Students today are becoming more interested in international opportunities for study, and are drawn to alternative programs such as international service learning and international internships. These programs, however, must be carefully designed. In this paper, the authors propose using tools that go beyond the traditional understanding of…

While study abroad is increasingly popular among students in the United States (IIE 2007), tenure track faculty involvement with these programs has not kept up with demand. University and college-run programs often struggle to find sufficient numbers of tenure track faculty, especially junior faculty, to staff their programs. While older faculty…

Study abroad has become, at least rhetorically, a core element in U.S. post-secondary education. For those who practice study abroad and have dedicated themselves to leading students, managing programs, or theorizing the role of study abroad in its relationship to the academy generally, the meaning of their work is powerfully shaped by rhetorical…

Universal Design provides a framework to effectively increase the number of students studying abroad by creating and expanding supportive environments designed to meet a wide range of student needs. While the concept of Universal Design originated with the needs of students with disabilities, its value and application extend to a much wider…

Judging from the recent surge in research on outcomes assessment, many study abroad offices rely on quantitative surveys and measures to collect student outcomes data. This paper presents a multidimensional, qualitative approach to data collection. This approach makes qualitative data easy to collect and encourages students to reflect and…

Study abroad is the latest "must have" experience for undergraduate students according to an article in the November 4, 2007 "New York Times" (Pappano, 2007). University mission statements increasingly emphasize internationalization and employers increasingly seek graduates with experience in the global arena. This focus on international…

Universities in the United States and elsewhere offer study abroad programs to meet requirements that graduates have cross-cultural competencies and an international perspective on their discipline. Study abroad courses and field experiences for preservice teachers address two major challenges specific to the teaching profession: (1) how to…

In this study, the authors analyze the 2003 Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey to investigate whether freshmen who intend to study abroad express a history of active involvement. The CIRP Freshman Survey has a number of items indicating student involvement and participation. The authors created six scales based on…

In recent years, as study abroad professionals have come to focus more squarely on the question of what students are in fact learning abroad, there has been increasing speculation about the extent to which study abroad increases prospects for employability following graduation. Common wisdom has it that undergraduates who study abroad have an…

Like the steady stream of colonial families of decades past traveling to their country's dominions abroad, contemporary education abroad students are similar passengers on a powerful steamship bound for lands of new sounds, sights and wonders. Although their studies may be challenging and demanding, students are exhilarated with thoughts of new…

Most colleges and universities offer study abroad programs, and an increasing number of students participate in such programs. The cost of offering and promoting study abroad programs is often misunderstood and incorrectly assessed. This paper provides an analysis of study abroad costs that will be of general interest, but will be especially…

One concern that merits the attention of the educational research community is the growing trend toward shorter study abroad programs. Study abroad offerings in which students have traditionally enrolled for academic credit were primarily either a semester or a year in length. The recent Open Doors (2005) report reveals that the growth of study…

The American tradition of liberal arts education assumes that choosing to become an educated person means choosing to become a responsible person--a person capable of engaging in thoughtful reflection and, in turn, acting with empathy and compassion and making informed moral/ethical judgments and choices. In other words, neither education nor…

The purpose of this study was to explore the association between persistence at the University of Dallas, a private liberal arts university, and participation in a study abroad program. Students who participate in the study abroad program at the University of Dallas spend one semester (typically during the sophomore year) at the Rome campus of the…

When people travel from their own home culture to a different culture, they experience variations not only in terms of scenery and societal arrangements, but also in terms of daily routines, interpersonal interactions, and expectations. Many differences are based on the divergence in underlying values and concerns of the home versus the host…