Describe your initiative/project
Over the last five years, the Buffett Institute for Global Studies has worked to establish the Global Engagement Studies Institute (GESI) as the single largest and most diverse study abroad program at Northwestern University. Diversity is not simply a goal in and of itself, but rather goes to the heart of the pedagogical approach and educational goals of this flagship, global service learning program. Through group-based learning, the program develops young leaders who can work and collaborate effectively across racial, socio-economic, disciplinary, geographical, cultural or generational differences. Using participatory strategies and principles, students learn to identify and mobilize the unique strengths, skills, experiences, capabilities and viewpoints of people different from them to achieve a shared goal.
GESI provides undergraduates with the knowledge, tools, and experiences to confront shared global challenges. Through critical service-learning in Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, India, Kenya, Nicaragua, South Africa, or Uganda, teams of students join the efforts of local organizations to advance community-driven change. The program combines rigorous academic training through intensive pre-departure coursework and a final reflection summit, with 8-10 weeks of hands-on international fieldwork. During their time abroad, GESI students live in home-stays and gain professional experience while interning with grassroots organizations and contributing to community development efforts in their host community.
GESI began as a summer program in 2007 with only 16 students. Today we enroll between 60-70 students each summer and will begin offering a fall iteration of the program in 2015. Due to the unique nature and quality of our program, we attract students from around the country who hope to be a part of our global engagement efforts, including students from over 70 colleges and universities who have participated in opportunities for collaborative experiential learning. Today, 30-40% of students who participate in GESI come from other schools. GESI has sent nearly 400 students to 8 countries, contributing to more than 120 development projects through their work with our partner organizations, including efforts in small business development, microfinance, income generation projects and campaigns advocating for women’s empowerment, early childhood education, and environmental sustainability. Our community partners provide consistent feedback on the positive impacts of students’ work abroad. Many of these projects are the catalyst for community-driven initiatives that are maintained and provide improved services over several years. These reciprocal engagements have resulted in capacity building, cultural competence, and influenced students’ self-awareness and readiness to shape change efforts at home and abroad. As they return home, students learn to communicate their story and turn their passions into sustained engagement with global issues through a final reflection summit that fosters structured personal, professional and academic reflection – a component often missing from many peer programs.
Open to both Northwestern and non-Northwestern students, participants in GESI live in home-stays and work in teams to pursue the social missions of grassroots organizations, often designing and implementing small-scale development projects through collaboration with local practitioners and the communities they serve. At the conclusion of the program, students return from all locations to Chicago for a final reflection summit where they process, share and compare their experiences across different contexts and begin to explore ways to reintegrate these experiences into their everyday lives, considering next steps in their academic and professional careers. Our nationally recognized model represents one of the most comprehensive pedagogies for multidisciplinary, integrative, engaged learning – shaped by the co-educational efforts of impact-driven partnerships. GESI’s in-country partners facilitate relationships with various grassroots efforts and organizations, pursuing different models of asset-based, participatory development. Beyond GESI, the Buffett Institute has developed an innovative set of complementary programs dedicated to building a community of global leaders.
Which student group(s) did your institution target as part of your initiative/project?
Students underrepresented in study abroad: (First Generation College Students; Students from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds; Students from low SES backgrounds)
The Buffett Institute has made significant efforts to increase access to opportunities for students to participate in GESI’s unique model for engaged learning abroad. In recent years, close to 50% of students involved in GESI have been from underrepresented groups, compared to about 25% who participate in study abroad nationally (according to Open Doors). As a program dedicated to preparing students to collaborate across difference, we recognize the ways that diversity contributes to making a stronger community of participants, to building more successful and culturally competent teams, and to shaping better learning and project outcomes. Over the years, we have seen remarkable results as a divergence of perspectives, experiences, understandings, and skills combine to inform students’ work, intentions, and community engagement across the program.
Since 2009, staff, faculty, donors and alumni of the program have actively worked to increase the enrollment of underrepresented groups in the program. This work has been pursued across several key areas, including program pedagogy, scholarship funding, recruitment practices and student support.
Why did your institution feel that it was necessary to target this group?
As a program, a central focus of GESI is the benefits of diversity. Students comment that they are attracted to GESI because of its strong curricular and practical focus on working in teams of students with different experiences and backgrounds. Diversity is seen as an asset, not as something to be tolerated. Students are taught to identify and mobilize the unique capabilities, talents, and perspectives of people within the group. The existence of difference is harnessed to make the group more effective, mobilizing a broader array of skills, perspectives and experiences. This extends to student collaborations with their host communities and partner organizations.
The program also models inclusion through its partnership model. Inclusion is at the heart of our program’s philosophy and approach to working with community partners. The program design for GESI was originally established through an inclusive process, including thoughtful discussion and joint planning with our initial partner organization, the Foundation for Sustainable Development. As the program has expanded to include more locations and additional partners (i.e., Social Entrepreneur Corps, ThinkImpact), we have maintained the same approach to carefully integrate our work to support community-driven initiatives.
Students from underrepresented groups report feeling valued and affirmed in the program as all students work to collaborate across difference. As a practical, skills-based study abroad program, we have found that GESI is very attractive to students from underrepresented groups. Consistent with the academic research on first-generation students and study abroad, one of the primary reasons students apply to GESI is because it involves hands-on learning, working with a grassroots organization through an internship-based experience. A program with hands-on, field-based, professional experience has practical appeal for these students, anticipating a return on their investment in light of career goals and expectations. Whereas many first-generation students might view more traditional study abroad programs as high-priced vacations – frivolous and hard to justify to family at home.
Furthermore, NU students from underrepresented groups have often shown themselves to be more skilled at navigating new cultural settings. Many have been diagnosing and navigating different cultural contexts for their entire lives, whether by themselves or on behalf of their families. Their skills in navigating cultural difference are sometimes demonstrated by their admission to NU, mastering the culturally specific skills needed to succeed academically and in representing themselves in the admissions process. In GESI, we find students from these backgrounds make unique contributions to their small group – the ability to better integrate with the host community, figuring out how the system works, who has power and how to get things done.
Tell us step by step the process taken to implement this initiative/project?
Student Support: Pre-departure Through Re-entry
Our diversity and inclusion efforts have also involved attention to administering the appropriate student support, including medical services, travel planning and documentation, as well as culture shock and reintegration. Some students from underrepresented groups need additional support and guidance as first-time travelers to obtain necessary immunizations, anti-malarial and other medication. Some students grew up in families without health insurance and do not have a family doctor to consult with. Others need assistance interpreting WHO and CDC guidelines and recommendations about immunizations and medications. Some are even inclined to opt of out of anything they view as an optional expense (i.e., required vs. recommended immunizations).
Many students need more support and guidance in acquiring a passport and any required visas. The process, timelines, and potential difficulties are often unknown to these students. Additionally, they often need assistance interpreting and navigating government entities (US and foreign) if problems arise along the way.
Considering the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity across student teams in our program, we have observed that culture shock, community integration, reverse culture shock and re-entry are often experienced differently. Managing these differential experiences is very important. Students of color and from economically poorer families report that the assumption implicit in much of these discussions is normalized from the perspective of a white, middle class student. As a result, they may feel that their perspective is either not represented or misrepresented. For example, students of color sometimes express the narrative of living in a setting in which the majority of the people shared their skin color – they were better able to blend in and feel a part of the community rather than stick out. Similarly, there is a range of experiences across the program with returning to the U.S. with varying journeys for reintegration. Socio-economic diversity can also influence the ways that students experience and negotiate culture shock and reverse culture shock. We have partnered with Multicultural Student Affairs (MSA) to facilitate discussions with our students that are inclusive and can validate and respond to this range of experiences. Moving beyond just an appreciation of diversity, we are giving increased attention to creating safe, inclusive spaces to examine how personal privilege, bias, stereotypes, and assumptions shape our relations with new communities and with one another. These conversations, combined with their experiences abroad, prompt students to acknowledge or become aware of their own oppressive attitudes and behaviors, as well as the structures we participate in that perpetuate these and other injustices.
Which faculties, departments, centers and/or student groups on campus were involved in the process?
We collaborate with various student affairs offices at Northwestern, including MSA, Campus Inclusion and Community (CIC), Student Enrichment Services (SES) and Financial Aid, to coordinate an integrated approach to support students in and beyond the program, from orientation to re-entry – from efforts aimed at fostering effective group dynamics, cross-cultural dialogue and communication, discussions exploring social identity and examining power and privilege to continued academic and career advising and increased access to other opportunities that build on student’s study abroad experiences. In 2013, we collaborated with Accessible NU (our office for students with disabilities) and Mobility International, to support and provide accommodations for the participation of a blind student in our Uganda program. The following summer, he worked as a student intern in our office.
What were the results of your initiative?
Outcomes in recent years, over 90% of students involved in GESI cite it as the pinnacle of their learning as well as one of their most defining or formative experiences in college. Likewise, students often cite the value of the set or sequence of activities available through the Buffett Institute as having direct implications on their plans throughout and after college, including internship, fellowship, grant, job opportunities and other international experiences. Among three offices that offer study abroad programming at Northwestern, the Buffett Institute’s GESI program is the university’s most popular study abroad program. GESI is our primary undergraduate initiative and the centerpiece of many other efforts at the Buffett Institute that contribute to diversifying international education and strengthening internationalization on campus, through various international partnerships and involving opportunities for exchange with our community partners and development practitioners. In addition to GESI, we organize a popular speaker series on global development and human rights which promotes intellectual inquiry in response to global challenges, helping students to contextualize their own international experiences and supplement their classroom learning with insights from experts, activists, scholars and thought leaders in these fields. Our program also connects students with opportunities to explore careers with international organizations, NGOs/non-profits, global social enterprise, public service and other jobs in the social change workplace. More broadly, the mission of the Buffett Institute is to drive collaborative scholarship and dialogue on critical world problems through research, public outreach and global engagement programs.
