Thursday, April 30, 2009

Two Excellent Swine Influenza Resources for International Educators

Swine Influenza A (H1N1) is most certainly on the minds of international educators and higher education officials across the globe and in particular here in the United States. I believe (hope) that most people in the field who are working on the Swine Influenza issue are aware of the following resources but I want to post information and links to IHEC Blog for readers who may be unaware of these valuable online resources.

Safety Abroad First - Educational Travel Information (SAFETI) Clearinghouse
The SAFETI Clearinghouse is, in my opinion, the leader in health and safety for the field of study abroad/international education and is a resource that everyone should consult when planning or assessing current health and safety practices or in a major health event such as the Swine Influenza. The SAFETI Clearinghouse is part of the larger Center for Global Education which was established by Gary Rhodes and is located at Loyola Marymount University. You can access the SAFETI Clearinghouse website here where you can find a link to “Special Topics: Swine Flu”. After the Swine Influenza situation has concluded I encourage you to return to the SAFETI Clearinghouse and access all of the valuable materials created by Gary.

NAFSA website: Swine Influenza: Resources For International Educators
NAFSA: Association of International Educators has established a special page on their website dedicated to the Swine Influenza. You can access NAFSA’s special website on the Swine Influenza
here (pay attention to the links on the right side of the page as well).

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

First Student Travel Trends Symposium – Turning Research into Practice

The Student and Youth Travel Research Institute (SYTRI) at Michigan State University is pleased to announce the first Student Travel Trends Symposium, to be held July 12-14, 2009, at the Hilton Northbrook in Northbrook Chicago. With the symposium theme of Turning Research into Practice, we invite submissions from all applied researchers interested in the broad topic of student and youth travel. Presentation topics might include:

• Emerging trends in the student/youth travel sector
• Characteristics and impacts of school-age group travel
• Role of travel in the K-12 curriculum
• Characteristics and impacts of independently- organized student/youth travel
• Organization and impacts of college-level Study Abroad
• Challenges facing the student/youth travel sector

Invited speakers include Suzanne Cook, VP of Research, US Travel Association (formerly TIA); Ruth Nader, VP of Research, Destination Management Association International; Greg Richards, Principal Researcher, World Student, Youth & Educational Travel Confederation; and, Michael Palmer, COO, Travel and Tourism Research Association.

Submission of Abstracts We invite submissions for both oral and poster presentations, and welcome the presentation of works in progress in addition to completed studies. Please include the following information in your abstract submission:
• Study title;
• Author(s) names and affiliations;
• Preferred format: poster or presentation;
• Three-five keywords;
• The body of the abstract itself, to include a statement of purpose, description of methods, and presentation and discussion of (preliminary) results. Given the nature of the audience, please be sure to emphasize the industry implications of your findings;
• References (APA style).

Abstracts should not exceed two single-spaced pages, Times New Roman 12-point font, one inch margins on all four sides. Please submit your abstract as a Word or PDF document to Dr. Sarah Nicholls (nicho210@msu.edu) by Friday May 1.

Graduate Student Competition An award of $500 will be given to the best student presentation. If you are a graduate student and wish to be considered for this award, please indicate your student status under affiliation.

The first Student Travel Trends Symposium is being held in conjunction with the
Student and Youth Travel Association (SYTA) and Treeline Associates, and has been endorsed by the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA). Sarah Nicholls, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Depts of Community, Agriculture, Recreation & Resource Studies (CARRS) and Geography 131 Natural Resources Bldg Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1222 Phone: (517) 432 0319 Fax: (517) 432 3597

You can learn more about the Student Travel Trends Symposium
here.

Friday, April 24, 2009

International Supplement now available for “Road Map for Graduate Study: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students”

I’m posting today with an update to a previous IHEC Blog post on the book Road Map for Graduate Study: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students. Donald Martin, books’ author, has written an international supplement for Road Map which is approximately 25 pages long and is available for sale through him at $5.00 per copy. I’ve read the supplement and I think it’s a valuable piece for anyone outside of the United States wanting to come here to study. You can learn more about Road Map and find Donald Martin’s contact information here.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Call for Manuscripts/Proposals for Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad

Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, the only journal specifically devoted to U.S. study abroad, posted a call for manuscripts and proposals for a special volume on “Study Abroad and the City.” Here is a snippet of their call for manuscripts and proposals:

“The majority of today’s education abroad students will either study in a city or visit cities while learning abroad. Study in the city can provide rich learning opportunities for students from a variety of academic disciplines while also generating insights into cultural, artistic, scientific and other intellectual achievements of city dwellers. Further, cities can serve as living laboratories for the experiential and intercultural learning that are a critical part of learning abroad.

Frontiers seeks contributions to a special, thematically focused volume on “Study Abroad and the City.” Manuscript submissions and proposals should analyze, examine and explore how institutions, individual faculty, and study abroad programs use cities to enrich student learning and help participants connect both intellectually and personally with host country environments and people. The volume will also consider how certain cities foster study abroad learning in ways that are unique to those locations.”

You can read the entire call for manuscripts and proposals here.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Study Abroad and International Education in the Twitterverse

In mid-February I decided to start a profile on Twitter. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect as I'm not interested in what anyone ate for breakfast or that they just bought the latest Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD or that they are getting ready for bed so I wasn’t sure what Twitter could do for me. I must say that I’m finding Twitter to be a useful (and amusing) tool.

I’ll first comment on Twitter as a useful tool…

I currently follow 150 people on Twitter and 125 are following me and this number is growing slow and steady. I’m attracted to Twitter posts about international and higher education issues with links to articles, blogs, reports/documents. I find most of the content posted to Twitter by the people I follow to be intellectually engaging and often times information I probably would not have come across on my own.

It’s challenging for me to find time to research, write and post to IHEC Blog on a daily basis as I am a husband and father of three great and active little children, I work full-time in
The College at The University of Chicago and I am at the dissertation proposal stage so my blogging and consulting activities take a back seat. I use Twitter as a micro blog or an extension of this blog when I don’t have time to put together a longer blog post but want to push content that I think/hope people will find interesting. If you don’t want to follow anyone you can also search Twitter for specific terms/phrases and you can see all the recent posts related to those search terms.

A handful of examples of useful/interesting Twitter posts follow:

@
IDPDRIE: New records have been added to the IDP Database of Research on International Education. See the April link at http://tinyurl.com/bo2l6s

@
glancypants: Supporting international education. Visit www.iielatinamerica.org to see what IIE Latin America is up to.

@
chronicle: Aided by Exchange Rate, New Zealand Makes Gains in International Education http://tinyurl.com/d2tvsm

@
DavidComp: Study Abroad Alumni International is a new study abroad organization that sounds interesting http://www.studyabroadalumniinternational.org/

@
Study_Vancouver: Search International Education-Vancouver Community College on Facebook and learn about studying in Vancouver: http://www.facebook.com

@
nathanreid: reasons why us Americans fail... a girl asked a Swedish exchange student "so what do you guys do on 4th of July?"

@
anavidtraveler: University of Washington State Relations » Study abroad insurance ... http://tinyurl.com/cmrlhq

@
PublicDiplomacy [Today in PD] People-to-People-Based Foreign Policy http://tinyurl.com/cg3tt4

@
CitizenDiplomat: Support the Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy! Improve the U.S. image abroad...http://tinyurl.com/cewjoo

@
NAFSA: Explore 2009 Annual Conference Poster Topics #nafsa09. More at http://www.nafsa.org/nnews

Now on to Twitter for my amusement…To be honest, it’s really the students who are interested in or who currently are studying abroad that provide me with a chuckle from time to time. A handful of examples of amusing Twitter posts follow:

@
keva_miller: jus got her first assignment for her study abroad program...i almost forgot Europe aint gone be no vacay

@
NealCrosby: I've been accepted to go on the Ireland study abroad trip this summer! YES!!! I can go to the pub in Gallway!

@
purple_kangaroo What the fuck do you wear to interview for a study abroad program?

@
ayharkey: I wish i had the money to study abroad in Egypt. Or the Philippines or Korea for that matter. ANYONE WANT TO DONATE?

@
christinartobia: I don't understand why the study abroad office insists on making my life so much more difficult...

@
centuryplant: @fishingwithyou We're eating for free at study abroad orientation!

@
DesireeinDR: school is getting in the way of study abroad.

@
MBenti: On study abroad and taking the time to travel around Europe: "My GPA will understand."

For those of you on Twitter ~ what are your thoughts?





You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DavidComp.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Economic Contribution of International Students in Australia

The Australian Council for Private Education and Training has issued a report prepared for them by Access Economics Pty Limited entitled The Australian Education Sector and the Economic Contribution of International Students. From the executive summary of the report:

“Education services ranks as the third largest export category earner for the year 2007-2008, behind coal and iron ore. Education services include expenditure by students in Australia ($13.7 billion) and exports from other education operations ((438 million). Education services ranks ahead of service categories of personal travel and professional services and merchandise trade categories of gold, crude petroleum and aluminum.

Each international student (including their friend and family visitors) contributes an average of $28,921 in value added to the Australian economy and generates 0.29 in full-time equivalent (FTE) workers.”

You can read the full report
here.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Busy Weekend for News on Exchange Students

I receive many Google Alerts in my e-mail inbox every day on a variety of topics related to international education and public diplomacy. When I opened my Google Alert for “Exchange Student” this past Saturday I was surprised to find the following three rather concerning news alerts:

Police: Foreign-exchange student shot in face
KHOU - Houston,TX,USA
HOUSTON—A foreign-exchange student studying at Rice was hospitalized Saturday after police say he was shot in the face. It happened around 12:15 am in ...
(includes video snippet from KHOU news)
Canadian exchange student 'kidnapped' in Nigeria
AFP
KANO, Nigeria (AFP) — Nigerian police said Saturday that a Canadian university exchange student had been "kidnapped", amid reports a ransom had demanded for her release. ...
Police: Endicott exchange student groped freshman - SalemNews.com ...BEVERLY — An exchange student attending Endicott College has been charged with indecent assault and battery after a freshman reported being groped by the 23-year-old earlier this month. Nicholas Baldrich, who is from Marbella, Spain, ...

Not much to say about this other than my thoughts are with the three victims of these stories…


Friday, April 17, 2009

Portrayal of Exchange Students in Movies and on TV in the U.S. – Part Deux

For my 300th IHEC Blog post…

On Monday I posted on the portrayal of exchange students in movies and on TV in the U.S. and today I learned that Matthew McConaughey is producing a new film (comedy) called Exchange Students.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the “story revolves around two exchange students, one who ships out from the U.S. and one who comes in, who experience new environments in very different ways: One has the time of his life, the other goes off the rails”

You can read more about this new project here.

Update on the Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy


I received an update from my colleague Derek Forsythe at the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy on their Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy and the online letter and petition for President Obama. The U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy has surpassed 1,000 signatures from individuals from 39 countries and 47 states (missing Rhode Island, Alaska, and Hawaii). The U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy hopes to meet with the State Department in May and then it’s on to President Obama!

If you haven’t already done so (especially those of you from Rhode Island, Alaska and Hawaii as well as those of you from abroad) please take one minute to sign the petition here.

In addition to signing the Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy petition I encourage IHEC Blog readers to bookmark the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy webpage as they are doing some really great things. You can follow their blog (as well as on Twitter @CitizenDiplomat) and subscribe to their newsletter. You can access their home page here.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Foreign Exchange Students in U.S. High Schools and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004

My recent research efforts lead me to discover a really interesting article entitled Understanding Entitlement to Services and Protections under U.S. Special Education Law: Are Foreign Exchange High School Students Covered? which I think many IHEC Blog readers will also be interested in reading. This is a very interesting question and one I’m sure many high schools and foreign students have had to work through over the years. I’m also very interested in this question because it blends my previous professional career in human services where I attended more than my share of Individual Education Plan meetings in support of individuals with disabilities when I worked for Developmental Services of Nebraska (DSN) with my current career in international education.

I fully support international education opportunities for all students who want to challenge themselves in a foreign land regardless if they have a disability or not. We are making progress in the field of international education in serving individuals with disabilities. However, I think we have a long way to go. You can access the article here.

You can access previous IHEC Blog posts on individuals with disabilities and international education
here.

Make The Gap Year Experience An Accepted and Popular Practice In The U.S…


…is the argument being made by Rita Golden Gelman in a post entitled “Drop Kids, Not Bombs” on Travel Writers News. I hope to have more IHEC Blog posts on the Gap Year and in the future and I’ll let this one start off this (and continued) dialogue.

Rita Golden Gelman describes herself as a modern-day nomad, with no permanent address or possessions other than what she carries and she rarely knows where she’ll be six months from now. She’s been living this way since 1986! You can read more about Rita and her online diary/blog on her website
here.

Note: Any IHEC Blog readers with (or who have had) young children will enjoy knowing that Rita is the author of More Spaghetti, I Say! and several other children’s books which are all listed
here.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

NAFSA Statement: U.S. Policy Toward Cuba


NAFSA: Association of International Educators issued a statement this morning about President Obama's decision to reverse restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba what were imposed by the Bush administration. However, President Obama did not change policy on academic travel to Cuba and it is this part of the U.S. policy towards Cuba that NAFSA's statement is focused on. The following snippet is a cut and paste from part of the NAFSA statement that I want to highlight:


"We now urge the administration to move quickly to rescind the rest of the restrictions on communications with Cuba that were imposed by the Bush administration—restrictions on educational travel. At a minimum, the Obama administration should restore the situation to where it was before the Bush administration: Americans should be able to study in Cuba and participate in educational travel to the island, and Cuban scholars should be permitted to attend academic conferences in the United States."


You can read the full NAFSA statement here.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Portrayal of Exchange Students in Movies and on TV in the U.S.


This past Saturday I caught the “Gilly – Science Fair” skit on Saturday Night Live with Zach Efron (host of the show) acting as an exchange student from Germany. You can access the skit here.

As I watched the skit I immediately began thinking of past movies and how exchange students were portrayed in film and television in the United States. The first to come to mind for me was Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles fame. Long Duk Dong’s most memorable scenes/lines are arguably “What’s Happening Hot Stuff” and “Dong, Where is my Automobile?” (click on scene titles to view videos).

Others that come to mind include:
- Monique, the French exchange student in Better Off Dead
- Üter Zörker from The Simpsons
- Fez from That '70s Show

Most disturbing is that a simple Google search for “exchange students in movies” brought up the “Sex Crazed Exchange Students” DVD for sale on Amazon at #9.

I’m interested in knowing what IHEC Blog readers think about the portrayal of exchange students in film and if they know of other examples (both positive and negative) that they would like to share.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Cultural Exchange and Understanding as a Result of Some Russian Bells


Luis Campos is an Assistant Professor of History at Drew University specializing in the History of Science. He’s also an expert on the 18 Russian bells that once hung in Lowell House Bell Tower on Harvard University’s campus and are now back home at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. He’s also my brother-in-law and he has the honor of being the first member of my family to get a mention in an IHEC Blog post!

This blog post is not about his scholarship in the History of Science nor about his research and writings on the history of these bells (although I think he’s writing a book about the bells and I’ll be sure to post about that once it’s published so stay tuned). You can read an article on Luis’ research on the bells here.
The Christian Science Monitor has a short narrated photo presentation on the bells return to Russia and it was a statement from a representative of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow that caught my attention and prompted me to post about the bells. Through a translator, a member of the Danilov Monastery stated:

“We’ve been anticipating for a long, long time in our monastery and it became possible and also it enriched our relationship in terms of our cultural exchange and cultural understanding.”

You can link to the Christian Science Monitor article here.







P.S. I can neither confirm nor deny a private and up close tour of the bells up in the Lowell House Bell Tower in spring of 1997…

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Student Conceptions of International Experience (SCIE)

My colleague Bernhard Streitwieser, Senior Research Associate of the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University is leading a joint research project between Northwestern’s Searle Center for Teaching Excellence and the Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies entitled Student Conceptions of International Experience (SCIE). This research project may be off the radar of many practitioners (and researchers) in the field of international education (ie. my NAFSA and Forum on Education Abroad colleagues) so I thought I would post to IHEC Blog about it. I'm excited about this project for many reasons and am pleased to see this research coming out of these two centers at Northwestern University. You can learn more about the Student Conceptions of International Experience (SCIE) research project here.

I recently had lunch with Bernhard and Shyanmei Wang, Program Associate at the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence and who is also working on the Student Conceptions of International Experience (SCIE) research project, to discuss the state of research in the field of study abroad and possible avenues for collaboration so stay tuned…

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

NPR on Interest of Foreign Students on Studying in the U.S. Despite World Economy

Many IHEC Blog readers may find an article with audio entitled “Despite Expense, Foreigners Pursue U.S. Degrees” from NPR to be of interest. You can access the article here.

Yesterday, the Council on Graduate Schools in the United States issued a press release entitled “ International Graduate Application Trends Vary by Country and Field” and report that there was an 4% overall increase in the number of graduate school applications from prospective international students in 2009 but that they “varied dramatically by sending countries and fields of study.” You can read the CGS press release and link to the full report here.


Tuesday, April 7, 2009

President Obama’s Remarks at Student Roundtable in Istanbul, Turkey

I was disappointed that I was not able to pay more attention to President Obama’s time in Turkey and, in particular, to the roundtable he had with Turkish students in Istanbul . Fortunately, I subscribed to RSS feeds from the Office of the Press Secretary of The White House where they posted the full transcript. To be sure, President Obama was not in Turkey to discuss international educational exchanges between our two countries nor did he explicitly discuss these during the roundtable. He did, however, allude to the history of exchanges between the United States and Turkey and the importance of such exchanges. Following are two quotes by President Obama that stood out to me and connect to international education:
"Turkey and the United States have a long history of partnership and cooperation. Exchanges between our two peoples go back over 150 years."

"Simple exchanges can break down walls between us, for when people come together and speak to one another and share a common experience, then their common humanity is revealed. We are reminded that we're joined together by our pursuit of a life that's productive and purposeful, and when that happens mistrust begins to fade and our smaller differences no longer overshadow the things that we share. And that's where progress begins."

You can read the full transcript of the roundtable here.
**UPDATE - Watch Video of President Obama's Talk**


The President Talks with Students in Turkey from White House on Vimeo.

Monday, April 6, 2009

"Travel as a Political Act"


My recent research efforts on international education pointed me in a very interesting direction…to an article/interview from September 2007 (updated January 2009) in The Seattle Times with Rick Steves. I’ve been a fan of Rick Steves for many, many years and have enjoyed his shows and admire his support of PBS. In this interview, Rick Steves provides his perspective on the importance of travel as a means to mutual understanding. Here are some quotes from the interview that I found quite interesting:

“When I talk about travel as a political act I'm talking about how travel can change your perspective in a way that when you get home.”

“Establish a fund to pay for Americans all to have a free trip for six weeks, anywhere they wanted around the world upon graduation. It would be the best investment the world could ever make. Because right now an America that is threatened by, fearful of and misunderstands the rest of the world is a costly thing on this planet.”

“I'm saying if everybody traveled before they could vote, we would not be outvoted in the United Nations routinely 130 to 4. We would not go into wars alone. We would work better with the rest of the planet.”

You can read the entire interview with Rick Steves here. I anticipate many more IHEC Blog posts about Rick Steves in the future so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can visit his website here.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

5 Reasons to Consider Studying Abroad

Following is the 5th guest post by Holly McCarthy here at IHEC Blog. In her post, Holly briefly highlights five reasons for students to consider studying abroad. Holly’s thoughts are especially helpful to the students who frequent IHEC Blog. Holly’s post follows:

5 Reasons to Consider Studying Abroad

Getting a college education is one of the best things that young people can do for themselves when it comes to opening doors for future success. One particularly excellent way to receive a college education is by studying abroad. Whether a student decides to spend a semester abroad or the entire college career overseas, there are many benefits to studying outside of the US. A few of these reasons are explored in greater detail below.

Travel Opportunities

For many students, the ability to travel while learning at the same time is a quite attractive when considering study abroad programs. Travel is inherent to the study abroad experience and living in another country provides additional opportunities to explore the country and surrounding areas. Often, programs include tours to enrich the educational experience.

Language Acquisition

Students who study in a foreign country that speaks a language other than their native tongue are able to layer another benefit on their study abroad experience. Although many classes taught in universities overseas are conducted in English, living in another country requires that students learn how to communicate effectively with the people around them. Knowing another language can be quite beneficial and can open opportunities for students down the road.

Cultural Literacy

One of the best ways to learn about another culture is to immerse yourself within that culture. Students who study abroad may choose a particular location because of the knowledge that they may gain about the culture of the country where they will be living. Learning about and living within the context of another culture can expand awareness and change paradigms based on exposure to only one culture.

Time is of the Essence

Many schools overseas have condensed programs that are designed to deliver maximum information in a minimal amount of time. This may be attractive to students in the US to be able to condense larger amounts of coursework and credits without spending years doing so. Of course, it is always wise to check the accreditation of the institution that you would like to attend in order to make sure that your degree will be recognized once you have completed the program’s requirements.

Affordable Alternative

Contrary to popular opinion, studying abroad isn’t going to necessarily cost you an arm and a leg. Several countries in Europe offer free education to their own citizens and charge a nominal fee to international students. Residency requirements for many overseas schools are far less strenuous than those of universities in the US. Additionally, some American schools have campuses abroad and many universities accept US Federal Student Aid as well. Do your homework and see if studying abroad is something you might like to try.

This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes about the
best universities. She welcomes your feedback at: HollyMcCarthy12 at gmail.com

Friday, April 3, 2009

NACADA Research Agenda and International Education

Many IHEC Blog readers may be interested in these small but generous grants offered by NACADA to support academic advising research. There is certainly tie in with what we do in the field of international education and advising international students on our campuses as well as students who are planning on or currently studying abroad.

You can access NACADA’s research agenda here and the grant guidelines here.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Accessing Best Practices in Internationalization



NAFSA has updated the Accessing Best Practices in Internationalization (ABPI) tool (a product of the Teaching, Learning & Scholarship (TLS) knowledge community). I’ve enjoyed watching this project come from a thought on a piece of paper during the NAFSA 2005 conference in Seattle to more formal technical planning over drinks at a hotel bar during the NAFSA 2006 conference in Montreal to the initial launch and promotion during the NAFSA 2007 conference in Minneapolis.

What I really like about the ABPI is that you can search by various theoretical criteria for campus internationalization. ABPI currently focuses on the following theoretical criteria for campus internationalization:

- NAFSA Criteria
- American Council on Education (ACE) Criteria
- Jane Knight & Hans de Wit Strategy

You can read more about these three theoretical approaches to campus internationalization here.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Two New Resources on Diversifying U.S. Study Abroad

Yesterday I learned of two new resources in the field that focus on diversifying the U.S. study abroad student profile. As many IHEC Blog readers know, this is an issue that is quite important to me and one that I have researched, consulted on, written about, presented on and been interviewed about in the past. I view the diversification of the U.S. study abroad student profile as a top priority for the field not only to ensure equal access/opportunity for all students in pursuit of an academic opportunity outside of the United States but also from a public diplomacy aspect as it’s important to show all of our faces and to share all of our different cultures and backgrounds with the world.

The first new resource is a new non-profit initiative of DiversityAbroad.com called Global Citizen Fund. Here is a brief description of the Global Citizen Fund from the website:

“The Global Citizen Fund (GCF) was established to support students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds to participate in global education exchanges. Our mission is to prepare high school and university students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds for global citizenship and leadership through cultural exchange, educational enrichment and professional development based on an international experience.”

This is a great resource for the field and we have Andrew Gordon to thank! Diversity Abroad is the brain child of Andrew who has made quite an impact on diversifying the study abroad (see my previous post about Diversity Abroad from exactly one year ago today). This is not to discredit the work of several others in the field who are also doing great work on this in the field (more on their work in future posts). I last met with Andrew in Portland back in February at the Forum on Education Abroad conference and we’ve talked on the phone since and he has many great ideas in the pipeline so stay tuned to the Diversity Abroad website (currently upgrading website and will be back in 24 hours or less), subscribe to the Diversity Abroad newsletter and I’m sure I’ll blog and tweet about new their developments as well.

The second resource is a new monograph prepared by the IES Abroad Think Tank on Diversity Abroad entitled Report of the IES Abroad Think Tank on Diversity in Education Abroad. IES assembled an impressive team of individuals for their Think Tank on Diversity including Andrew Gordon from Diversity Abroad. You can learn more about IES Abroad’s Diversity Initiative here.