by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | Apr 29, 2025 | Global Impact Exchange, Spring 2022
Authors:
- Tara Kermiet, East Carolina University
- Dennis McCunney, East Carolina University
At the beginning of the 2019-2020 semester, a collection of leaders from around our university gathered to try to be proactive about the coming election year. Faculty leaders, student affairs practitioners, student activists, and community partners envisioned how our institution might prepare for the coming year, knowing that – if the political heat was to continue at the same intensity level – it would be particularly divisive with more vitriol that we had previously experienced. A coalition emerged from this planning session dedicated to confronting instances of extremism on campus and incorporating anti-racism outcomes into our work. In light of this experience and in a spirit of retrospect, we engaged in a focused case study regarding our university’s efforts to incorporate some of these anti-racism and anti-extremism learning outcomes under the broader umbrella of our global education efforts.
Moving into the academic year, we had done some preliminary work in promoting AAC&U’s standing definition of global learning as an important foundation. That definition understands global learning as “a critical analysis of and an engagement with complex, interdependent global systems and legacies (such as natural, physical, social, cultural, economic, and political), and their implications for people’s lives and the earth’s sustainability” (Whitehead, 2016). Further, that definition gives some clear direction regarding student learning outcomes. Through global experiences, students should “become informed, open-minded, and responsible people who are attentive to diversity across the spectrum of differences, seek to understand how their actions affect both local and global communities, and address the world’s most pressing and enduring issues collaboratively and equitably” (Hovland, 2014). These specific learning goals of becoming informed and attentive to diversity, while also being aware of local and global impacts of their actions, prompted campus discussions about the need to support student voices of dissent.
Over the past few years, senior leaders on campus – particularly within student affairs – noticed the need to address tensions among student groups, and also allow for students to protest and raise their voices in a safe atmosphere (O’Brien, 2018). To encourage conversation and build relationships with student leaders, and to also show the campus at large that productive, civil dialogue was expected and taking place, we gathered program leaders – both students and staff – to form a thematic initiative to inspire and build upon the notion of campus unity, ultimately titled “ECUnited.” This would set the stage for other programs to fall under this umbrella, ones that would center around similar learning objectives and move the work forward.
Within this thematic effort emerged some specific programs and opportunities to focus the conversation on set topics. An important initiative over the previous few years had focused on building coalitions and promoting civility. Offered as a type of regional summit, our university’s Civility Summit was a program that started as a response to the racially motivated murder and subsequent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri (Michael Brown) and Baltimore, Maryland (Freddie Gray). Again, as an effort at promoting some type of reconciliation in the midst of this collective trauma, and engaging in proactive discussions, this summit served as an attempt to create space for dialogue and community action. Now in its seventh year, this summit has a history of raising challenging questions for the campus community.
At the same time, one silver lining through the pandemic was the way in which the unique situation allowed for doors to be opened more seamlessly, particularly with our international partners. Our institution had begun to cultivate some impactful relationships with NGO partners through Amizade, a fair trade learning nonprofit based in Pittsburgh. We had also maintained connections with Stranmillis University’s nonviolence and peacebuilding program located in Belfast. Combining our desire to keep these relationships strong while recognizing that in-person opportunities were limited, we developed a university-wide program to address the growing divisiveness we witnessed in light of the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attacks. While these effects were not experienced on a wide scale on our campus, we wanted to be sure to continue to lay the groundwork and focus the conversation for the coming years. During the program, global partners led powerful conversations with campus community members, sharing their perspectives on growing violence and extremism in our national context as well as strategies for promoting and strengthening democratic values within this climate.
These efforts at promoting global learning did not only find a home within specific programs and in response to political divisiveness. Our work of integrating global learning outcomes into our departmental efforts within student affairs – and in partnership with faculty colleagues – also had been building through our use of the Global Engagement Survey (GES) as an important assessment program (Hartman et al., 2015). Focused on global citizenship, cultural humility, and critical reflection, our use of this tool was part of a twofold strategy. First, because many of our leadership education and community-engaged learning programs overlapped, we needed a tool that would help us assess student learning across a wide diversity of types of programs. The GES served this need well, and also allowed for longitudinal assessment of student learning over several years. Second, while conversations about ethical global engagement happened sporadically at our institution, there had never been a systematic emphasis on this type of approach to global learning. Yet, the guiding definition from AAC&U as well as a recent faculty development workshop on global service-learning pedagogy provided just such an opportunity, serving as the impetus for us to focus energy on global learning as a unifying approach (Hartman & Kiely, 2014).
At the same time, our institution participated in leadership opportunities offered through the The Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative – a network of educational institutions and community organizations that advances ethical, critical, and aspirationally de-colonial community-based learning and research for more just, inclusive, and sustainable communities. This participation allowed us to further institutionalize our global learning work by being an active part of this wider community of practice. Further, we could compare and contrast our student outcome data with other partner institutions to look for new opportunities to improve our approach.
Through all of these efforts – programmatic and through strategic planning and assessment – our global learning approach has been contextualized and responsive. Rather than launching a top-down programmatic effort, we have learned from student leaders sharing their voices, and subsequently built our work around their efforts to shape campus culture. For the future, our goal is to continue to encourage students to reflect on these experiences and connect their local experiences with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion to more global concerns.
References
Hartman, E., & Kiely, R. (2014). Pushing boundaries: Introduction to the Global Service-Learning Special Section. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 21(1), 55-63.
Hartman, E., Lough, B. J., Toms, C., & Reynolds, N. (2015). Assessing intercultural capacities, civic engagement, and critical thinking: The global engagement survey. Going glocal in higher education: The theory, teaching and measurement of global citizenship, 127.
Hovland, K. (2014). Global learning: Defining, designing, demonstrating. American Association of Colleges and Universities.
O’Brien, J.J. (2018). Exploring intersections among the ACPA/NASPA professional competencies. Journal of College Student Development, 59(3), 274-290.
Whitehead, D.M. (2016). Essential global learning. Association of American Colleges and Universities.
by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | Apr 29, 2025 | Global Impact Exchange, Spring 2022
Authors:
- Jessica Driemeier, Associate Director of Study Abroad, University of Miami
- Nina Castro, Assistant Director of Study Abroad, University of Miami
Sam1 was a talented student painter selected to participate in the cohorted study abroad program her school’s art department runs every summer in Ireland. Sam, an international student, identified as a queer student of color. She was enthusiastic about participating! The first four weeks her class would do an intensive residency program at a local art institute, and a professor from her home institution would then teach the second half of the program. But Sam never got to take her favorite professor’s class, nor did she complete the residency. By week two, she stopped showing up to class, was unresponsive to any outreach and ultimately had to withdraw from the program and return to her home in Singapore.
During the weeks that followed, we learned from Sam that she had struggled to face three compounding issues: a recent diagnosis of clinical depression; a disconnection with her overwhelmingly white, cis-gender female peer students; and lack of support and recognition of her mental health condition at home, due to cultural differences2. To make matters worse, her mental health provider had suggested that her study abroad program would provide a helpful perspective3. While Sam’s most pressing issues were related to mental health, she also struggled with mental resilience as she dealt with problematic group dynamics and academic expectations from the local art institute that she found overwhelming.
Education abroad professionals often address mental wellness holistically in pre-departure (and re-entry) orientations, yet, diverse students, particularly students of color (SOC) could benefit from an approach that differentiates between mental resilience and mental health. Simply put, we understand “mental resilience” as the student’s capacity to deal with the challenges of daily life, which in an abroad context may be the student’s ability to navigate cultural differences, or to deal with homesickness or group dynamics. “Mental health” encompasses those conditions that warrant a mental health professional’s attention, and “mental wellness” functions as an umbrella term for both.
As an international SOC who identified as queer, Sam may have already possessed specific forms of capital to help her navigate challenging situations abroad. Grounded in debates and insights from Critical Race Theory, Tara Yosso (2005) introduces the concept of community cultural wealth, which explicitly recognizes the strengths SOC bring to their educational experiences4. Yosso proposes that communities of color nurture cultural wealth through at least six forms of capital (p. 77-81); the skills associated with ‘navigational capital’ in particular equip students to confront challenges commonly encountered abroad, such as deciphering a foreign educational system. However, as Hartman et al. (2020) note, “these are fluid forms of capital, which interact and build on one another” (p. 40). Navigational capital refers to the SOC’s skills to maneuver social institutions and structures of inequality permeated by racism (p. 80), thus highlighting the resilience that “has been recognized as ‘a set of inner resources, social competencies and cultural strategies’” (Yosso, 2005, p.80). International educators can help empower their SOC by creating opportunities for their students to recognize and intentionally tap into these strengths as they adjust to their host cultures.
One strategy is to facilitate venues to help create more awareness within the campus SOC community of the strengths, knowledge, and networks that often go unrecognized. In a recent study focused on first-generation Latinx college students, Wick et al. (2019) found that “familial and linguistic capital were critical to student success. Drawing out these strengths throughout the pre-departure process can also re-center the experiences of marginalized students as vital skills for success in international settings” (p. 80). Prompting students to explore the strategies they possess for managing uncomfortable experiences, as often occurs abroad, surely will highlight to SOC the strength their experiences as part of marginalized communities bring to the cross-cultural environment. To the SOC who may have never left their home state, the message that not only do they not go into the study abroad experience with a deficit (which may be a concern if they attend school with well-traveled peers), but that they actually possess some of the critical cultural navigational skills that will help make their experience abroad successful, might empower them and boost their confidence.
While helping SOC to realize the cultural capital that they bring to the study abroad experience, international educators must also be mindful of the challenges that SOC may face in accessing resources to address mental health issues. To begin, cultural appreciation of mental health conditions particularly within Asian and African cultures may not be as widely accepted, potentially impeding a SOC’s ability or willingness to seek care (Krendl & Pescosolido, 2020; St. Louis & Roberts, 2013). Furthermore, recent studies highlight a reluctance of SOC to disclose or seek help for mental health conditions. Reasons include real or perceived discrimination, as well as limited financial means (Eisenberg et al., 2018).
An appreciation for this dichotomy can help international educators to better support the mental health needs of diverse SOC in their experiences abroad. While we did not find research specifically linking mental resilience in SOC to gains in mental health, studies tying resilience to positive mental health suggest that this could be an insightful topic of additional study5. A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the focus on mental wellness, and international educators can capitalize on this attention by emphasizing the importance of preparing for self-care and wellness for everyone6. This approach can help to deconstruct the stigma that surrounds mental health for some students.
To effectively support diverse SOC, education abroad professionals must expand their campus network and partner with student affairs colleagues in areas such as equality, diversity and inclusion, non-traditional and/or first-generation student support, and LGBTQ+ centers. They should also work closely with counseling professionals to identify and expand the resources available for SOC and understand how and when to connect SOC to trained professionals. Finally, given the reluctance of some SOC to disclose their mental health needs, education abroad professionals should highlight some of the challenges inherent in study abroad, encourage students to explore how they will adapt in the abroad environment and to disclose their needs for further support as early as possible in the pre-departure phase.
As compassionate international educators committed to successful education abroad experiences for our SOC, we must take steps to positively impact their mental health support. While research indicates certain challenges for SOC in accessing support, the community cultural wealth model shifts into focus the strengths, knowledge, and values of SOC, substantiating their mental resilience as they confront challenges, at home and abroad. The need for diagnosis and support of serious mental health conditions remains a critical concern, but helping SOC to see self-care and wellness activities as relevant while recognizing the mental strength they bring to education abroad are key components to addressing the needs of SOC.
In looking back on our experience with Sam, we can’t help but wonder if we had been more aware of the research and utilized some of these approaches as she prepared to study abroad, perhaps her time in Ireland would have been the positive life-changing experience she expected when she first walked into the Education Abroad office. Efforts to customize the approach to the mental health needs of diverse SOC may make all the difference in the world.
References
Beheshti, N. (2021, May 27). Mental health awareness month continues: A silver lining of the pandemic. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nazbeheshti/2021/05/27/mental-health-awareness-month-continues-a-silver-lining-of-the-pandemic/?sh=4f5c6bce18cf.
Capobianco, S. L. (2020). Examining international education research and practice through a queer theory lens. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 32(1), 12-32.
Hartman, E., Pillard Reynolds, N., Ferrarini, C., Messmore, N., Evans, S., Al-Ebrahim, B., & Brown, J. M. (2020). Coloniality-decoloniality and critical global citizenship: Identity, belonging, and education abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 32(1), 33-59.
Helling, J., & Chandler, G.E. (2021). Meeting the psychological health and growth needs of Black college students: Culture, resonance and resilience. Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, 35(2), 152-180.
Krendl, A. C., & Pescosolido, B. A. (2020). Countries and cultural differences in the stigma of mental illness: The East-West divide. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 51(2), 149-167.
Lucas, J. (2009). Over-stressed, overwhelmed, and over here: Resident directors and the challenges of student mental health abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 18(1), 187-216.
Perkins, C. (2020). Rewriting the narrative: An anti-deficit perspective on study abroad participation. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 32(1), 148-165.
St. Louis, K.O, & Roberts, P.M. (2013). Public attitudes toward mental health illness in Africa and North. African Journal of Psychiatry. 16(2), 123-133.
Wick, D., Willis, T. Y., Rivera, J., Lueker, E., & Hernandez, M. (2019). Assets-based learning abroad: First-generation Latinx college students leveraging and increasing community cultural wealth in Costa Rica. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 31(2), 63-85.
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69-91.
by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | Apr 29, 2025 | Global Impact Exchange, Spring 2022
Authors:
- David Wick, Middlebury Institute, Associate Professor
- JoAnn Doll, East Tennessee State University, Prestigious Awards & Education Abroad Assistant Coordinator
- Alexandra Ramos Lopez, National Alliance on Mental Illness Santa Cruz County, Diversity and Inclusion Program Coordinator
- Alexandra Roman, Middlebury Institute International Education Management Program Alumna
It took less than 24 hours for our world to upend. Like countless others, in March 2020, our study abroad cohort had to evacuate from our study abroad location. At first, it was a tumult of logistics: How would everyone get on the flight? What health precautions were necessary? What would happen with the classes and plans we were leaving behind?
It wasn’t until all students had boarded their domestic flights home, and my job as a resident director was deemed “done,” that I thought about what we had truly left behind: daily structure, freedom to explore, community. Many of us also left a space where we were learning how to navigate our intersectional identities, relationships, and interests in new contexts. In the clarity of hindsight, our work supporting education abroad students stopped when our duty, and our students’ learning, was far from done.
Mental and Physical Wellbeing, Justice, and Learning
The ongoing COVID pandemic, racial justice movement following the murder of George Floyd, and gymnast Simone Biles’ acknowledgement of the importance of mental health during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics all underscore the interconnectedness of mental and physical health and wellbeing. Higher education too must respond to the precarity of mental and physical health for all students.
Higher education’s acknowledgement of the need to support student wellbeing has been increasingly accompanied by calls to action. For example, in 2020 NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation, NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education and ACHA: American College Health Association assert that wellbeing “allows people to achieve their full potential” and articulate the need to focus on “the whole person, the whole educational experience, the whole institution, the whole community” in this way “well-being becomes a multifaceted goal and a shared responsibility for the entire institution” (NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation et al., 2020, p. 2). The emphasis on achieving potential connects wellbeing to learning while the person, experience, institution, and community elements reinforce the importance of designing an entire system for wellbeing.
In contrast, current education abroad (EA) program design and administration tend to emphasize illness, crisis, compliance, and management of institutional risk. This focus fails to recognize day-to-day harm from unaddressed systemic racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism that is embedded in EA policies, programs, and practices. Our experiences managing the COVID-19 crisis have shown that we must consider both physical and mental health beyond the boundaries of any individual crisis.
Impacts of Current Education Abroad Practices
Even before COVID-19, research provides abundant examples of how microaggressions, prejudices, and discrimination in relation to students’ identities directly harms their mental wellbeing. These experiences have occurred in formal academic settings with faculty and staff as well as outside of class with host community members and peers.
Situations that negatively impact student wellbeing may emerge from student assumptions of host community treatment. Students might believe they will be readily welcomed because they identify as ethnically, culturally, or religiously similar to host community members, but actually come to discover they are criticized because of their nationality and assumed economic status (Barlow, 2007; Beausoleil, 2008; VeLure Roholt & Fisher, 2013; Willis et al., 2019). Discrimination of student linguistic abilities and cultural knowledge based on their ethnicity is also common, especially for heritage learners (Beausoleil, 2008; Burgo, 2020; Quan, 2018).
Situations involving racial microaggressions and gendered host community prejudice also impact student wellbeing. Students facing race-based microagressions and gendered host community discrimination often have their concerns neglected or diminished by facilitators who explain the painful experiences as encounters with cultural differences (Goldoni, 2017; Malewski & Phillion, 2009; Talburt & Stewart, 1999; Twombly, 1995). Microaggressions, prejudice, and discrimination may also come from other study abroad students on the same program (Chang, 2017; Green, 2017; Jackson, 2006; Willis, 2015).
Each of these situations influence a student’s mental and emotional wellbeing ultimately harming the student’s holistic growth (Solorzano et al., 2000; Sue et al., 2007). In most of the situations described above, students were left to navigate these complex and sensitive issues with little or no support and reported feeling misunderstood, angry, vulnerable, and emotionally drained (Chang, 2017; Willis, 2015, Twombly, 1995). Given the prevalence of these experiences, international educators need to address the influence of discrimination and identity on mental wellness and wellbeing.
Promising Practices for Holistic Wellbeing
As indicated in the research cited above, individual identities, learning environments, and persons involved in EA impact student wellness and wellbeing. If we seek to create an environment in which everyone can reach their full potential, we must attend to the wellbeing of both the whole person (individual wellbeing) and the whole community (community wellbeing).
Individual wellbeing relates to human rights and needs, being valued, satisfaction, and happiness (NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation et al., 2020). Practices to support individual wellbeing include identity reflection, guided facilitation, wellness mapping, and building support structures. Identity reflection activities like the Personal and Social Identity Wheel (Calderon & Runnell Hall, 2010) help students make sense of their identities and how they change in different settings. Guided facilitation in the form of group discussions or personal journaling supports student wellbeing by giving students space to talk about and process their experiences of discrimination, prejudice, assault, and microagressions without fear or retaliation.
Support structures benefit both individuals and communities. Wellness mapping helps students take ownership of their growth through assessing their own support needs and determining what resources (personal, community, structural) they can use for their support systems (Hardy et al., 2014). Building support structures through interactions with peers, community members, and advisors can encourage students to both better manage their own wellbeing and contribute to community wellbeing. Reflective intercultural learning is critical throughout this process so students can assess the needs and risks they might encounter in the context of their program location (Sorrells & Nakagawa, 2008). For example, students who share aspects of identity with their host communities may benefit from reflecting on their assumptions of how they might be received by people in the host community and identifying ways they can find support.
Community wellness and wellbeing is defined by connectedness and overall quality of life within a community through collective support systems (NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation et al., 2020). A promising practice for this is creating community agreements. Similar to roommate agreements, these are guidelines on how the community will inhabit a space. The purpose of the agreement is not to remove liability from the institution, such as waivers and contracts, but instead to raise awareness of risks so that students can make informed choices and intentionally build a healthy and supportive community. Encouraging students to actively create and uphold their own support systems may also provide a better learning space in which students can share and reflect on their experiences rather than feeling unheard or dismissed when they bring up issues, such as microaggressions or discrimination. Reflective intercultural learning is again vital in community wellness work as students learn how to understand, value, and support the diverse strengths and needs within the group and larger community.
When students study abroad, they bring their whole selves with them, but we have not built structures or expended resources to provide holistic support for wellness and wellbeing. The above practices for facilitating holistic individual and community wellbeing can contribute to a realignment of resources away from crisis management toward a proactive system that minimizes harm and optimizes student learning.
References
Barlow, C. A. (2007). In the third space: A case study of Canadian students in a social work practicum in India. International Social Work, 50(2), 243–254.
Beausoleil, A. (2008). Understanding heritage and ethnic identity development through study abroad: The case of South Korea (Order No. 3330411) [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Burgo, C. (2018). The impact of study abroad on Spanish heritage language learners. Journal of Latinos and Education, 19(3), 304-312. DOI: 10.1080/15348431.2018.1518139
Calderon, J. L., & Runell Hall, M. (2010). Love, race and liberation: ’til the white day is done. Lulu.
Chang, A. (2017). “Call me a little critical if you will”: Counterstories of Latinas studying abroad in Guatemala. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 16(1), 3–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192715614900
Goldoni, F. (2017). Race, ethnicity, class and identity: Implications for study abroad. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 16(5), 328–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2017.1350922
Green, Q. (2017). Feeling to see: Black graduate student women (re)membering Black womanhood through study abroad [Doctoral dissertation. Michigan State University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Hardy, L., Figueroa, A., Hughes, A., Hulen, E., Corrales, C., Scranton, R., & Begay, C. (2014). Toolkit for Community-engaged Wellness Mapping. CES4Health.info, 2014, W5CFPHW8.
Jackson, M. J. (2006). Traveling shoes: Study abroad experiences of African American students participating in California state university international programs (Order No. 3227519). ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
Malewski, E., & Phillion, J. (2009). Making room in the curriculum: The raced, classed, and gendered nature of preservice teachers’ experiences studying abroad. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 25(3), 48-67.
NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation, NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, & ACHA: American College HealthAssociation. (2020). Inter-association definition of well-being. www.nirsa.org/hands-in
Quan, T. (2018). Language learning while negotiating race and ethnicity abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 30(2), 32-46.
Solórzano, D., Ceja, M., & Yosso, T. (2000). Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: The experiences of African American college students. Journal of Negro education, 60-73.
Sorrells, K., & Nakagawa, G. (2008). Intercultural communication praxis and the struggle for social responsibility and social justice. Transformative communication studies: Culture, hierarchy, and the human condition, 17-43.
Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: implications for clinical practice. American psychologist, 62(4), 271.
Talburt, S., & Stewart, M. A. (1999). What’s the subject of study abroad? Race, gender, and “living culture”. The Modern Language Journal, 83(2), 163-175.
Twombly, S. B. (1995). Piropos and friendships: Gender and culture clash in study abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 1, 1-27.
VeLure Roholt, R., & Fisher, C. (2013). Expect the unexpected: International short-term study course pedagogies and practices. Journal of Social Work Education, 49(1), 48-65.
Willis, T. Y. (2015). “And still we rise…”: Microaggressions and intersectionality in the study abroad experiences of Black women. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 26, 209–230.
Willis, T. Y., Wick, D., Han, T., Rivera, J., & Doran, J. K. (2019). “If I did It over there, I can do it here”: U.S. Latinx social work students in Costa Rican service placements deepening their professional identity and skills. Journal of Social Work Education, 710–723. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2019.1611513
by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | Apr 29, 2025 | Fall 2022, Global Impact Exchange
Authors:
- Becca AbuRakia-Einhorn, Gallaudet University, Manager of Education Abroad and International Fellowships
Students with disabilities experience multiple barriers when trying to participate in education abroad programs. In addition to their access needs, they may face additional funding challenges because they are low income or because they will need to pay additional money for accommodations (or both). Facilitating study abroad for students with disabilities requires advisors to understand these students’ intersectional identities and their resulting needs.
I serve as the Manager of Education Abroad and International Fellowships at Gallaudet University, which is the world’s first and only university designed to be barrier-free for the Deaf, Deafblind, and hard of hearing. A large percentage of Gallaudet students have state-based funding from their state’s vocational rehabilitation (VR) office, and I have had success collaborating with VR counselors to help students use VR funding for study abroad.
VR services pay for training for people with disabilities who “have a physical or mental impairment that results in a substantial impediment to employment and who require and can benefit from VR services to achieve employment and maximize career goals.”1 VR funding can be used for college and in some cases graduate tuition for people with documented disabilities. Not all students with disabilities will have VR funding, but most universities will have some students who use VR funding in part or in whole to pay for college.
Each state (and U.S. territory) has its own VR office and unique policies about what programs and courses will be covered.2 Some state VR offices have a reputation for being generous (e.g., California, Washington, D.C.), while others pay for what some consider to be the bare minimum. Each student is assigned a VR counselor from their home state who advises the student as they select courses and ultimately determines how much funding can be disbursed to their college or university to pay for their tuition (and other costs such as housing and books if they are covered by the state).
While university financial offices sometimes liaise with VR counselors, in general students advocate for themselves with their VR counselors. A VR counselor may inform a student that a course is not covered because it is not required. When a VR counselor says no, students often take that as a “hard no” and do not push back. In my experience, many students do not know that they can ask their VR counselor to cover study abroad costs and do not know how to advocate for themselves. Study abroad advisors should know about VR funding so they can help students with disabilities advocate for themselves and ultimately increase the number of students with disabilities participating in study abroad programs.
What Study Abroad Advisors Need to Know About VR Funding
- VR funding is designed to help individuals with disabilities “prepare for, secure, regain or retain employment.”3 Thus, VR counselors are encouraged or mandated to ensure that a student only registers for courses that are required or otherwise an official part of their degree program.
- VR counselors dole out aid to students based on relevant state guidelines. Some states cover full tuition as well as room and board and costs for books, while others only cover tuition.
- In some states VR funding is restricted to fall and spring courses.
- VR counselors do their best to assess a student’s needs, but the process of awarding funding can be highly subjective. For that reason, study abroad advisors have an important opportunity to influence VR counselor decision-making in such a way as to support students with disabilities to obtain funding for study abroad programs.
How Study Abroad Advisors Can Use VR to Help Students with Disabilities Access Study Abroad
- Identify who has VR funding: Check with your students to find out what their current sources of college funding are (e.g., internal scholarship, external scholarship, federal aid, state-based aid, VR funding). At most universities, students with VR funding are in the minority, so advisors should find a way to encourage students to disclose that they have VR funding during the application process. 4
- Influence Program Selection or Registration Process: If a student has VR funding, determine what their state will cover. If a student’s VR office does not cover summer, encourage the student to look for semester programs. If the student’s VR office only covers courses that are “required,” try to encourage a student to select a program that will help them fulfill major, minor, or general education requirements. When students are registered for education abroad programs at their home school (instead of transferring credit in), VR is more likely to cover the course or program in question (e.g., faculty-led programs are usually covered, as are approved third-party programs that have designated institutional registration numbers). This is because the courses look like any other course that the student may be taking at the university.
- Advocate: Write a custom letter for the student to present to their VR counselor or send a letter to the counselor yourself. In this letter, outline the costs for the program, elaborate on the benefits of study abroad (e.g., increased career readiness, enhanced cultural competency, stronger problem-solving skills), and emphasize the way in which the program will help a student fulfill any major, minor, or general requirements that they have. For some of our programs at Gallaudet, we have a study abroad fee of $1,250 which is added directly to a student’s account, and I will include that in my letter and ask for that to be covered as well.
In general, VR counselors do not have extensive experience with supporting students through study abroad programs. Only some of the individuals supported by a VR counselor are in college (others are using VR for other types of vocational training), and of the students in college, only a small percentage even ask about study abroad. The most important thing is to be a tenacious advocate for your student and an advocate for the benefits of study abroad.
Students with disabilities experience many barriers when trying to apply for or enroll in study abroad programs. They may not know about study abroad or may not think it is something in which they could participate. They often worry about being discriminated against, so they don’t apply at all (or perhaps they fail to disclose their disability during the application process for fear of being turned away). This is an understandable defense mechanism (because ableism is real!) but may also cause a delay in obtaining the accommodations needed to make participation accessible. Lastly, many students with disabilities, like other students, face challenges finding funding for study abroad or must pay for some of their own accommodations, increasing their total costs relative to their peers. One way we as study abroad educators can help increase the numbers of students with disabilities who participate in study abroad is by increasing such funding. The life-changing magic of study abroad should be an experience open to all students, and study abroad advisors should know that some students with disabilities could obtain VR funding to support the costs associated with a study abroad program.
by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | Apr 29, 2025 | Fall 2022, Global Impact Exchange
Authors:
- Angelina Rodríguez, Lehigh University, Associate Professor/Director
To live lives of meaning and do their good work in the world over the long haul, students and those who support them need to be well themselves. Supporting our constituents post-pandemic is neither a one-office job nor a one-office concern. While universities often fracture into specialized offices, a more recent holistic turn and refortified social justice goals work to counter this. Certainly, in global education we are aware of students’ wholeness as constituted through their intersectionalities; our students are always study abroaders/international interns or volunteers and all of their other identities.
Within Lehigh University’s Office of International Affairs, we regularly seek out cross-unit collaborations to better serve our students and campus. In this essay, I share one example in which we harnessed global/intercultural knowledge and coaching practices to advance collaboration toward more equity and inclusion on and beyond campus.
Global Education and Coaching
Global education’s expertise lies in how to engage others and difference by becoming aware of how we view the world and operate from specific cultural perspectives. This includes learning to suspend judgment about others and becoming curious about different (non-ego-/ethnocentric) ways of being in the world. While the goal is not for every study abroader or virtual internship participant to abandon their existing identities, we want them to consider and value other approaches to living, working, and thriving and to widen their own repertoire of responses.
Coaching is a particular type of relationship that is inquiry-based, involving a somewhat Socratic style of questioning. As in an intercultural experience, coaching conversations make visible the client’s or coachee’s habitual ways of being, thinking, and responding. As the client sees themself more clearly, they begin to consider other ways of being, acting, and relating to others. They put their growing awareness into experiential practice, trying out new habits and responses. Over time, the client shifts from a reactive (unconscious, often ego-/ethnocentric) mode to a more intentional, expansive stance characterized by awareness, curiosity and choice. This learning directly mirrors the learning processes in study abroad, diversity work, global citizenship, and other like areas, because it involves the same skillsets of self-awareness, examining other perspectives, engaging in experiential learning, and designing responsible new action (AAC&U, nd; Deardorff & Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017; Stein & Andreotti, 2021).
During summer 2022, I ran a four-day workshop around globally/socially informed coaching as a pedagogical approach that promotes self, other, and world well-being (i.e., well-being at the personal, interpersonal, and larger social level). Campus attendees represented offices of study abroad, international student services, international internships, first-generation student initiatives, and multicultural and student affairs, and ranged in gender, ethnicity, religion, race, nationality, age, and faculty/staff roles.
The workshop’s premises were that: 1) personal, social, and world well-being are highly interdependent; and 2) coaching skills can be mobilized pedagogically toward building more inclusive, equitable experiences for our constituents because they involve deep listening to and exploration of difference.
Immersed in this understanding, workshop participants practiced coaching each other in pairs, triads, and other modalities. They dove into particular forms of listening and questioning, gently challenging beliefs and responding to others in new ways. They learned to refrain from resolving issues (going into savior mode) and practiced staying with themes generated by others (aligning with critical pedagogy; see Freire, 1994).
How We Advanced Collaboration Toward More Equity and Inclusion
The coaching modality allowed us to practice especially engaged inquiries and listening. We explored our well-being within our student-centered work and asked how we wanted to be personally present in our shared institutional social change and DEI missions. In terms of collaboration, two main results emerged.
- Through our coaching conversations and debriefs, we were able to identify things we would not otherwise have articulated, such as:
- Gaps in what we each knew about students’ experiences over the past return-to-campus year.
- In offices where the administrative confines of student engagement make longer, less transactional conversations difficult, a hunger to serve students more personally.
- In offices engaging in direct emotional support, more clarity around where the overwhelm sits and how being under-resourced affects both staff/faculty and students.
- An uncovering of the values and desires beneath the surface of our own learning aspirations as we looked toward the upcoming academic year.
- Given the rapidly changing global context, shared concerns about what support incoming freshmen (international and domestic) will need, as well as what support students heading to mobility-based study abroad experiences will require.
These are things we would not have realized had we not been in the specific sorts of high-listening, deep-dive conversations coaching makes possible. This work afforded space for each person’s unique (and therefore different) experiences, perspectives, previously unquestioned beliefs, underlying values, and assumptions to be articulated and heard.
- We also identified new places to include coaching-based work this fall to promote more listening, including:
- training for 120 resident life student leaders responsible for approximately 30 students each;
- orientation for 12 first-gen student leaders who each check in bi-monthly with up to 20 first-gen students (approximately 240 total);
- 1:1 coaching with a coordinator accompanying a semester-long freshman program abroad with responsibility for 15 students, and a plan to share coaching techniques with program students; and
- more compassionate, empowering 1:1s with staff and colleagues.
These projects advance equity and inclusion as we reach a range of audiences and emphasize the intense need to be able to hear and listen to difference. Furthermore, the more staff or student leaders listen to others, the more they learn about themselves, in the same way that immersing into a new culture shines light on one’s home culture(s).
In short, a coaching-based practice provides a means for everyone to learn within (versus despite) their differences.
Conclusions
The experiences of the past several years have made it clear that to sustain our good work in the world demands individual well-being and an ability to evolve when faced with difference and the unexpected. This involves cultivating new ways to provide and seek support, being able to question the inner status quo as much as the outer, and engaging others with greater openness. By weaving globally committed coaching practices into collaborative efforts, we help staff, faculty, and peer leaders expand their repertoires of student support skills and take care of themselves at once.
Listening to ourselves and others is also the first step toward increasing equity and inclusion on campus and an increasingly urgent strategy on the world scene as nations and interest groups retreat to us-vs-them binaries based on distrust and ignorance about anything/anyone who is different. With its emphasis on empathic listening, coaching serves as one effective pedagogical tool for expanding a sense of belonging while also making room for difference.
References
American Association of Colleges & Universities. (nd). AAC&U values rubric: Global learning. https://www.aacu.org/initiatives/value-initiative/value-rubrics/value-rubrics-global-learning
Deardorff, D. K. & Arasaratnam-Smith, L. A. (Eds.) (2017). Intercultural competence in higher education: International approaches, assessment and application.
Freire, P. (1994) Pedagogy of hope: Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.
Stein, S. & Andreotti, V. (2021). Global citizenship otherwise. In E. Bosio (Ed.), Conversations on global citizenship education: Perspectives on research, teaching, and learning in higher education. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429346897
