University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The Study Abroad Community at UIUC: Negotiating the Complexities of Doubling Numbers and Fostering Global Citizenship

Anth411 07-9

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/3617

Description

Title
The Study Abroad Community at UIUC: Negotiating the Complexities of Doubling Numbers and Fostering Global Citizenship
Author(s)
Anth411 07-9
Issue Date
2008-02-15
Keyword(s)
  • study abroad
  • global citizenship
  • Administration
  • strategic plan
  • gender
  • Race
  • Ethnicity
  • ANTH411_F07
Abstract
In 2005, the U.S. Lincoln Commission Report set the target of sending one million U.S. students abroad annually in a decade. The same year, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) set the goal of doubling the percentage of students going abroad from 22% to 40% within five years. At stake is the prestige of the University of Illinois as a national and world leader among other universities of its kind. UIUC is currently #5 in study abroad among the top forty doctoral/research institutions. However, upper administrators are aiming for #1. During this period of heightened institutional priority placed on increasing numbers of undergraduate study abroad participation without sacrificing quality and helping preparing students to be global leaders with intercultural and language skills, study abroad campus agents (administrators, staff, and international educators) are dealing with the implications and meanings of such goals. For my pilot research fall semester 2007 I observed administrative activities related to study abroad and interviewed key study abroad agents. I analyze how the study abroad community at UIUC is dealing with various issues like the tension between quality and quantity, the meaning of global citizenship, the rise in short term programs, and student diversity along the lines of gender and race. I find they do not reproduce the problematic assumptions I identify in official study abroad discourse as found on the Study Abroad Office website but instead provide a more nuanced picture of the complexities of study abroad. My proposed research for the future will involve extensive in-depth student interviews to illuminate the gender and racial/ethnic dynamics of study abroad, which I have found to be silenced in dominant discourse on study abroad and poorly understood among study abroad administrators.
Type of Resource
text
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/3617

Owning Collections

Globalization and the University PRIMARY
This collection examines the influence of globalization on the university and the university's place in a burgeoning world market for higher education.