GCA: I have the privilege of increasing the student diversity with regard to enrolment in our programmes abroad. We’re in 36 international cities and that number grows every year, but the goal overall is for the diversity of our students to better reflect the diversity that is the United States.

It’s wonderful because I have the opportunity to be very creative, inspiring and enrolling students who hopefully reflect a little bit better the fabric of the United States population.

The PIE: So what are some of the creative things that you do?

GCA: We have launched a number of strategic partnerships to create a pipeline of students into our programmes: non-profit organisations that are community based, college readiness or college retention organisations. We partner with these to take students who are already pursuing college education, who are high achieving students anyway and start working with them at the high school level to plant the seed about study abroad.

“It’s important to speak with these students’ parents more so than with the traditional US study abroad students”

This also gives us the opportunity to engage with parents very early on so that hopefully by the time they are in college, the students will have their full support if they decide to pursue it.

The PIE: So sometimes it’s more important to speak with the parents and the families with these students?

GCA: It can be, definitely. I think more so than with the traditional US study abroad students. These have historically been Caucasian, female, from an affluent household, and oftentimes from families where travel abroad was just part of what they did.

For students who come from families who really fought their way to get here, from developing countries for example, and they’re still working to integrate themselves into the fabric of America, the parents are a little confused and not really understanding why this would be of value. So a lot of our effort is spent on helping them to understand why it would be a good idea for that student to embark on a study abroad programme.

The PIE: Can you tell me about the diversity initiative?

GCA: The initiative to diversify education abroad is a three-pronged approach: recruiting, advising and leadership in education abroad. We work with more than 240 colleges and universities.

We find creative ways to utilise IES alums who are returned students on their campuses of non-traditional backgrounds, we put them in front of students to talk about their experiences and inspire them. We share a whole suite of IES Abroad student videos, online webinars, print material, blogs, and online country-specific diversity information and resources to reach students underrepresented in study abroad.

Then we try to help the schools that we work with tailor their advising to suit the needs of these non-traditional student populations.

“I think there are certain assumptions that a student of a particular background may have a greater likelihood of studying in a particular location. Most of the time, the assumptions do not bear up”

The PIE: How is advising one of these students different to advising the more traditional study abroad students?

GCA: For example, let’s say you take an African American female who’s planning to go to China. I want that student to have the most successful experience possible and I want to prepare her as much as I can for that experience.

More often than not, there will be some way that their identity will intersect with their study abroad experience, and we want to let them know that. We don’t want to scare them off but arm them with that information so that should they encounter certain situations, they’ll be better prepared to process it and to move through it.

The PIE: So what about the third aspect: leadership in education abroad?

GCA: This is to keep student diversity on the radar of education abroad professionals across the country. We do this by presenting regularly at conferences like the Diversity Abroad Conference, NAFSA and the Forum on Education Abroad.

I would love for IES Abroad to continue to be seen as a leader in this area; we want other professionals to feel that this is a priority in our field.

The PIE: Why is it a priority?

GCA: It is very important. On a micro-level it’s of value to the individual student. Even those from non-traditional backgrounds, we want them to experience the same benefits and competitive advantages that students who would traditionally study abroad would gain.

On a macro-level, when you look at the US’s competitiveness, ability to innovate and to sustain our role as a technological giant, we have to be as open as possible. If our students are not getting out there, it hurts us as a nation. We want them as much as possible to reflect who we are as a country. We know that greater diversity of perspective, experience and culture helps with innovation, and we want there to be a diversity associated with the world’s interaction with Americans.

The PIE: Can you explain a bit about the scholarships you offer?

GCA: We have operational funds and we devote a certain portion of this to providing scholarships, because we feel it’s important to broaden access for students to be able to afford our programmes. We also have donor funding from alums, because there’s a real emotional bond and a lot want to give back, especially if they were recipients of scholarship aid when they studied with us

The PIE: Do non-traditional students study non-traditional programmes or go to different destinations?

GCA: I think there are certain assumptions that a student of a particular background may have a greater likelihood of studying in a particular location. Most of the time, the assumptions do not bear up.

“We want there to be a diversity associated with the world’s interaction with Americans”

For example, there are people who would assume that an African American student’s preferred destination will be somewhere in Africa, or the Caribbean, but the most popular destinations among these students are actually in Europe. Europe is more familiar, so there’s more of a comfort level overall.

The only racial or ethnic group where the assumptions of where they may study as heritage seekers bears truth when we analyse student choices, is with Asian students. The majority do tend to study in Asian countries.

The PIE: Are you doing anything to try to diversify where these students go?

GCA: We have a diversity of locations, but I think for a lot of American students they want to stick with where they feel like there’s a comfort level. There is some change going on. Brazil, and other emerging market countries, is becoming more popular with a lot of students.

Argentina too is among them, there’s a lot of participation in South Africa, so there are places where they’re going outside of Europe.

The PIE: How are your numbers?

GCA: Numbers vary but IES Abroad sends somewhere around 5,700 students a year. Our 100,000th student was actually an African-American!

I’ve also spent time in corporate and government marketing/PR roles, but found there’s nothing like work that inspires others so I returned to this field

We’ve definitely grown our student diversity, which I’m really excited about. Since I came on board, our percentages have shifted from about 18% who were considered racially or ethnically diverse going abroad, and now we’re at more than 23%, and our participation rate for these students parallels national data on students of colour studying abroad. That’s when you consider that at four-year colleges and universities, there’s about 36% of students across the country who are of colour.

The PIE: How did you get into this sector?

GCA: I was working in corporate America, I was a fluent Japanese speaker and I often would do side projects interpreting and translating. Somehow my name got to Howard University [in Washington, DC]’s chair of the world languages department and they wanted to start a Japanese language programme. I developed the curriculum and I voluntarily started to help students who were interested in studying in Japan.

I’ve also spent time in corporate and government marketing/PR roles, but found there’s nothing like work that inspires others so I returned to this field. You can talk with a student who has never even considered something, and to watch them go from that, to going abroad, to returning, and then watching them flourish is magical.

We have to constantly remember why we’re in this: it’s to inspire this next generation of world citizens, and if you’re not in it for that, I don’t know what you’re in it for.