Response from the Field

InsideHigherEd.com has published an article, entitled "Study Abroad Under Scrutiny" by Elizabeth Redden, that summarized responses to yesterday's New York Times article. It quoted Forum president and CEO Brian Whalen:

"When asked about the article Monday, many in international education strongly defended (in industry parlance) "familiarization trips" - international travel intended to enable college officials to evaluate a program where students earn credit abroad - as necessary to ensuring quality. "We're in a field that depends on those familiarization tours as long as they're seen and they're done in an ethical way that's benefiting the students and that's fully transparent and no one is benefiting in a way that is separate from making sure the students are participating and learning from the best possible programs," said Brian Whalen, president and chief executive officer of the Forum on Education Abroad, a group of 250 colleges that has created standards of good practice for study abroad programs....There's a "larger issue," said Whalen of the Forum for Education Abroad, "about colleges and universities needing to take stock of how much study abroad needs to be invested in."