Passport to knowledge

New Crisis, The, Sep/Oct 2001 by Gaines, Alayna A

Study-abroad programs open doors to an increasingly global world, immersing students in various cultures

In an increasingly global world, the U.S. education system is steadily recognizing international travel as an important part of the learning process. It's one experience, education officials and study abroad coordinators say, that often gives students a better understanding of other cultures, a clearer perspective on their own country and sometimes a career. At the very least, an international experience can boost a young person's confidence.

That growing global consciousness hasn't escaped African American students across the country and officials at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), as institutions work to reverse the relatively low participation of Blacks in study-abroad programs.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, in fall 1999 (the latest numbers available) there were 1.6 million African Americans enrolled in the United States' 4,070 four-year and two-year colleges and universities - nearly 11 percent of the nation's 14.8 million students. Of that number, 129,770 U.S. students from 1,265 institutions participated in some type of study-abroad program that year. About 4,330, or 3 percent, were African Americans, according to the "Open Doors 2000" report compiled by the New York City-based Institute of International Education (HE). Ten years earlier, there were only 70,727 U.S. students in study-abroad programs. IIE had not yet begun doing racial breakdowns.

"Some of them [African American students] find it [cost] prohibitive. Like anything else, it's an investment in a great future," says Eva C. Wanton, associate vice president for academic affairs at Florida A& M University (FAMU). But "they're also finding they can use financial aid to help travel abroad."

There is no fixed cost for traveling abroad; expenses are based on location, administrative support, colleges, credit hours, and program length, among other factors. The greatest number of students, 21.4 percent, travel to the United Kingdom, according to the HE report. The region with the second-most growth was Southern Africa Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland - with a 39.8 percent increase in 1998-99 over the prior year.

Jacqueline Gayle wanted to go to South Africa in 1999 but found it too costly. Instead, she paid roughly $6,000 - with the help of financial aid - for a semester program at the University of Ghana, sponsored by the Council on International Educational Exchange. Gayle, a 2000 Clark Atlanta University graduate, studied Ghanaian literature, Islam in West Africa, West African Dance, Politics of Africa and the Black Diaspora and the TeI language.

"It was actually ... a spur of the moment decision. I wanted to go to Africa and pickings were slim. I'm glad my adviser talked me into that program though, because it changed my life," says Gayle, who majored in mass media arts.

She is now a community development worker for the Peace Corps in Northern Province, South Africa.

Many U.S. schools - HBCU or otherwise - that can't afford their own international programs link with groups such as HE, which manages more than 250 programs and lists in its directories more than 4,000 opportunities for students, teachers and other professionals, including the prestigious Department of State Fulbright Program. The lIE counts 600 institutions of higher learning in its membership directory.

Duke University, however, is one school with its own program. The Durham, N.C. institution has 12 programs that are a semester or a year in length, and 18 summer ones. It also offers academic credit for approximately 120 other outside international study programs.

According to Margaret Riley, Duke's director and assistant dean for study abroad, at least 40 percent of the school's undergraduates will have studied abroad by graduation. Duke, which just started collecting data on the race and ethnicity of its traveling students, was ranked third by HE in its 1998-99 report for research institutions with the highest student participation rate in study-abroad programs. Yeshiva University in New York and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana are first and second, respectively.

"We have very supportive deans and faculty who recognize the value in the study abroad experience and they work with us in encouraging students to participate," Riley says.

"We have a strategic plan - the internationalization of Duke - to bring a more diverse international student population [to the university] and increase the number of our own students who study abroad, especially those in science and engineering disciplines," Riley adds. "This will benefit students in an increasingly global, interdependent world."

One HBCU that administers part of a study abroad program is Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. In 1997, it established a Japanese program with the KCP International Language Institute in Tokyo, Japan, in conjunction with Western Washington University and the University of Idaho.