[BE Education Package] Despite Paris, It’s Still Important to Study Abroad

On Nov. 4, 2015 in Berlin, the Council on International Educational Exchange; in partnership with the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, held a one-day workshop on expanding opportunities for students of color in global education.

Several presidents of colleges that primarily serve students of color, including leaders from historically black colleges such as Howard, Morgan State, and Grambling, attended the meeting to learn about lowering barriers to studying abroad. Nine days later, Islamic extremists coordinated attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded nearly 400. Yet, Maritheresa Frain, Ph.D., executive vice president, Study Abroad at CIEE, says, “If international education was important before the attacks in Paris, it’s 100 times more important after those acts.”

[RELATED: Studying Abroad Still an Option for College Students of Color]

Only 9% of American students study abroad during their college years–of those, 75% are white; only 5.3% identify as black or African American. Yet, many experts agree that international exposure is important in light of our shrinking global community; not just for personal growth, but also for marketability to prospective employers.

BlackEnterprise.com spoke with both Frain and Mary Beth Gasman, Ph.D., a professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, who also directs the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, to discuss their perspective on the importance of international study. We also discussed ways that CIEE, which works with institutions to provide opportunities to study internationally, has implemented safety protocols for its students abroad.

BlackEnterprise.com: In light of the attacks in Paris, Nigeria, and other places, is it still important to study abroad, and if so, why?
Gasman: I work with several minority-serving institutions, and studying abroad completely transforms the lives of their students–it gets them out of their small world and helps them to see their place in a larger society. In some cases it’s one of the reasons that people become more understanding. They understand that they can’t make assumptions about others; they can’t blame all Muslims for what one sect might have done. They learn to be open to different ethnic and racial groups. African American students probably feel just as much danger here in the U.S. We just had two big conversations about race here at Penn–and some black students are afraid here in our own country. I don’t think the recent attacks in Paris and other places will be a discouraging factor for students of color.

Is the media part of the problem?
I definitely feel that the media is part of it. As someone who travels abroad a lot, when I watch the news in other countries, I see that the American news is pretty sensationalized. I’m not saying that there aren’t things to be fearful of, but I am saying that sometimes things are blown out of proportion here.

In South Africa, there were a lot of protests going on over student fees, but CNN had completely blown it out of proportion. When we got there we found out that it was a very, very different kind of situation taking place. So things are sensationalized. That’s not to say that these things aren’t horrible–they are, but I think we need to keep in mind [the violence in our own country]. If you look at the number of shootings that happened in the U.S. over the past five to eight years, there are probably people who are afraid to come to the U.S.

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Why is international study still a good idea, despite the threat of extremism?
 It’s through education that we will eradicate terrorism or extremism; that is the way that we allow our students to develop human relationships with people who are different from them. By establishing relationships and understanding ‘the other,’ barriers are brought down.

Recognizing that there are similarities across cultures allows us to find common ground and to look for consensus and cooperation. Education abroad is the way that we

can give our students the opportunity to experience that firsthand. When they’re studying in another country, they have the engagement, they’re interacting, they can view the world from a different perspective, they get a deeper understanding not only of the other, but of themselves.

That’s the mission of CIEE–we want our students to study abroad because we want them to transform themselves, to go down a different path in their lives so that they can make a change in the world. CIEE is a consortium of 350 universities, which send their students on CIEE’s programs as if they were their own. We have 23 students at the Paris Study Center. We also had 55 students from other study centers who were in Paris at the time [of the attacks].

How did CIEE respond during the attacks?
We have an emergency messaging protocol in place. Within a couple of hours we were able to locate all our students. We also were able to work with our study center directors in other cities who knew–because we have a reporting structure that we require students [to have] when they leave site–that they need to record their travel plans. Immediately, we knew how many students were in cities that could possibly be affected.

There’s an instant messaging protocol that goes out, and then we have a health safety security team that works on messaging, so once we know that all the students are OK, we work on a series of messaging to, for example, study abroad advisers, universities, emergency contact 1, emergency contact 2; so we work on keeping as many people in the loop as possible. We also have a 24/7 hotline on which we recorded many phone calls over the weekend from concerned family members, friends, and so on, so we were able to field those calls as well.

Ensuring student safety is our cornerstone. We have orientation sessions where we work with students on being very cognizant of what’s

going on around them; understanding behavior, understanding what it looks like if you abuse alcohol, and bystander interventions. Our concerns around student safety are more on a personal level and not the general threat of terrorism. We’re being naïve if we think we can protect ourselves from terrorism, because that’s inherently against the whole point. Terrorism is indiscriminate and designed to be impactful. If you think of the targets in Paris–they could have blown up the Eiffel Tower. We’re not national security, we’re not the CIA, but within the parameters that we have, we have the security and support of governments whose goal is to keep their people safe as well. It’s a challenge, but it’s more of a philosophical one than one where we can set out specific steps for students beyond ensuring their own personal safety in our programs.

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What are the barriers to studying abroad?
Cost is a big, big barrier–studying abroad is expensive; also culture. Many of our students are first generation, so just navigating a university campus is a big enough challenge, let alone getting on a plane to go study abroad. Also, curriculum. Many majors are very structured, so students don’t have the opportunity to study abroad. One of the things I’m very excited about in our collaboration with Mary Beth and her team and the initial group of MSI presidents, is figuring out how to overcome [the curriculum barrier].

Also, for some, not having a passport is a barrier. To get one, you need $135 and your original birth certificate. So CIEE now has a big campaign–we have a passport caravan where we’re going around to our university partners and we’re giving away passports. If you have a passport, it’s going to be more real to you that you will go abroad when the opportunity presents itself.

Gasman: Regarding costs and the cultural barriers, in Latino and black culture, where students have obligations to their families–often

sending money home from a work study job–studying abroad seems like a luxury. Also, some institutions make it difficult. There are impediments to using financial aid and impediments to transferring in your courses. For many low-income students of color, once those impediments are in the way, they act as a deterrent. Institutions have to work really hard to move those deterrents out of the way so we can create more opportunities. School culture is also an impediment. Some schools see it as a luxury and not as an important element, in terms of preparing students to be global citizens and to have more globally focused jobs.

Frain: Everyone needs to have some international experience. The U.S. is insular, parochial. We don’t speak other languages. We don’t travel. Most Americans don’t have passports, [not to mention] young people. So studying abroad needs to be valued as a learning opportunity for our students. Even if you’re in the worst taught class at the university because the academic culture is different–there’s a learning opportunity there–for kids to compare and contrast and develop values.

Gasman: There are 600 or more minority-serving institutions responsible for educating 20% of all college students and a great number of students of color, so [working with these institutions] is a way to really change the landscape of who studies abroad. All the presidents that had not attended the meeting in Berlin wanted to get in–they wanted to be able to offer this opportunity to their students. CIEE makes studying abroad easier by helping institutions think through how to make it happen. There isn’t the excuse of ‘it can’t be done.’ CIEE takes the approach of, ‘well, here are the difficulties, but let’s see how we can make it happen.’

To learn more about the partnership between CIEE and the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, and the two organizations’ shared goal of increasing minority participation in study abroad programs, go to www.ciee.org and www.gse.upenn.edu/cmsi.