The following is a guest post by Tom Millington who is the Founder and Executive Director of Abroadia. I'm a big fan of Tom and the perspective he brings to the international education dialogue and I am very pleased to post his piece to IHEC Blog.
Beyond COVID-19: How International Education Needs to Measure its Overall Health
“I don’t think anyone expected it to be like this,” observed
Mark Kasanic, 48, to the New York Times in a recent interview.
No one, including those of us in the field of international education,
expected the rapid spread and devastation that the COVID-19 virus has inflicted
on the world. In the US we now have over 20 million Americans filing for
unemployment insurance and in the coming days that number will increase
greatly. But while many workers in various professions have felt the impact of
the reaction to COVID-19 on their professional lives, international educators
will feel it more acutely, because the issue of unemployment in the field has not
really been examined, discussed, or planned for. Long on “poetry” and short on
“plumbing”[1] the field of international
education has such an expansive vision for its manufacture of “global citizens”
that it fails to include in its scope the welfare of its practitioners. This
failure will be exacerbated for months to come during and following the
COVID-19 crisis, but the reality is that there has been mounting frustration
for quite some time well before we learned about “social distancing”.
A respondent to the 2015 Unemploymentin International Education Survey lamented, “I love this field, but I
don't think that the field treats its employees very well.” This is a far cry
from the sentiment iterated by Everett C. Hughes in 1951:
[A] man’s work is one of the more important
parts of his
social identity, of his self; of his fate in
the one life he has
to live, for there is something almost as
irrevocable about
Granted, five decades passed between the quotes and times
certainly have changed. Professions have improved, but international education
has not kept up with the times in how it manages and supports the very people
who implement its heralded concept. While college and university professors
have the American Association of University
Professors to advocate for them and administrators have a similar group in
the American Association of University
Administrators, there is no active equivalent for international educators.
NAFSA and the Forum on Education Abroad could very well fill this niche, but
they should not have to be compelled to do this; they should consider it in
alignment with their valuation of international education as an integral part
of higher education. Without this specific advocacy group then the very concept
of international education and its implementation become arbitrary and its
practitioners relegated to fungible components in the structure of higher
education, often blowing in the winds of change emanating from the offices of
the president or provost.
What is more, in the absence of an international educator
advocacy group (various international education groups advocate for the vision but
do nowhere near enough to protect their practitioners) there is little to no
attention paid to displaced international educators. And in times of crisis,
predator elements of our society are bound to take advantage. I recently read a
posting by a recruiting consultant who advocated for “poaching”
employees of other organizations during times of crisis. I will let the
readers form their opinions about that approach.
Less predatory, but no less damaging is long-term
unemployment. As of February 2020, the rate of unemployment in the US rested at
3.5 %. If we take a big-picture view, this is a good trend as it illustrates
significant job growth. For example, in 2011, the unemployment rate was at 8.5%.
However, a closer look at the numbers reveals something more sinister that is
seldom discussed. Long-term unemployment (defined as being without work for 27
months or longer) in 2010
comprised 45% of all unemployed Americans and in 2014 that figure dropped to
32%. With the onset of COVID-19 we may see another surge in the number of
long-term unemployed individuals. At this time, there has been little effort on
the part of international education to track these numbers. It is time that it
did.
It is important to determine the relative health of a
profession. What metrics would be used to measure this? Currently,
international education has no measures to assess its overall health (this does
not include recording attendance at mega-events such as the NAFSA annual
conferences, or the number of students who study abroad, etc.). Proponents of
international education often laud the profession for producing “global
citizens”. Yet, there is no mechanism to track the growth or diminution of the
field. How many people enter or leave the field each year? Simply tabulating
the number of students who study abroad each year is not enough; If we look to
other disciplines we will see approaches that our field may use to help us
gauge important trends such as inflow and outflow of people in the field.
The American Historical Association (AHA), annually tracks
the number of history
doctorates awarded and tracks job openings to assess the prospects for job
searchers in the discipline. It even tracks non-history careers that history
PhDs obtain. Given the diversity in the backgrounds, education and training of
international education, it would be difficult to measure the number of
“international education” degrees awarded annually. But later in this post I
will suggest a method to address part of the problem. For now, let us look at
why it is important to collect this data in the first place.
Economists and labor theory specialists use a term known as vacancy
rate (also known as the Beveridge Curve) to compare the unemployment rate
with job openings. In her article, “Long-Term
Unemployment: A Destructive and Persistent Social Issue,” Kaitlin Louie
details the challenge of the vacancy rate by pointing out that, “Typically,
high unemployment rates are accompanied by low job vacancy rates, indicating
that there are not enough jobs to meet job seekers’ demands. Correspondingly,
when job vacancies rise, unemployment should fall as job seekers fill these
positions. However, after the Great Recession, both unemployment rates and job
vacancy rates remained elevated, indicating that employers have jobs available,
but are not choosing from the pool of available workers.” How will the COVID-19
pandemic affect the vacancy rate in international education? That remains to be
seen, but we are already starting see the effects of the virus on some
employers in international education.
The longer an individual is unemployed, the more an
inaccurate perception is attached to him/her. Some studies show a
tendency for employers to hire short-term unemployed over those who have had no
work for longer periods of time. When I was unemployed, I recall encountering
applications that asked, “Are you currently unemployed?” Is this
discrimination? I believe that in the absence of an oversight of job
announcements or a “Standards of Good Hiring Practice in IE” potential employers
are allowed enough leeway to use the length of unemployment as a criterion in
making some hires. Part of a “Standards of Good Hiring Practice in IE” would be
to ensure that everyone applying for a position at a US-based institution would
have the same opportunity that other candidates enjoy. Many institutions use a
candidate’s nationality or place of birth as criteria to preclude them from
advancing in the selection process. My colleague, Celia Ogna, recently shared
her experience with me. She said she noticed that, “When applying, the very
first question asked is about work eligibility in the US. I would tick the box
saying I need sponsorship, since it is the case. After you finish applying, you
receive an automatic email saying your application was received. But in about
40% of the cases, I received a second automatic message, saying that I ticked
the box saying I need a visa, and that they therefore encourage me to reapply
when I am eligible. And that is frustrating when you spend hours polishing your
application, and no-one, absolutely no-one is even going to read it. If they
had mentioned it in their opening, I would not have applied. These are often
the same universities, and with time I know which one do that, and which one
actually consider foreigners.”
Institutional Betrayal of International Education
The psychologist Jennifer
Freyd first introduced the term “institutional
betrayal” to the higher education vernacular to capture the acts of
universities or colleges that fail to take accusations of sexual assault seriously,
or even to impugn the victims of such assaults. I am in no way comparing
“de-internationalization” efforts to sexual assaults, but I like the
connotation of a betrayal committed by institutions who pledge their efforts to
internationalize their campuses and curriculum, but then readily jettison them
with the onset of a crisis. Anyone can send students abroad; the real challenge
is finding ways to refrain from internalizing or reducing
internationalization. Colleges and universities must find ways to prevent the
layoffs of international educators. There are always other competing priorities
on campuses (athletics, the arts, technology, etc.), but a true commitment to
internationalization means that protecting it remains at the top of the list. With
so few colleges and universities releasing information on how they have
downsized their international programs offices, it is difficult to gain a clear
picture of the impact COVID-19 has had on campuses across the US.
This short-sightedness is not limited to just colleges and
universities. During the Great Recession I decided to contact a NAFSA senior-level
administrator, via his blog, to call attention to the plight of unemployed
international educators. I had hoped to start a conversation and to learn his
perspective and insight on the issue. Rather than respond directly to me,
however, he decided to ask a colleague of his (not affiliated with NAFSA) to
join my advocacy group, discourage members from supporting that group and to
promote services and support that NAFSA allegedly offered to support unemployed
international educators (we never did see what they were exactly). This
reaction from someone seen as a senior leader in international education was
disheartening, but symptomatic of a larger problem. Silence in the face of mass
layoffs in international education and other professions subtly shifts the
blame from the economy, the system or the profession to the unemployed
themselves. The longer a person is unemployed, the more likely they are to
begin blaming themselves for their situation.
Fortunately, with the passage of time and a new crisis, some
of the key drivers of international education have become much more proactive
in addressing the current crisis of unemployment in the field. The Forum on
Education Abroad has created the COVID-19
Recovery Program that waives the annual membership fees for international
educators displaced by the pandemic. Hopefully, others such as NAFSA and the Association
of International Education administrators (AIEA) will follow suit with similar
measures.
A new ethos for international education in a
post-pandemic world?
As campuses and providers resort to offering virtual and
remote strategies to substitute for in situ study abroad experiences, we must
step back and look at what is happening to our field. It is too early, obviously,
to even fathom the long-term effects of the pandemic on our profession, but we
must begin to look at the very ethos of what we do and consider that it may
assume a new identity moving forward. Paraphrasing the Czech playwright Václav
Havel, we must throw ourselves “into the question of international education by
manifesting its absence.”[3]
Students and faculty now cross borders virtually in lieu of
physically arriving at a new location abroad. By removing the experience of
physically being in another country—the sine qua non of study abroad—are
we altering the very essence of an international experience? Should we now divest
ourselves of the term “international education” in favor of something like Éducateurs
Sans Frontiers (inspired by Médecins Sans Frontières). “International”
implies movement and directionality; something that no longer applies to the
field at the moment. “Éducateurs Sans Frontiers” is more general and
encompasses the newer myriad forms of providing and acquiring a cross-cultural
experience. “International education” places more emphasis on the final
product: students having a transformative international experience and
“éducateurs sans frontiers” highlights the role of the individual who
makes international education happen. In the “international education”
paradigm, international educators are replaceable commodities; not so in the
new palingenetic form that emerges in the post-pandemic era. We should make
this the new legacy of “international education”.
What Can We Do?
Once the COVID-19 fades and some semblance of normalcy
returns, the moment will be propitious for the field of international education
to engage in some soul searching and identify ways to improve its overall
health. Here are some suggestions:
· Establish
a mechanism to track the inflow and outflow of international educators.
Determine answers to questions such as: how many newcomers joined the field
during the X-X academic year? How many have left the field? How many are
currently unemployed?
·
Devise a metric that measures an institution’s
commitment and aspirations to internationalization. This metric would follow
actions taken by the institution that are not reflected in Open Doors data tables, but will highlight
another form of internationalization by demonstrating how often the institution
reduces the budget or staff of its international programs. In times of crises
such as the Great Recession of 2008 and COVID-19 institutions that retained its
international programs staff or at least minimized the deleterious effects of
these economic disruptions should receive high marks.
·
Create a database that keeps track of all new
job openings in international education every year and then measuring the number
of applicants for that position. Determine a rubric to serve as an indicator of
how well the international educator job market is doing. If a job announcement
attracts 200 more applications, would that mean the market is tight or that the
field is saturated? [4]
Would 50 applications convey a sense
that the field is doing well and that there are enough positions for interested
candidates? At some point international education is going to have to sit down
and establish metrics to gauge these trends. To inspire institutions to comply,
for example, NAFSA can make this measurement part of the screening or vetting
process for the Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization. If an
institution is serious about internationalization, then it will make extra
efforts to protect the mission and staff responsible for implementing it on
campus. Almost as important as the number of students sent abroad annually, is
the low turnover of international education programs in moments of crisis.
·
Set up a national organization that advocates
for the employment of international educators. This entity could monitor the
challenges to the international education workforce and make recommendations to
NAFSA: Association of International Educators, Forum on Education Abroad and
the Association of International Education Administrators recommending ways to
make their respective annual conferences more inclusive for in-transition
international educators.
·
Inject more empathy into planning for
international education’s mega events such as the NAFSA annual conference. To
its credit, NAFSA waives the conference registration for individuals who
volunteer to work at the conference. But the commitment required by NAFSA
allows little to no time for the person to network or attend sessions. I
encourage NAFSA, Forum on Education Abroad and the Association of International
Education Administrators to explore new ways to enable unemployed international
educators to participate in their collective network of conferences, workshops,
etc.
·
Inaugurate online support groups for unemployed
international educators. This does not have to be anything extraordinary. This
be a forum on https://www.mentorcloud.com/
or a Facebook group, but it is extremely important to give voice to those who
have been displaced. Rather than laying
off staff, “anchor” or “tether” them by inviting them to participate in online
seminars, training sessions, etc. Keeping them connected to the field is almost
as important as receiving severance pay.
·
Form a relationship with the Institute for Career Transitions to
share resources and launch initiatives to support in-transition international
educators.
·
Publish a “Standards of Good Hiring Practice in
International Education” that provides guidelines and resources for both
employers and employees.
The task ahead of us is immense, mostly because we have extraordinarily
little data to work with, but this does not minimize the serious challenge to
the overall health of the field, which international education has not fully
realized yet. Moving forward the field will have to begin establishing
indicators to monitor its health, as most other professions do (see the tables
in the Rand Ghayad and William Dickens policy brief “What We Can Learn
by Disaggregating the Unemployment-Vacancy Relationship?”). We now move
into new territory where the field must focus on its practitioners as much as
it does its students and initiatives. In short, the field must implement what
the historian Jay Winter terms a “root and branch transformation.”[5] While examining ways to
reinvent the field after COVID-19, we must also look at how to track and
advocate for the people who work in international education. For far too long
the field has been indifferent to the plight of displaced international
educators.
[1]
I paraphrase the “poetry” and “plumbing” expression from Andrew Bacevich. See
Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered its Cold War Victory,
Metropolitan Books, 2020, p. 67.
[2]
Quoted in Lee Braude. Work and Workers: A Sociological Analysis. New
York: Praeger Publishers: 1975. p. 127.
[3]
See Václav Havel. Disturbing the peace. trans. Paul Wilson. New York,
Alfred Knopf, 1990, 52-53. Quoted in Jay Winter. Dreams of Peace and
Freedom: Utopian Moments in the 20th Century. Yale University
Press. 2006, p. 161. The original quote reads “threw us into the question of
meaning by manifesting its absence.”
[4]
Kathleen Grevers has done extensive research on the saturation of international
education. Contact her via her LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/kathleengrevers.
[5]
Winter, p. 3
