between other universities and SU; 3ABV Australian Business Volunteers; 4ELI English Language Institute Interestingly, the majority of volunteering episodes appear to have focussed specifically on teaching, for which SU prefers longer term stays of a semester at least and preferably longer. Only five of the 33 volunteering episodes, all Australian, included a focus on research during their stay, with three of these being the recent unsponsored visits. Juxtaposing this statistic against what the author could find of SU’s research and publication record questions its ability to deliver on its quite specific strategic vision of organizing scientific research. Further, while the Office of International Relations houses all documentation relating to volunteering such as enquiries, agreements and evaluations, it continues to be the recipient only, not the initiator of these important documents. This means SU may well be largely ignorant of the efficacy of its own volunteering program. Of course, underpinning the Lao PDR’s general ability to deliver is its status as a developing communist nation. Approval for volunteering is far from a simple process, which in part may explain the slow uptake in accepting volunteers, remembering that opening its doors to more volunteers could

deliver huge gains to the university. Briefly, the process starts with the faculty then the university both endorsing the proposal. The Ministry of Education and Sports checks whether it meets their strategic plan after which the Ministry of Planning and Investment checks that it meets the needs of the National Development Plan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the final say. Once approved, the usual practice is for the sponsoring body to issue a standard Host Organisation Assignment Agreement detailing the roles and responsibilities of each of the parties, that is, SU, sponsoring body, and the volunteers. However, in the case of the unsponsored volunteers there was no such documentation. The International Relations Office confirmed that SU does not have any policies and procedure guideline documentation for attracting, managing, and exiting volunteers. This situation is typical of a range of observable operational shortfalls within SU’s day-to-day functioning. There are no landlines on campus, for example, nor is there an integrated email system. Staff variously use Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and similar private email accounts as well as personal mobile phones for all internal and external calls. Information technology is both limited and dated, with internet services slow and intermittent. These comments provide context only, they are not criticism. Without a doubt, the opportunity exists for much to be done and perhaps all that is required, in the simplest of terms, is a paradigm shift incorporating a smidgen of entrepreneurial marketing, much easier said than done of course. The paper to this point has considered SU’s ambitious vision to become a leader in teaching and research against the reality of its inadequate physical resources and limited staff knowledge and skill pertinent to realizing that vision. Considered also has been operational matters underpinning volunteering, pointing to the fact that while having accepted volunteers for a number of years, it is essentially only in the last two to three years that use of volunteers has started to grow, culminating very recently in accepting unsponsored volunteers for the first time. All of which begs the question as to just what SU gains from its growing pool of volunteers and whether there is any potential for a better return on investment. But first, an anecdote pertaining to volunteering from the Australian bush. Barcaldine is a small country town of fewer than 1500 people in Central Queensland. Some 520 km from its nearest regional city, Rockhampton, it is a long way from the state capital of Brisbane in the south east. Essentially it is in the middle of nowhere. And yet it is a magnet for tourists, especially those referred to affectionately as ‘grey nomads’. These are usually newly retired people who invest in a caravan, camper trailer or a simple tent and travel the width and breadth of Australia over of period ranging from three months to a couple of years. Despite its isolation, the region has some very interesting natural geographical features, the result of which is that the grey nomads flock en masse to the town, where they stay from just a few days to several weeks or more. It is estimated that as many as 15,000 visitors travel through the town each year, 70 per cent of which are grey nomads (Local Government Focus, 2015). . Over a decade ago, the town came to the realization that it had at its very doorstep a gene pool of incredibly diverse talent that it might just be able to use. The sheer numbers of tourists coming to stay brought with them entire lifetimes of knowledge and skill the small, isolated town could use. All that the town needed to do was to devise a system and process whereby it could promote and manage the skills required against the tasks needing to be done. And this they did very successfully, even creating its own website on which people could register their talents and skills and intended visiting dates. Nowadays, making use of grey nomads is a well-established phenomenon across Australia (Onyx et al, 2008).

Unfortunately the grey nomad project was subsequently shelved for lack of ongoing funding though its intent seems to have survived. Nowadays, the Barcaldine Regional Council acts as a connection point between community organizations and grey nomad volunteers, providing a list of community projects from which interested volunteers can contact the relevant organizations personally and directly. This anecdote illustrates the value in maximizing baby boomer engagement in volunteerism as argued by Pietsch et al, (2014). The relevance of this anecdote to volunteering in the Lao PDR is clear. Given the prominence of Luang Prabang on the international traveller’s ‘must see’ destinations, then undoubtedly SU, and indeed the city itself, has at its fingertips an unexplored world of potentially amazing skills and talents which could so easily be exploited to advance its cause. According to Ong et al, (2015) most volunteer tourism in developing countries originates in developed countries and that this trend is set to grow before diminishing. However, for the innovation to happen, fundamental change would be required in the manner in which volunteering programs operate (Bidee et al. 2013). As is evident, SU adheres to a very traditional model of volunteerism currently eschewing more recent innovations and paradigm shifts including micro and episodic volunteerism as well as virtual and third party volunteerism. The modest change-cum-innovation of opening volunteerism to unsponsored volunteers as reported in this paper would complement, though might also challenge, the more traditional volunteerism model. Its advantages, however, do open volunteerism to be considerably more flexible and focussed (Alfes, 2013). A much broader array of people and with very specific skills could offer their talents, virtually perhaps, on micro and episodic projects through third parties simply using as little technology as smartphones from home. In contributing to germinating a research and publishing ethos at SU the author himself has relied on a network of personal contacts with expertise, resource people who well may not see themselves as engaging in volunteerism. Arguably, the very notion of what volunteerism actually is may need a conceptual revisit. Smith, (2015) argues that real life situations don’t always fit neatly into official definitions as this author can confirm. And it can be challenging, as this author also found, for potential volunteers trawling the plethora of volunteerism internet sites searching for something that matches what they may want (Kaiser, 2011). Many a volunteer nowadays may not want to be tied up with bureaucrats and red tape in offering their skills and talents (Sawtell et al. 2010). Bourke (2009) posits that organizations may need to reconsider their attitudes to older volunteers especially in the context of potential capabilities of the baby boomers. Hawkes (2014) points out that international volunteer organizations can themselves present significant barriers to success. Unquestionably, volunteerism is changing (Mitchell, 2009) and in the competitive volunteerism market, organizations need to turn themselves into volunteer magnets according to Conner (2008) and make much more use of evolving technologies and paradigm shifts as McKee argues (2016). Further, Sims (2015) asserts that much uncertainty remains around how to actually translate complex academic understandings of culture and development into Lao policy responses.

However, such huge leaps towards change may just be too radical for now. But, ‘if we always do what we have always done, then we will always get what we have always gotten.’ Change can be incremental or fast, the success of which depends in part on the extent to which stakeholders can be won over to the innovation. And herein lies the impediment of office politics; not everyone wants to embrace change, especially when a power base may change. Whereas the current practice is for sponsored volunteering agencies to contact the university directly, SU might consider reversing this passivity and become proactive in chasing the

volunteer knowledge and skill it needs to advance its strategic vision. To this end, volunteer tourism would need to be attractive (Luh Sin et al. 2015; Lee & Yen, 2015). Further, issues surrounding risk management and volunteerism would need to be considered (Saaroni, 2015). With this in mind, that is, moving towards maximizing its use of, and return on investment from, volunteers there are several strategies SU could already begin thinking about, the first of which unquestionably would be to reconsider its internet presence. Clearly, the obvious transformation in this regard would be to establish the previously flagged dual language SU website and in doing so follow the internationally standardized website address protocol. Further, a serious commitment to an internet presence would require SU to maximize its hit rate from any search engine. One way towards this is to ensure that it is on as many sites as possible and a particularly useful strategy to this end would be publishing its research. Whereas establishing a new SU website could occur almost immediately within whatever constraints the university faces, maximizing its hit rates from across a range of sites could necessarily be a longer term strategy. In terms of maximizing the return on investment from volunteering opportunities, SU might decide to host its own dedicated online website for managing the process, or simply house it within its revamped SU website. In promoting volunteering opportunities to aspirants from across the world, it is fundamentally important to ensure ease of access to information and its understanding as well as thoroughness of content, especially from the volunteers’ perspective. As previously said, at present it is very difficult to actually find who and how to contact the university. Conclusion This paper has explored the innovation of an unsponsored volunteer’s personal experience with SU. The initial challenge was to gain acceptance, officially from the university and the Lao PDR Government, then informally on the personal level from individual academic staff. Trying to understand the university’s operations has been crucial, with the task made all the more difficult because of the disparity in English proficiency, written and spoken, among staff. Following now four visits within sixteen months, quantifiable and ongoing success has been achieved, in the form a number of research grant applications concluded and some research projects underway, the first of which has already been submitted for publication. The need to develop a research culture is fundamentally important to the future of SU. This paper uses the author’s personal experiences at SU to argue the benefits it could reap from devising a system for better attracting, managing and evaluating future volunteers who happen upon Luang Prabang in huge numbers each year. References Alfes, K., Shantz, A., & Saksida, T. (2013). Committed to whom? Unraveling how relational job design influences volunteers’ turnover intentions and time spent volunteering. Voluntas , 26(6), 2479-2499. Anon. (2011). Celebrating National Volunteer’s Week. National Emergency Response , 24(3), 18-20. Bidee, J., Vantilborgh, T., Pepermans, R., Huybrechts, G., Willems, J., Jegers, M., & Hofmans, J. (2013). Autonomous Motivation Stimulates Volunteers’ Work Effort: A Self- Determination Theory Approach to Volunteerism, Voluntas , 24(1), 32-47.

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