Forum Focus - August 2017 | Volume 4 | Issue 1

The

FORUM

Focus

August 2017 | Volume 4 | Issue 1

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President’s Corner BrianWhalen, President & CEO,The Forum on Education Abroad Engaging Our Local Communities as Education Abroad Professionals

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everal months ago I was invited to give a presentation about The Forum and the importance of education abroad at the local Rotary Club here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The person who invited me is a local businessman with whom I talk often at the local gym. He thought that the Club would be very interested to know about The Forum and the international work that it does. As he put it, “It is fascinating that here in our small town there is an organization that has such a global reach. People need to know about what you do.” Of course I was very pleased to accept this invitation, especially from an organization that itself has such an impressive global reach.

Taking a page from The Forum playbook, I decided to structure my presentation in a way that would leave plenty of time for questions, comments and discussion. I’m glad that I did. After I described The Forum and what it does and the education abroad field as a whole, I encouraged the audience to ask questions and share their thoughts. Hands went up immediately and people eagerly shared their own experiences of travelling abroad, hosting foreign visitors in their homes, and the benefits that these types of experiences bring. A local high school senior who was a guest at the meeting enthusiastically said how she looks forward to studying abroad as part of her university degree program.

After the meeting many of us continued the animated discussion by sharing some of our memorable experiences of encounters with people from other parts of the world. I was reminded how people love to talk about their international experiences. Most students will talk about them and think about them for an entire lifetime; others do as well. This is an important truth for us to keep in mind: anyone who has had an international education experience is a potential supporter of our work.

This experience reminded me of the importance of engaging with our local communities to share our knowledge and experience. It is an opportunity to recognize how our education abroad work connects to the lives ∙2∙

of other people. Many in our local communities have stories to tell about their encounters with other cultures and nations, and this can be an effective starting point for an in-depth discussion about the value of these interactions. Education abroad professionals have the intercultural communication skills that are very well-suited for this type of engagement.

In addition to our work with stu“Many in our local dents, faculty, and colleagues on our communities have campuses and within our organizastories to tell about tions, there is an important role that their encounters with we can play within our local communiother cultures and ties to advance our international edunations, and this can cation goals. Engaging actively with be an effective our communities makes a difference. It starting point for an helps to raise the level of awareness of in-depth discussion the benefits of education abroad, and about the value of it validates the international experiencthese interactions. es of members of our local communities, thereby connecting them to our education abroad work. Connecting people in this way encourages them to support our shared international education goals and enhances our understanding of the education abroad field. In short, engaging with our local communities is a great way to advocate for education abroad at a broader and deeper level.

As education abroad professionals we exist in a precarious and privileged position. We have “...There is an important role one foot planted in the internathat we can play within our local tional realm as we interact and communities to advance our work on a daily basis with colinternational education goals… leagues and students across the globe. Our other foot is embedded Engaging with our local in a local community where we communities is a great way to live and interact with family, advocate for education abroad friends, neighbors and fellow citiat a broader and deeper level.” zens. These two aspects of our lives may feel disconnected from each other, as if one has nothing to do with the other. Often we may feel as if we are perched between two distinct worlds that never seem to meet. An opportunity to bridge this divide comes through engagement with community organizations that bring people together to learn about and discuss activities that have local importance and impact. ∙3∙

Recent political events in the U.S. and in other countries have fueled nationalist agendas that very often run counter to the goals of international education. It is essential therefore that we advocate at every level— national, state and local—for these goals and the many ways that they improve our nations and our world. 

Confronting the Challenge of Rationalization in Education Abroad David English, Co-Founder, Study Abroad Mendoza Part 3: Calculability

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n his book, The McDonaldization of Society, sociologist George Ritzer details four characteristics of the highly rationalized organizations that have become prominent in our increasingly globalized world: efficiency, predictability, calculability and control.

In previous issues of The Forum Focus, we examined the challenges that efficiency and predictability present for education abroad. To most people in our modern, rationalized society, these characteristics convey the sense that a product, service or organization is of high quality. However, efficiency and predictability can threaten our field’s top priority of student learning and development if they are applied too broadly or in the wrong areas. Ritzer’s third characteristic, calculability, is intertwined with efficiency and predictability, and therefore an equally dangerous threat to our goals.

Calculability means setting standards for processes and end results so that efficiency is more easily measured, and so that products and processes are more predictable. But the use of calculability, like the use of efficiency and predictability, can be irrational. This is because calculability emphasizes counting and quantifying to such a degree that quantity can become a surrogate for quality. We see this in the case of McDonald’s, whose customers are led to believe they are receiving a high-quality product via buns, hamburger patties and French fry boxes designed to make portions appear super-sized, by names like the “Big Mac” and “Double Quarter Pounder,” and by signs that advertise “Billions of Hamburgers Sold.” In the ∙4∙

tourism industry, package tours are publicized in glossy brochures with photographs and marketing lingo best suited to communicating quantity rather than quality—touting the amount of food to be consumed, number of countries to be visited, and quantity of cultural or artistic performances to be seen. Absent from these brochures is a qualitative perspective: the mention of meals to be shared and friendships to be formed with local people.

In education, a focus on calculability, and the resulting “more-isbetter” mentality, can be seen in the emphasis on student enrollment numbers and faculty contact hours, the “publish or perish” mantra, a prioritization of quantitative feedback, numerical ratings and rankings of faculty and universities, and an emphasis on the quantity of faculty credentials and academic citations. In short, emphasizing calculability in many rationalized industries and organizations promotes breadth rather than depth as a concept of quality.

As an in-country service provider in Mendoza, Argentina, I have personally witnessed how emphasizing quantity over quality in education abroad can negatively impact student learning and development. Despite our stated preference for groups no larger than 15, under intense pressure from our university clients we have sometimes agreed to receive as many as 40 students on our most popular short-term programs. An “Us versus Them” dynamic tends to arise in these larger groups where students often subdivide themselves into rival cliques. In addition, faculty, support staff and on-site providers are spread thin not only for educating but also for dealing with lost or sick students, behavioral issues, and emergency situations. In the name of increased enrollment, higher revenue and “meeting demand,” the overall quality of our programs is sometimes jeopardized.

Photo credit: Lesley University, Guyana Lesley Abroad Service Semester (GLASS) ∙5∙

I have also seen how prioritizing calculability when evaluating programs can lead to an emphasis on entertainment over education, since entertainment is more likely to produce higher quantitative ratings of overall student satisfaction. To help students better understand the injustices of Argentina’s military and political dictatorships, and explain why at times citizens here have been motivated to take the law into their own hands, one year we showed all our groups the Academy Award-winning film El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in their Eyes ). Afterwards, we received scathing feedback from undergraduate and even graduate students who found it “inappropriate,” “offensive,” “irrelevant,” and “a waste of program time.”

On a scale of one to five, many rated the film a one or two and said that if they had to watch a movie about Argentina then it should be one that is “upbeat” and “uncontroversial.” To my amazement, some of our university clients agreed and asked us to never again show potentially upsetting films to their students—regardless of their educational value or relevance to their students’ experience. (Should you have any doubts as to the quality of El Secreto de Sus Ojos, I urge you to see it). The universities’ justification was that a single low-rated activity pulled down the rating for the entire program and therefore negatively impacted overall levels of satisfaction with education abroad. This is just one example of how in organizations run to the motto of “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” quantitative mediocrity frequently replaces qualitative excellence.

I call this the “Public Broadcasting System Dilemma” of our field. Often, unique and thought-provoking content turns people off, or generates negative feedback should they be compelled to watch, use, or consume it.

The more genuinely educational the experience, the worse the quantitative ratings may be—although there is always a small subset of people who appreciate and rate it highly. One of the most famous examples of this phenomenon can be found with the film Orson Welles directed immediately after Citizen Kane . Seventy-two of the 125 feedback cards from the first test screening of The Magnificent Ambersons show that many in the audience (comprised mostly of college-age adults) thought it was a dark and disturbing film, and therefore wrote comments like “The worst picture I ever saw,” and “People like to laugh, not be bored to death.” However, 53 viewers gave the film a thumbs up, as demonstrated by accolades like “Exceedingly good picture… Too bad audience was so unappreciative.” In the end, Welles’ version was cut to pieces by studio execs bent on pleasing as many people as possible to obtain the maximum amount of revenue from the film. Quantity won out over quality, and a picture said to be an even greater masterpiece than Citizen Kane was lost forever to the world.

Of course, if applied in the right areas, calculability can be of benefit to our field. In the past, a lack of it was an impediment to continual improvement since there was little quantitative assessment of our ∙6∙

effectiveness as educators. The Forum on Education Abroad clearly promotes quality via the Standards of Good Practice, Code of Ethics for Education Abroad and its quality assurance programs like QUIP and Professional Certification. Nonetheless, we must take care to prioritize student learning and development over metrics like the sheer volume of students sent overseas, the raw number of days spent in-country, the number of papers written and blog entries posted, the quantity of cultural sites visited, and the amount of quantitative feedback received. After all, numbers such as these say nothing about the more esthetic, subjective, and non-quantifiable factors that characterize learning and development. They say nothing about educational quality.

In summary, education abroad shouldn’t be a 7-Eleven “Big Gulp” experience. The programs that come closest to meeting our goals are surely those that are narrow and deep rather than broad and shallow—programs where students in small groups visit a single community and immerse themselves in the native culture by staying with families, teaming up with local students for academic projects, and even watching the occasional dark and disturbing yet thought-provoking film. In his list of ways to combat McDonaldization, Ritzer advises, “On your next vacation, go to only one locale and get to know it and its inhabitants well.” To counter the negative aspects of calculability in our field, I can think of no better advice for students going abroad—or for the faculty and administrators who plan their programs.

“In his list of ways to combat The final characterisMcDonaldization, Ritzer tic of rationalized organizaadvises, ‘On your next tions that Ritzer posits, vacation, go to only one locale and which in certain ways and get to know it and its also threatens the goals of inhabitants well.’ To counter education abroad, is conthe negative aspects of trol. This is because excescalculability in our field, I can sive oversight of and rigid think of no better advice for guidelines for individuals students going abroad—or for can undermine the effecthe faculty and administrators tiveness of faculty, adminwho plan their programs.” istrators and in-country providers. So, it is to control that we will turn in the next issue of The Forum Focus. 

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Avoiding the Echo Chamber: A Need for Outside Voices and Perspectives Nick J. Gozik, Director of the Office of International Programs and McGillycuddyLogue Center for Undergraduate Global Studies, Boston College

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rofessional fields at times can feel like echo chambers, in which ideas, beliefs, and values reverberate within a relatively small group of people. In education abroad, we have the benefit of constant interaction with other disciplines, fields, and cultures. Then again, it can be all too easy for us to fall into the trap of sharing among ourselves, without a lot of outside voices and perspectives.

In scanning conference programs, for example, we find that education abroad professionals are often presenting with and to one another. The same thing is true of publications and journals, roundtable discussions, webinars, and other loci of discourse. None of this is necessarily a bad thing on its own. In fact, we are fortunate to be part of a field that is open and willing to share best practices. I personally have yet to approach a colleague who has not been quick to assist. The Forum on Education Abroad’s member resources, such as those found within the Standards Toolbox, exemplify how much can be gained from colleagues who have already mastered certain areas of practice.

It does become more problematic, however, when we do not also have contributions from outside experts, and especially from those who can challenge our assumptions. In preparing for the Boston Intercultural Skills Conference (BISC) this past February at Boston College, I was reminded of this point in working with our keynote speaker and lead trainer, Dr. Alma Clayton-Pederson. At the beginning of the planning process, I thought that I knew something about the concept of “inclusive excellence,” our conference theme and a term that Alma herself helped to coin as a senior scholar at the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). I had been co-editing a volume, Promoting Inclusion in Education Abroad (forthcoming), which had plunged me into the literature on the topic.

In a series of conversations with Alma, I came to recognize that some of the ways in which I was applying inclusive excellence to education ∙8∙

abroad were likely incorrect, in terms of the original conceptualization of the term. Most significantly, I was forced to ask whether we could simply lump white males into the same category as other underrepresented groups in education abroad—including students of color, first-generation students, students with disabilities, and community college students— without also considering the significance of privilege and status. Within each of the groups noted above, students have been historically represented in lower numbers on abroad programs compared to their proportion on U.S. home campuses. However, to presume that a white male has faced the same barriers in gaining access to higher education, much less to education abroad, would of course be undeniably false. Our conversations were thus a useful reminder to be careful of bandying about terms such as diversity, inclusion, and inclusive excellence, without clearly defining them—a basic, if indispensable, principle of “research 101.”

My interactions with Alma are just a small example of how someone outside of education abroad can keep us in check. Additionally, I see places where external expertise can complement our limited knowledge on a subject. Take Title IX (1972) and the Clery Act (1990), for example, both of which have required U.S. institutions of higher education to implement systems for reporting critical incidents. The extent and manner in which these two regulations must be applied to education abroad programs is complicated by a variety of factors, including the rules that dictate what it means to “own” or “lease” off-campus property, the legal restrictions of colleagues in other countries to report on incidents, and the cultural differences in how terms such as sexual harassment and violence might be defined or understood. To make sense of these laws, it has been indispensable to have consultation from specialists like Joseph Storch, Associate Counsel for the State University of New York (SUNY) system, who has teamed up with Forum staff to assemble training and materials for members. ∙9∙

For most of us, it is likely common sense to seek outside guidance for projects such as inclusion and health and safety regulations. We are accustomed to reaching across campus to other offices for assistance with these and other similar issues. However, what about the broader, longer-term direction of education abroad? Who is challenging us to make sure that education abroad remains relevant among international initiatives, as well as more broadly within the landscape of higher education? Are we creating spaces for true innovation, moving beyond our concepts of what is entailed in providing a solid abroad experience? Here, I am reminded of Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), in which he makes the case that scientific progress primarily comes, not from the idea of “development-by-accumulation” of accepted facts and theories, and instead within periods of “revolutionary science” that serve to unsettle “science as normal.” In our field, can we say that we truly have created a space in which our core tenets can be scrutinized and reconsidered from time to time?

Organizations like The Forum can play an important part of introducing external voices to our work. Keynote speak“...External perspectives ers like author, poet, and writer Sherman are necessary for us to stay Alexie, who spoke at The Forum’s 2017 conference in Seattle, may at times say current, innovative, and little about education abroad per se yet competitive in the quickly are able to introduce new ways of thinkshifting landscape of higher ing about the world and, if we are lucky, education.” they do so with a bit of humor. At the same time, we might drill down even further, and see where else we can interrupt our ongoing conversations. How can we bring in outsiders on conference panels, in publications, and in other areas of discussion, within our own professional organizations and on college campuses? Where might we get involved in exchanges taking place outside of our field in related professions and disciplines? And, in doing so, how can we open ourselves and the field to critique and room for improvement? While perhaps uncomfortable at times, I would argue that external perspectives are necessary for us to stay current, innovative, and competitive in the quickly shifting landscape of higher education. 

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Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of The Forum on Education Abroad.

The Forum encourages responses to the perspectives in this issue.

Reflections, topic suggestions and other correspondence are welcomed, and all contributions will be considered for future publication.

Please send correspondence to: info@forumea.org

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© The Forum on Education Abroad Dickinson College P.O. Box 1773 Carlisle, PA 17013 info@forumea.org +1 717 245-1031

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