LD: One of the things that I am proudest of is looking at what our intentions were when we started the branch and realising that we have made incredible strides in terms of achieving some of those original goals.

“The study abroad office is designed to provide more students with opportunities to have the skills they need to compete in the 21^st century economy”

The study abroad office is designed to diversify participation in study abroad, in order to provide more students with opportunities to have the skills and knowledge they need to compete in the 21^st century economy and to be able to help solve global challenges. We see this investment in the study abroad office as really an investment in our collective future. So what we are proudest of is supporting those objectives, not only in terms of enhancing and evaluating our existing programmes but also in helping institutions grow capacity for this work and bringing in new stakeholders into that work, including posts and commissions and institutions that are helping us with capacity building.

The PIE: You recently completed an evaluation of the Gilman scholarship – what did you find?

LD: The goals of the programme essentially are to provide opportunities to students with limited financial means, to make sure that more Americans have the opportunities to learn about and engage with the rest of the world, to internationalise college campuses and really to provide them with the knowledge and skills they need to compete in the economy. The outcomes of the study demonstrate this is in fact happening.

We receive over 10,000 applications every year and we have only 2,800 spots, so this is a demonstration of interest amongst students who normally don’t have an opportunity to go abroad. There are lots of other things that are barriers to study abroad but with the Gilman programme we are seeing very diverse students – 44% of them are first generation students, for example – and these students are demonstrating an interest, right? So for them the barrier is a financial one.

The PIE: Talking to stakeholders in US education, it seems there’s a growing awareness of the need to reach out to those students and diversify the students that go abroad. Is that something you’ve seen?

LD: Absolutely, and this is a commitment on behalf of the State Department right now to ensure that diversity, not only the race and ethnicity of the students, and looking to make sure that more diverse students that are LGBT and disabled have opportunities to study abroad.

“Half the students in the United States are at community colleges and so we need to diversify the types of institutions that are providing support for this work”

This commitment to diversity is not only representative of the students themselves but the institutions from which they come. Half the students in the United States are at community colleges and so we need to diversify the types of institutions that are providing support for this work as well, so our capacity building initiatives are an example of our commitment to try to broaden participation in study abroad across institutional types as well.

The PIE: I know that community colleges sometimes can feel overlooked because a lot of the conversation is about universities and four-year institutions, so can you see that becoming more of a focus for the branch?

LD: I think the issue is for students enrolled in higher education across different institutional types have different needs. Students who are enrolled in community colleges tend to be older, they tend to be going to school part time and they tend to be working as well. So we have to figure out: how do we develop programmes in study abroad that respond to the needs of students who have very different profiles than the sort of traditional study abroad student?

One of the things we are doing through the capacity building initiatives is really trying to think about what are some creative solutions, using technology, using different approaches to supporting students so they have opportunities to learn and to participate across a variety of disciplines.

The PIE: You’ve just awarded a set of grants to help institutions increase their towards for study abroad – what kind of projects is that funding going towards?

LD: We wanted colleges and universities to define what diversifying study abroad meant within their institutional context: what were some of the things that they were trying to achieve?

In some cases, diversifying participation in study abroad for them meant that they had very low participation rates and they were just wanting to establish a study abroad office. In other cases, there were institutions that were focused on students in a particular discipline that might never have had an opportunity to participate, and so diversity for them meant diversity in a particular discipline in a country where they may not have been able to travel. In some cases, they were focused specifically on issues of race and ethnicity. So a wide spectrum of ideas.

The PIE: How will the study abroad branch’s new MOOC help institutions to build their capacity for study abroad?

“We are defining our work in terms of thinking through what diversity means from the institutional context”

LD: We’ve made sure the modules that we have selected support institutions that either are looking to increase the knowledge that they have or are starting from scratch and have no information, so this is a valuable tool in terms of helping them create a structure to formulate a study abroad vision or strategy.

There are some strategic elements of this but there are also nuts and bolts: so there are safety modules that are available, there are opportunities for them to think about what of programme should I formulate. How will I fund this initiative? What are some of the tools that I will need as I move forward and consider expanding efforts in study abroad in my institutional context?

The PIE: I know some institutions feel like they’re facing an uphill battle because the proportion of students who go abroad is so low. Do you ever feel that way?

LD: I don’t feel like it is an uphill battle, I feel like it is an extraordinary opportunity. There are over 20 million students who are enrolled in higher education in the United States, so I see those numbers as a real opportunity for us to be able to make a difference in terms of broadening participation.

The PIE: And you’ve said you’re looking at not just on increasing diversity of students but diversity of study destinations.

LD: Absolutely, we are defining our work in terms of thinking through what diversity means from the institutional context. So if diversity from you means broadening disciplines of study, destinations of study, the race and ethnicity of the students who are involved in the study, all of those things from our perspective constitute diversification in terms of the work that we do in that respect and how we are achieving those goals.

The PIE: What are your goals in the next year?

LD: One of the things we have done this year is we have spent some time really evaluating and assessing what are programmes are doing. In the next year we want to make sure that our work builds on the strengths of those programmes and really responds to the feedback that we have gotten from all the constituencies in the field. And making sure that we are aligning our goals and objectives not only with our foreign policy goals but making sure that they are responsive to the needs of institutions and students as well.