New Perspectives
The Forum has continued to field media calls, and today The Christian Science Monitor featured the Forum in "Schools scrutinize and promote study abroad: Concerns over travel 'perks' lead to a clarification of funding behind increasingly popular overseas programs" by Stacy Teicher Khadaroo. The Forum on Education Abroad, which represents colleges and providers that account for about 75 percent of US study abroad, had already approved a set of standards in July and had planned an upcoming ethics conference.
"We welcome scrutiny," says Forum president Brian Whalen. "What's key in all of this is transparency.... People are realizing it's important for everyone in the field to explain what the business practices are ... so students and parents understand them."
The Standards were mentioned in a section on tips for planning to study abroad: The Forum on Education Abroad offers a set of questions you can ask about an organization's policies and standards on their website (http://www.forumea.org/ - click on the "standards" tab at the top and then again on the left). The many topics include preparation before travel, safety, financial aid, and ethics policies.
Labels: Standards
Invitation to Test New Instrument
Larry A. Braskamp, David C. Braskamp, and Kelly Carter-Merrill have developed a new instrument to measure global perspectives, with an emphasis on the importance of cultural influences on holistic development. Called the Global Perspectives Inventory (GPI), it is a survey of 46 items, plus a few biographical items, and has been specifically designed to provide self-reports of students' perspectives in the three domains of holistic student development - cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. Each domain contains two scales - one reflecting the theory of cultural development and one reflecting intercultural communication theory.
The authors are inviting institutions to participate in a national project. After your students take an online survey, the authors will provide you with a summary report of your institution's participants. More information is available at: http://www.gpinv.org/. You can take the GPI by typing 9997 when asked your institutional affiliation. Direct questions or comments to Larry Braskamp. Labels: Assessment
NAFSA Announces Task Force
NAFSA announced its Task Force on Institutional Management of Study Abroad today, which will recommend "core principles, values, and behaviors for senior campus administrators to consider as they develop policies and practices to guide the management of the study abroad function."
Two Forum members will represent the field of education abroad on the Task Force: - Joseph Brockington, Associate Provost for International Programs, Kalamazoo College
- Kathleen Sideli, Associate Vice President for Overseas Study, Indiana University
Forum President Interviewed for Podcast
New Website Policies
The Forum seeks to promote open dialogue in the field of education abroad, while maintaining a respectful environment. To that end, we are posting our Website Terms of Use and a new policy about comments. Participation in the DiscussionForum and use of the Forum website constitutes acceptance of these Terms of Use. We encourage comments, but request that those who comment identify themselves. To promote accountability, anonymous comments will no longer be accepted (though comments made before this policy will remain on the site). Please consider your statements carefully and adhere to generally accepted rules of netiquette. Remember - Forum members and those who take part in these discussions are your colleagues, and your comments here are public. To comment, click the text link indicating the number of comments below a post. A new window will open. Login with your Blogger account or select "Other" and fill in your name and institution. All comments are moderated by the staff, so we ask that you be patient while they are approved for posting. Comments are approved during Forum business hours (8:30am to 4:30pm, Eastern Standard Time). Lastly, please provide an email address or other identifying information so that others may communicate with you about your comments.
Follow-up Coverage
Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education published follow-up articles: Emerging Benchmarks In response to concerns about the difficulties of evaluating and monitoring study-abroad programs, professionals in the field formed an independent organization, the Forum on Education Abroad, to act as an arbiter of standards. Since it was founded six years ago, the Forum has focused on identifying reputable programs. Using surveys and research, the group devised a set of standards for judging programs, and it just completed a pilot project reviewing the foreign-study offerings of 19 institutions. One of the first things peer reviewers discovered was that many colleges lacked clear goals and rationales for their stated commitment to provide overseas study. Furthermore, aside from anecdotes, the industry has little proof that its programs are accomplishing the lofty goals of global understanding, language proficiency, and good will. "We tend to think of study abroad as a silver bullet — that it's going to make students more academically engaged, better citizens, and help our country in globalization," says Brian Whalen, the Forum's president. "And in some ways, it's very powerful. But we lack precision to our programs, let alone a way to measure what we're accomplishing." In July the Forum released a 14-page list of standards for study-abroad programs. It is a start, according to Mr. Whalen. But these guidelines lack any information on how an institution can evaluate programs run by outsiders. Though the Forum plans to create standards for that soon, the time-intensive process of evaluating other providers will still most likely be done on a case-by-base basis, and will not get much easier.
Labels: Standards
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