Accelerated Residency Received a Makeover for 2025 Event in Chicago

7/10/2025

By Pato Lin-Steadman, Ed.D., Director of Programs and Training

The temperature was not the only thing that was high in Chicago two weeks ago. The hype for the newly revamped Accelerated Residency was real, and the energy in Room 301 of the University of Illinois Chicago’s Student Center East was electric.

From June 23-25, education abroad professionals from across the globe gathered at the University of Illinois Chicago to participate in our signature Accelerated Residency. Among our participants, we had individuals from Canada, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. Both of our 2025 Forum Fellows, including our inaugural MISTI fellow, were also in attendance.

As always, the Accelerated Residency gave participants an opportunity to focus on all modules for the Professional Certification in Education Abroad program, including:

Module 1: Framing the Standards of Good Practice
Module 2: Program Design
Module 3: Program Management: From Implementation to Evaluation
Module 4: Health, Safety and Well-Being
Module 5: Student Learning & Development I: Advising & Orientations
Module 6: Student Learning & Development II: Reflection, Integration & Assessment

We spent three days gaining a deeper understanding of the Standards of Good Practice for Education Abroad, Sixth Edition—how the resource was created, its structure and scope, and how to apply the Guiding Principles and sections to their unique roles and organizations.

Although this Residency has been part of The Forum’s offerings for years, it looked a bit different this year. When I was tasked to revamp the program, I knew I wanted to keep the same high-quality level of content, but I also wanted to prioritize different ways of assessment. I also wanted to ensure participants were given opportunities to learn through different types of hands-on activities and were able to develop relationships within their cohort.

As a result, we had daily get-to-know-you activities and multiple and varied activities throughout the content delivery period (case study discussions, role play, presentations, etc.). The module assessments were also intentionally designed to assess content through different formats and groupings. I wanted the Accelerated Residency to be student focused and driven, and I believe we were able to achieve that based on the feedback and evaluation results we received.

However, the Residency would not have been as successful if it were not for the members of this cohort. For three days, every single individual was ready to learn, engage, participate, and collaborate, and they all did it with such positive energy, too!

What made this experience even better was my co-facilitator, Nicole Collins, Director of Strategic Partnership & Outreach at Syracuse University. Nicole’s effortless captivating and charming charisma and unparalleled knowledge and experience were definitely a key ingredient to this year’s Residency.

I am thankful to lead in this project and humbled to work with so many talented fellow education abroad colleagues. It was such a pleasure to get to know this cohort and spend time learning together in Chicago.

As a group, we set a goal of 100% completion rate, so I’m looking forward to guiding and cheering them on as they complete their culminating projects to become professionally certified.

A special thank you to:

The University of Illinois Chicago for hosting us on campus.
IES Abroad, Education Ireland, EF Abroad, and The Ohio State University CIBER for sponsoring the registration fees for four of our attendees.
The Sara’s Wish Foundation for sponsoring this year’s Forum Fellow.

Learn more about The Forum’s Accelerated Residency program.

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