The Outreach Triad for Successful Study Abroad Programs

Author(s):  
Jennifer Joy Robertson

The old adage “build it and they will come” does not apply in the context of study abroad at the community college. Community colleges have historically struggled with study abroad enrollment due to a number of factors including inadequate funding, insufficient institutional support, and a lack of interest and awareness on behalf of their students. While there are many factors that go into successful programming for study abroad, one key element is outreach. This chapter will define outreach in terms of the marketing and communication methods to three key stakeholders in study abroad: students, faculty, and the local community. It will be argued that program administrators need to better understand the various ways in which outreach is used to increase both student enrollment, minority students in particular, and the number of faculty engaged in leading study abroad at the community college. The chapter will conclude by proposing some strategies for identifying funding opportunities from local community partners.

Author(s):  
Carola Smith

This chapter is a descriptive case study on one community college in California to show how the institution was able to successfully institutionalize study abroad through advocacy, strategic planning, and the cultivation of local, statewide, and international collaborations. Because of the longevity and vitality of the program examined in this particular case study, there is useful insight for other education abroad professionals who are at varying stages of implementing, developing, or institutionalizing study abroad programs at their respective institutions.


Author(s):  
Julie Baer

Drawing upon data from Open Doors®, this chapter highlights the unique characteristics of study abroad from community colleges over the past decade. It explores patterns in destinations, durations, and student characteristics for study abroad at community colleges over this time period. Through lessons learned from IIE's Heiskell Award winners and Generation Study Abroad (GSA) community college commitment partners, the chapter will conclude with best practices from community colleges that have made commitments to increase and diversify their study abroad programs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 555-572
Author(s):  
Tara Johnson ◽  
Kristina Hains ◽  
Bryan Hains ◽  
Janela Salazar

As we continue to develop into a more globalized society, it is an expectation that students in higher education become global citizens. While the literature supports the notion that students positively benefit from international education experiences, little research has been done to determine what role the community plays, or what effects the study abroad experience has on the community in which the student population is engaged. This study introduces an innovative conceptual framework that overlays the biological concept of symbiosis on the international education experience. This unique conceptual framework shines a light on the study abroad experience from the community’s perspective, as well as illustrating positive and negative impacts of student interaction within the local community. The results indicate that not only is there a role for communities but also communities need to be included in the planning and creation of these experiences, ultimately leading to more mutually beneficial outcomes. Ideally, these findings could be used by educators to capture the community voice to create more mutualistic programs in study abroad.


Author(s):  
Keith Bowen ◽  
Michele Barry ◽  
Ashley Jowell ◽  
Diana Maddah ◽  
Nael H. Alami

AbstractEducators who design and manage study abroad programs face a series of ethical responsibilities. Meeting these responsibilities is critical in the field of global health, where study abroad programs are often designed to provide healthcare services in under-resourced communities. Leaders in global health have thus formed working groups to study the ethical implications of overseas programming and have led the way in establishing socially responsible best practices for study abroad. Their recommendations include development of bidirectional programming that is designed for mutual and equitable benefits, focused on locally identified needs and priorities, attentive to local community costs, and structured to build local capacity to ensure sustainability. Implementation remains a key challenge, however. Sustainable, bidirectional programming is difficult and costly. In the present study, authors questioned how technology could be used to connect students of global health in distant countries to make socially responsible global health programming more accessible. Drawing on empirical research in the learning sciences and leveraging best practices in technology design, the authors developed a Virtual Exchange in Global Health to connect university students in the U.S. with counterparts in Lebanon, who worked in teams to address humanitarian problems in Syrian refugee camps. Early results demonstrate the value of this approach. At dramatically lower cost than traditional study abroad—and with essentially no carbon footprint—students recognized complementary strengths in each other through bidirectional programming, learned about local needs and priorities through Virtual Reality, and built sustaining relationships while addressing a difficult real-world problem. The authors learned that technology could effectively facilitate socially responsible global health programming and do so at low cost. The program has important implications for teaching and learning during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.


Author(s):  
Monija Amani ◽  
Mikyong Minsun Kim

This chapter addresses the findings of a multilayered study regarding perceptions of study abroad coordinators and students related to community college students' decisions to engage in global programs abroad and the factors that motivate their selection of a destination. In-depth interviews of study abroad program coordinators and students from three community colleges located in urban, suburban, and rural areas provided rich and diverse perspectives regarding students' access and engagement in study abroad programs and the reasons that affect their choices of destinations. Findings showed synchronicity and alignment between the study abroad coordinators' and students' perspectives. However, study abroad coordinators revealed that institutional administrators or leaders who have established connections with certain destinations influence program and destination offerings, which in turn broadens or limits students' selection of study abroad choices. Discussions and implications related to community college students, faculty, institutional leaders, and policymakers provide insight on how to make study abroad more accessible to community college students and expand their choice of destination.


Author(s):  
Drew Allen Gephart

Community colleges without a budget strictly allocated to study abroad programs need to be creative in how they expand opportunities for their students. This chapter will focus on the strategies developed by the Peralta Community College District's Office of International Education to develop a stronger study abroad program with limited resources and staffing. After the Peralta Colleges committed to the Institute of International Education's Generation Study Abroad initiative in 2014, it created new study abroad programs, organized annual study abroad fairs, was awarded a scholarship of $7,500, created new promotional materials and an administrative procedure, launched a new website and newsletter, organized financial aid workshops and professional development day presentations for faculty, and opened a study abroad scholarship through its foundation. The chapter will share how other colleges can learn from these efforts and institutionalize study abroad on their campuses.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Apgar

As destination of choice for many short-term study abroad programs, Berlin offers students of German language, culture and history a number of sites richly layered with significance. The complexities of these sites and the competing narratives that surround them are difficult for students to grasp in a condensed period of time. Using approaches from the spatial humanities, this article offers a case study for enhancing student learning through the creation of digital maps and itineraries in a campus-based course for subsequent use during a three-week program in Berlin. In particular, the concept of deep mapping is discussed as a means of augmenting understanding of the city and its history from a narrative across time to a narrative across the physical space of the city. As itineraries, these course-based projects were replicated on site. In moving from the digital environment to the urban landscape, this article concludes by noting meanings uncovered and narratives formed as we moved through the physical space of the city.


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