---

---

109

Studying abroad leads students to become better world citizens By TimHudson in Hudson On Higher Learning February 3, 2010

When I was a graduate student at Clark University in Massachusetts, my major professor walked into the tiny office I shared with a colleague and said he needed one of us to go to Jamaica and the other to Zambia. It turned out that he had just received notification of a grant from the National Science Foundation to study in-depth grassroots organizations in rural farming societies. The idea was to find out if there was a best way to organize the countryside so that food could be produced and distributed, grinding poverty could be slowed, and thus people would be less vulnerable to communist aggression. Remember the Cold War and the battle for the “hearts and minds” of people everywhere? (Sound familiar?)

Since I spoke Spanish and there was an assumption that this might come in handy in the Caribbean (how true that turned out to be) despite the fact that Jamaicans speak the “King's English,” I was tapped to go to Jamaica.

In Jamaica, I lived in small farming communities gathering information about how they made basic decisions like the amount of acres to plant in peas, how many goats to keep, etc. I learned a lot about Jamaica and Jamaicans and, ironically, Cuba and Cubans since during this era, in order to help “export” their revolution, Cubans tended to be involved in almost every technical assistance project in Jamaica (building small dams to catch fish, bridging small streams, crop storage, providing healthcare to scattered populations, etc.). The Cubans and I often ended up in the same (generally only) “rustic” eating and drinking places after a long day’s work. Along with our Jamaican friends, we had LOTS of spirited debates about the best political and economic “system” for progress and prosperity. By my recollection, anyway, I won most of those.

But mostly what I learned about was myself – my tolerances, my biases, my patience or lack thereof, my stamina, my goals, my ambitions, my culture, my assumptions, my empathy, etc. The conditions were difficult, if not totally unfamiliar (I had grown up on a farm), and the challenges many. But, in truth, I loved it all, and it impacted my worldview and the remainder of my life in uncountable ways.

This opportunity to know intimately another culture is something that I believe would benefit every university graduate – especially in this era when we live in a true global village connected by technology and instantaneous information. Our best vehicle for accomplishing this goal of creating “global citizens” capable of leadership in a complex world, is study abroad – with the “old” ideal being the so-called “junior year abroad” during which college students would travel to a foreign country for the third of their four years.

And recent research on this issue of what students learn and how it impacts them as human beings is quite encouraging in that even short-duration experiences, such as three-week language programs or even 10-day field excursions, yield significant and measurable outcomes in terms of empathy, self-esteem and cultural understanding.

The problem, however, is that study abroad is still too often considered “icing” and not part of the cake. It is left to the few instead of provided for the many. How few? Well, that figure has been holding steady at under 3 percent of all U.S. graduates for about two decades now.

You tell me. Is this enough to ensure our critical role in shaping the global society of tomorrow? Our Asian and European counterpart’s percentages are closer to 30 percent to 50 percent, by the way.

I want Americans “at the table” when key decisions are being made and when negotiations about the future of the planet are underway. I want Americans to thrive in the global marketplace. Those of us in higher education need to prepare our future leaders and enable them for global leadership by providing more, better and more accessible opportunities to study abroad during the critical college years.

Having led thousands of students on such programs, I can tell you that study abroad is far from a “holiday,” yet nonetheless some of the most satisfying work available to an educator. The pace of self-discovery for the learners and the intensity of the intellectual engagement for everyone is unmatched in my experience.

At UHV, we will be constantly pursuing ways to provide this powerful opportunity for our students – such as crafting partnerships with Mexican, Spanish, Chinese and other universities and making sure these experiences are integrated properly into the curriculum. We want our students to be ready to lead America in this new era of globalization and believe it is important that all universities do the same. This is one of the reasons I agreed to draft a plan for internationalization for the entire University of Houston System and I serve as head of the investment board of the Texas International Education Consortium, which represents all public universities in the state.

This way, our graduates will be adroit internationalists imbued with empathy, cognizant of the global community and better prepared to effectively represent the values we hold dear. In the cross-cultural debates sure to come, they’ll more than hold their own.

UHV page

• Print
• •
• Share
  • Share this item

    Send this to a friend

  • Grab the link

    Copy and paste the link:

  • Blog about it

    Blog about this page.

  • Close
• •
• 2 Comments
• •
• Flag
  • Thank you for your contribution.
    Flag this as inappropriate

    
  • Close
• •
• Follow TimHudson