Passport to Change: Designing Academically Sound, Culturally Relevant Short Term Faculty-Led Study Abroad Programs

There has been enormous growth in faculty-led short-term study abroad programs because they offer flexibility and expand opportunities for students and faculty members who wish to study and work abroad but do not have the resources or time to spend a semester or year away. These experiential programs offer unique opportunities for university faculty to teach their disciplines abroad while engaging students in direct, authentic cultural encounters for transformative change.

This volume provides a detailed framework and guidance on how to plan and implement a faculty-led study abroad program. Seasoned faculty leaders and administrators describe an overall program development process, comprehensively identify the elements for designing the curriculum, and offer advice and solutions to unique challenges inherent in various types of programs.

The contributors cover the logistics for managing program details at home and abroad provide advice on writing a university proposal, creating a budget, the marketing and recruitment of students, handling abroad logistics, and preparing students for the abroad experience – all illustrated by examples drawn from their experiences. Most importantly, readers will come to understand the difference between experiences that are more touristic than scholarly and gain guidance on designing or redesigning their own programs to ensure academically sound, culturally-relevant curricula that complements the international field site.

The opening section sets the scene by describing the overall process of designing and delivering faculty-led abroad programs, from conception to implementation. The core of the book is grounded in evidence-based research for designing international curricula and syllabi, and includes five case studies illustrating short term programs focused on interdisciplinary subject matter, field study, global service learning, internship immersion, and language and cultural study. This practical guide concludes with faculty activities critical to a program’s success: marketing and recruiting students; preparing teaching events for before, during, and after the abroad experience; and formulating a plan to leave a small footprint abroad.

This book constitutes a handbook for college and university professors who plan to or already conduct short-term study abroad programs as well as administrators and staff of global and international programs.

Contributors
Bilge Gokhan Celik
Robert A. Cole
Darla K. Deardorff
Candelas Gala
Javier Garcia Garrido
Dale Leavitt
Roxanne O’Connell
Susan Lee Pasquarelli
Michele V. Price
Autumn Quezada de Tavarez
Victor Savicki
Michael Scully
Michael Tyson
Kerri Staroscik Warren
Paul Webb
Brian Wysor
Min Zhou

Susan Lee Pasquarelli earned her doctoral degree in Language, Literacy and Cultural Studies from Boston University in 1996 and is a professor of literacy teacher education at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, USA. Integrating multicultural literature across the K-12 curricula is the focus of her research and teaching.

For the past ten years, she led successful short term study abroad programs in Rome and Sicily as well as served on the RWU study abroad advisory board to enhance the proposal process for faculty led programs. Pasquarelli has published and presented research and best practices at regional, national, and international conferences on both the improvement of K-12 literacy instruction and faculty-led short term study abroad programs.

Robert A. Cole is Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at Roger Williams University. He oversees global and international programs on his campus. He has been a conference program reviewer for groups such as NAFSA and the American Association of Colleges and Universities, and has presented at conferences on topics such as the Arab Spring and the role of liberal education in emerging democracies, estranging undergraduate ethnographers through fieldwork abroad, international internships, and situating general education abroad.

Cole was a participant on a U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays grant for an immersion, capacity building, and a curriculum development project related to Egypt and the Middle East North Africa region, and a contributor to a US Department of Education (Title VI) Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Programs grant.

He has also developed short-term faculty-led curriculum for students’ cultural immersion in The Netherlands, Belgium, and Northern Germany region. Cole holds a Ph.D. in Communication.

Michael J. Tyson is the Assistant Director for Study Abroad in Wake Forest University’s Center for Global Programs and Studies where he has served as the dedicated representative for all summer abroad programming since 2010. His responsibilities include managing up to twenty WFU short-term faculty-led programs annually, assisting faculty in their program development from inception to completion, and administering program details like marketing, the budgetary process, and student registration. He also advises all students interested in summer study abroad.

In addition to his programming and advising responsibilities, he manages the scholarship process for summer programs and acts as an evaluator for the university’s Fulbright Review Committee. He has led student service trips to both Jamaica and Russia and has also spent time teaching English in Mexico.

Mike holds a BA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a MEd from the University of South Carolina.

Hilary Landorf is Executive Director of the Office of GlobalLearning Initiatives at Florida International University (FIU). The Office oversees FIU’s university-wide initiative, Global Learning for Global Citizenship, winner of the Institute of International Education’s 2016 Heiskell Award for Internationalizing the Campus.

Hilary also serves as Executive Director of the Comparative and International Education Society. She is an Associate Professor in FIU’s School of Education and Human Development and leader of its Master of Science degree program in International and Intercultural Education.

Hilary’s expertise centers on visioning, developing, designing, and implementing the policies and practices of global learning efforts in higher education. She writes, consults, and presents internationally on integrating global learning in K-20 educational settings. Her recent publications include “Defining Global Learning at Florida International University” in AAC&U’s Diversity and Democracy, co-authored with Stephanie Doscher; “Global Perspectives on Global Citizenship” in Contesting and Constructing International Perspectives in Global Education; and “Using Democratic Deliberation in an Internationalization Effort in Higher Education,” in Disrupting Adult and Community Education: Teaching, Learning, and Working in the Periphery.