Thinking about Increasing Participation: Open Doors 2014

Gary Rhodes
Associate Dean, International Education & Senior International Officer,
College of Extended & International Education
Director, Center for Global Education
California State University at Dominguez Hills

 

The Institute of International Education recently published the new Open Doors data on study abroad and international student enrollments at U.S. colleges and universities in November 2014.  The international student data reflect enrollments for the 2013/14 academic year.  The total number of 886,052 reflects an increase of 66,408, an increase of over 8%.  Although reported in 2014, the study abroad participation data reflects study abroad in 2012/13.  The total of 289,408 is an increase of only 6,076 or 2%. Not only is the number of international students in the U.S. larger, but the increase in participation, whether looking at the percentage or total number, is significantly larger for international students.  Along with the 289,408 students who study abroad as part of U.S. college or university degree credit, IIE also notes that they have data on 46,090 U.S. students who are studying abroad for full degrees, as well as 15,089 who are going abroad on non-credit programs.

Institutions can use the IIE Open Doors data to look more broadly at experiences of other colleges and universities within their region as well as from a national perspective.  As with other rankings data, the story is always more complicated than just the number or percentage of participants by institution.

Along with concerns about total participation numbers, many in the field who have been talking about increasing diversity in study abroad should be concerned about ethnic diversity data.  Although we continue to talk about increasing participation in study abroad by African American and Hispanic students, their percentage of the total remained at 5.3% and 7.6%, low and unchanged since the 2011/12 data.   Efforts continue to push towards increasing participation in other areas, including students from STEM fields, students with disabilities, and students from other types of diverse backgrounds.

As we come to the end of the 2014 calendar year, I think it is a good time to reflect on ways to make a more significant impact on study abroad participation.  Although there are many complexities in terms of study abroad and international student enrollments, one significant difference is that international student enrollment is often connected to higher tuition payments than for domestic students and has a direct impact on institutional financial bottom line.  Traditionally, the importance of study abroad has been tied to international learning.  As noted in previous Terra Dotta Newsletter articles, additional data shows ties to retention, success, and career.  Some would say that some institutions, based on student and parent interest in study abroad programs, can be tied to being competitive when recruiting students.  However, that connection between having comprehensive study abroad opportunities doesn’t usually get made.

One good place to look for ideas for increasing participation is the recent Institute of International Education IIE Networker Publication focused on “What Will It Take to Double” (study abroad participation).

Institutions seeking to increase the number of students going abroad need to offer incentives and make accessibility a top priority.  Ann Hubbard, Vice President at AIFS Study Abroad, who recently served as a reviewer for the Forum on Education Abroad in conducting a Capacity Review [available for Generation Study Abroad Commitment Partners], reports that a capacity assessment hones in on three of the Forum’s Standards of Best Practice: the institution’s mission & goals, policies & procedures, and organizational & program resources.  A capacity assessment seeks to look at both challenges and opportunities and explores ways to build on strengths in order to grow the number of students studying abroad.

Starting with a clear articulation of mission, vision and values, and support from faculty and staff for its value is primary.  Campus policies that involve not only financial factors or approval of credit/course equivalents, but those that for example, ease the process of securing campus housing for only part of the year are important.  As for resources, institutions must commit to supporting their program in terms of staffing, finances, and in offering a variety of programs by discipline, destinations and types (direct exchange, faculty-led, provider) so that there is appeal to a range of students.  Some of the factors to consider – and the potential areas in which to establish sound support under each of these Standards include:

Mission & Goals:

The organization, with respect to education abroad, has a formally-adopted mission statement for its overall operations and for its individual programs that is known to and accepted by its faculty.

Is there a commitment to setting and meeting goals to increase the number of students going abroad?  Is it clearly articulated and communicated throughout the institution?  Are the faculty in agreement and ready to support it (in a variety of ways)?   Are there goals related to programming and outcomes?   How will they be measured?  Who will do the work?

Policies & Procedures:

The organization has in place policies and procedures that govern its education abroad programs and practices.

Do students find the preliminary information on studying abroad informative and encouraging?  Do students have information on course equivalents and/or solid advising to help them choose suitable programs/courses abroad?  Does financial aid – including institutional aid – apply to programs abroad?  Are institutional scholarships available and are both internal and external ones actively promoted?  Do policies go beyond the basics so that students can defer program payment until financial aid is disbursed, and is securing campus housing for only part of the academic year without worry?  Can the institution offer any additional financial incentive to students going abroad (for example, grants towards cost of passport or other cost which are based on GPA/merit at some institutions)?

Organizational & Program Resources:

The organization provides adequate financial and personnel resources to support its programs.

Are there adequate staff to support the number of students going abroad, and can the institution support an increase in staff to accommodate growth in the number of students going abroad?

“Adequate resources” should take into account a wide range of factors beyond staffing to include office space, support from IT and University Relations, scholarships or other student incentives, the time and recognition for faculty to be involved in programming, etc.  Additional questions include: is the staff sufficiently skilled to administer successful programming?   What are the areas where training is needed?   Are faculty knowledgeable about the differences in and demands of developing a course that will be taught abroad with students?  What training do they receive for the non-academic aspects of leading such a course? Are there suitable program choices and a sufficient variety of choices – by program discipline, length, destination, type of program (for example, faculty-led, direct exchange, provider), program format (traditional classroom, field study, internship, etc.).

For further information on a Capacity Review:

From the Capacity Review I did for the Forum on Education Abroad, one over-arching factor is that you must really know the profile of your student body.  Tools such as the NSSE survey (National Survey of Student Engagement) can help examine what percentage of incoming students indicate they intend to study abroad versus how many actually do.  Surveying students – both who go abroad and who do not -- will indicate what the barriers are and what can be done to eliminate them.  The commitment of adequate resources in the Education Abroad office and beyond are all necessary to grow the number of students going abroad.  It takes an entire campus to be successful.”

The University of Kentucky is an institution that has significantly increased study abroad participation in recent years.  Anthony Ogden, Executive Director of Education Abroad and Exchanges provided the following advice for institutions looking to increase participation:

“Over the past four years, education abroad participation at the University of Kentucky has seen dramatic growth.  In 2009-10, participation had been waning and total enrollment didn’t quite reach 600 students.  For an institution with 28,000 students, we were underperforming relative to our benchmarks and national averages. Just four years later, the number of UK students who studied abroad for credit reached approximately 1,100 and enrollment projections for this academic year suggest another 19% growth.  The obvious question then would be, what’s happening?

This dramatic and sustainable growth can be attributed to a number of explicit and well-articulated internationalization strategies, of which five are briefly explained here:

1. Invest in your Professional International Educators.   Successful growth requires the tireless work and commitment of a team of professional international educators.  It is essential that we invest in our on-going professional development and we have.  Our office annually allocates over $90,000 to professional development.  We also invest in the professional development of our growing network of committed educators throughout our campus.
2. Budget Modeling.   It is essential that the institutional budget model for education abroad supports and rewards innovation and growth.  Ours is a self-funded office through student fees and related sources. As such, our budget is tied to enrollment growth and increased enrollment growth thus enables our office to further expand and enhance our operations.
3. Curriculum Integration.  Our efforts with leveraging best practices in curriculum integration have greatly enhanced our standing as educators working collaboratively with our faculty.  We work with each academic unit to determine when they want their students abroad, what courses they should take abroad and which programs regularly offer those courses.   We have reorganized our advising unit by discipline and have moved our rhetoric from speaking about where students should go to how students can leverage education abroad programming to complement their undergraduate studies.
4. Strategic Portfolio.  We’ve reframed education abroad to encompass five distinct experience types: Study Abroad, Research Abroad, Intern Abroad, Teach Abroad and Service-Learning Abroad. These have been further grouped by program types, including faculty-directed programs, exchanges, consortia-based programs, direct enrollment and third-party provider programs.  Our strategic program portfolio now better responds to the whole of the university student population.
5. Faculty Engagement. We’ve taken a different approach to engaging faculty members in international education, moving away from long-standing advocacy approaches that urge the faculty to extend greater support to our efforts to one in which our office seeks to understand the international education goals of each unit and aligns accordingly our operations to supporting each unit in realizing its stated goals.  We call this the Platinum Rule:  Do unto the faculty as the faculty want to be done unto.

Finally, it is important to remember that growth in education abroad is not the goal, but rather a means, among many, toward realizing the learning outcomes for our students.  Understanding an institution’s success in internationalizing its campus and curriculum requires numerous metrics, of which education abroad programming is but one.”

As we work to increase participation in study abroad by students from diverse backgrounds, it is important that increases in participation take place at higher education institutions with higher percentages of students from diverse backgrounds.  Community colleges have the highest diversity in enrollments of any sector of U.S. higher education.  Rosalind Raby,  Director of California Colleges for International Education and I have have been working on research related to community college study abroad participation for many years.  Despite increasing public attention and a range of dissertation and academic studies, the number of education abroad programs offered at community colleges has not grown appreciably in the last few decades. There is roughly the same number of students in about the same number of programs now as in the mid-1990s.

In a recent IIE Networker Newsletter article, we highlighted some issues related to increasing study abroad participation at community colleges (Raby, R. & Rhodes, G. (Fall 2014). Expanding Community College Enrollment in Education Abroad. IIE Networker, Institute of International Education, New York, NY, September 2014.

Barriers to growing education abroad are well documented with cost and availability of faculty-led programs being of most importance. Cost is related to finding resources to pay for the experience as well as institutional barriers to pay for staff to administer the programs. Options to study abroad are important, but institutional best practices are needed to maximize attendance. These best practices include scheduling programs on a regular basis and more than a year in advance so that faculty are committed, basic marketing practices are utilized, and students are advised about the various options for studying abroad and thereby have enough time to plan for funding.  Institutional support is therefore fundamental and lack of this support remains the most cited reason for not having education abroad.

Institutionalizing education abroad is central to growing enrollment. More colleges offering faculty-led programs will lead to more students studying abroad. Opportunity is self-defining as students need to equate community college education abroad with open access and opportunity.  Currently, only 5,000 of the 13 million community college students study abroad.  By providing more choices to even 1 percent of these 13 million students would lead to a substantial increase overall.

For each of us in the study abroad field, there is a realization that the realities are different in each institution, in terms of resources, philosophical and resource support by the central administration, and the ability to make the connections to academic departments across the institution to get faculty support and integrate participation into degree programs and connect to retention and success practices as well as the ability to provide special pre-departure, while abroad, and re-entry support to maximize the impact from an academic, personal, and career perspective.

As IIE continues to provide support for Generation Study Abroad ideas of significantly increasing for-credit and non-credit study abroad, institutions like the Forum on Education Abroad and NAFSA: Association of International Educators provide resources to help support both improving the quality of program development and administration and effectively collaborating across campus to increase participation.

In the end, the responsibility for program development and administration falls to individual colleges and universities across the U.S. Whether you are working to increase the numbers and quality of the experience of international students or study abroad students, it is important to be able to design and implement programs effectively, collaborate with others across campus, and tell a more comprehensive story about the impact of study abroad on international learning, retention and success, and career.  With the many responsibilities of a study abroad administrator and the challenge of limited resources (see the November 2013 Terra Dotta Newsletter article), it is critical to take time at the end of the 2014 year, look again at the work being done and think through ways to enhance the experience of faculty, staff, and students that are developing, implementing, and participating in study abroad programs.

However, with supportive resources, conferences, and organizations and colleagues available to help, it is important to remember you are part of a supportive field with useful resources to support the enhancement of existing programs and growing study abroad.  Thanks for the work you do an all the best for the December holiday season and all the best for 2015!