Future-Forward Community Building in Education Abroad during COVID-19: Recognizing our Power and Positionality and Amplifying and Listening to Marginalized Voices - Part 1

The following is a guest post by Samantha Brandauer, Associate Provost and Executive Director of the Center for Global Study and Engagement at Dickinson College and Lou Berends, Vice President of Academic Affairs at CEA. I'm pleased to post their piece to IHEC Blog. As noted below, this is the first of a two part IHEC Blog post series followed by a moderated online discussion, which begins with a U.S. based perspective and then invites the perspectives from two education abroad colleagues in Europe. Also, Part 3 will be a live moderated online discussion and is scheduled for Thursday, September 17, 2020 11:00 am EDT (more information and register here). 

Future-Forward Community Building in Education Abroad during COVID-19: Recognizing our Power and Positionality and Amplifying and Listening to Marginalized Voices - Part 1

We, Samantha Brandauer, Associate Provost and Executive Director of the Center for Global Study and Engagement at Dickinson College and Lou Berends, Vice President of Academic Affairs at CEA, have been collaborating over the last several years to examine, explore and critique how the field of education abroad and international educators can lead to creating more equitable, inclusive and sustainable communities. If we are not working toward larger and more global systemic issues of inequity with local resonance, such as access to education, social justice, racism and climate change, for example, international educators instead serve to reinforce and exacerbate the world’s existing inequities and disparities.  COVID-19 has shone a light on many of the concepts, critiques, tensions and unanswered questions that the field has been grappling with around community building that involves, engages, and reflects the interests of our many stakeholders abroad (such as partner universities, host families, community-based learning partner organizations, local students, staff and faculty and local venders, to name a few). At the same time, COVID-19 has made it painfully clear that we have a long way to go as U.S. based higher education and education abroad institutions and professionals in recognizing our own power, positionality and responsibilities to our local communities abroad.  

This blog post is aimed at pushing this much needed conversation forward by inviting more people into the discussion.  This is one of a two part series, which starts from a U.S. based perspective - Sam and Lou - and then invites the perspectives from our education abroad colleagues in Europe (Part 2) - Julia Carnine, Resident Director of Dickinson in France and Monica Francioso, CEA’s Academic Director in Florence, Italy.  While this discussion has implications far beyond the global pandemic it stems from us shifting our focus to the responsibilities of U.S. based organizations and institutions toward our global partnerships and communities abroad during COVID-19.  This is especially poignant for us as, in our current roles, we ourselves have been leading and bridging difficult conversations within our own organizations and with long-time staff, faculty and partners at our sites and centers abroad. We recognize that the questions we are asking are complex and that we do not yet have all the answers, but it would be remiss of us to squander this moment.  We need to ask both new and old questions and then invite more marginalized voices into the discussion to help us both refine and meaningfully answer these questions or ask new ones -- and then really listen to the answers and feedback we receive, so that there can be more collective solutions and implementations.  As optimists, we believe this is the time for a transformation about how we reflect, think and ultimately act to achieve our goals for building better, stronger partnerships that in turn create more equitable communities and amplify new perspectives.  

Representing such different education abroad institutional types at very different ends of the spectrum – an education abroad provider and a small, highly selective liberal arts college, we have shared goals that center on global learning in different contexts. Even with these different affiliations we are both committed to these questions, critiques and viewpoints and our footprint in communities all over the globe.  As a field we must be willing to recognize that it is only through our collective efforts that we can make real and lasting change.

These are our current guiding questions:

How do we define community in this context? 

What are the roles and postionalities of U.S.-based organizations and institutions and individual actors? How might they shift in different contexts?

If COVID-19 offers an opportunity for us to rethink and transform the way we build partnerships and community what is our roadmap?

If we are in fact asking for collective transformation of how we build more equitable communities, what are the measures of success?

Essential elements and how they help us begin to answer the big questions:

Whether you are working on the provider proper side of education abroad, or are representing a U.S. based college or university, the following four elements are foundational to initial and long lasting community partnership building: Trust, Collaboration, Strategic Leadership, and Innovation.  These key components all lend themselves toward building more sustainable and just partnerships. At Dickinson, trust has been foundational to maintaining our long-term relationships with local partners all over the world and at home. Through open communication and transparency we have created a campus community that extends beyond the boundaries of campus and Carlisle, PA into the wider world. This broad understanding of where our communities start and end, cemented by trust, has been sustained by mutually beneficial collaborations and enhanced through careful strategic planning that creates an environment ready for innovation.  Coming from a provider perspective like CEA, trust is perhaps the most important aspect that intersects with communication and innovation in order to maintain and strengthen strategic partnerships that align with mission driven goals. Moreover, CEA must navigate hundreds and various institutional landscapes that are varied and nuanced.

During these challenging times that this global pandemic has induced, we as international educators must innovate or risk missing new opportunities for global learning that address and challenge norms within the field that at best have perpetuated inequalities and at their worst have done harm to our long-term partnerships and community members. There is no question that COVID-19 has accelerated the use of technology to facilitate, manage and inculcate international education and exchange. Virtual global learning is not new, but “traditional” ways of studying abroad need to adapt and blend new modalities of teaching and learning to existing pedagogical approaches. We also must recognize that while inviting some more people into global learning, virtual learning also excludes people and communities all over the world (including in the U.S.) who do not have access to the necessary technologies and may lack training capacity as well as confront cultural resistance to online models of learning. One question remains and looms large over fall 2020 and spring 2021: how will providers of international education and U.S. colleges and universities adapt, survive and innovate in the face of unparalleled uncertainty? Certainly the solution lies in acknowledging our own privilege, shifting our focus to justice and equality and re-imagining our partnerships through these lenses.