In 2011, 273,996 American students studied abroad for academic credit compared to the 764,495 international students on US campuses. Executive Director of the Office of Study Abroad, Brett Berquist explains how sending American students overseas has become central to MSU’s international mission.
The PIE: How did Michigan State University become the second largest US institution for outbound mobility?
BB: There was a key moment when Michigan State welcomed a new president, Peter McPherson. He had come from some government management positions where he was overseeing some pretty large organisations with a strong vision. He was an MSU grad and had been very involved with the university. He took it through an exercise of visioning.
With the task force came a new funding model, new resources and a real drive
There was a task force on study abroad in 1995 which had a lot of representation and as a result set a goal of having 40% of undergraduates study abroad by the time they graduate. At the time we were in the middle of the road like other institutions – sending about 800 students overseas – so with the task force came a new funding model, new resources and a real drive.
The PIE: How did the rest of the university react to such high targets?
BB: There was a lot of bottom-up support within the culture of the university because there had been so much faculty engagement with doing research overseas. Then from the top there was a system of accountability, each dean was asked to report twice or three times a year on how they were making progress towards those goals in their area.
It was more about how to bring the students into that mix in a more intentional way.
We were adding programmes but the funding model allowed us then to increase the staffing and the resources organically rather than waiting till we almost died before we got more staff. It was a combination of the ethos of the place from its origins, that bottom-up support that was already well engrained and that top-down vision, accountability and then systems that supported that growth.
It was a combination of the ethos of the place from its origins, that bottom-up support that was already well engrained and that top-down vision
The PIE: That was 1995, where are your numbers now?
BB: They’re down after the economic crisis. They peaked at 3,200 – so one in three students – now we’re more back at 2,700 which is about one in four. In the next Open Doors report, Minnesota will actually surpass us in the number of outbound students for public institutions.
The PIE: What’s the typical profile of an American student studying abroad?
BB: I think today it’s less and less typical. All the growth that’s been coming in the last 10-15 years has been about institutions learning how to offer things that fit tightly in the curriculum. All our programmes and courses count towards a degree.
We have studies showing that students who study abroad have higher retention rates, finish with a higher cumulative GPA and they graduate faster. So rather than adding time to a degree like it was for my generation who went overseas, today’s students want stuff that fits and that allows them to stay on track.
Today’s students want stuff that fits and that allows them to stay on track
The PIE: So study abroad becomes embedded into the mindset..
BB: Yes and we’re also focusing on under-representation: we’d like to see more minorities study abroad, more men. One area where we’re quite happy with our work fighting the rich kid myth that study abroad is only for affluent white females.
We have lots of Pell-eligible students [the highest category of financial need] in the general population because Michigan is still struggling. We’re sending almost the identical amount of high needs students abroad as there are in the total undergraduate student population.
The PIE: What are your most popular programmes? [more>]
BB: We run the largest set of programmes in London over the summer of any US university with anywhere between 300 and 500 students in London on about 30 different programmes. And the UK does continue to be our largest draw. But we’re actually sending less than 50% of our students to Western Europe.
The national norm is about 60% of enrolment goes there and we have a lot more students going into diverse locations. We have programmes in Antarctica, the arctic circle, the Galapagos– which fits our international development history and ethos.
The PIE: There’s been a lot of talk about leadership in internationalisation. Do you think a good leader requires a combination of private sector and academic experience?
You ask high school students what they think about when they hear Michigan State and study abroad is one of the things that comes out
BB: If you’re saying can you get more bang for your buck if the leader is coming from the private sector? I don’t know. I can think of a lot of people who came up from within the university who have a strong vision. Our current president was the provost under Peter McPherson and she wrote a white paper calling on us to become a “world grant university”.
We were set up under the land grant system in 1862 which was to help train the farmers of Michigan to feed people more effectively- a very human basic need. So her “world grant” concept was to take that even further. That’s the role of a visionary- to set something that is an aspiration but not articulating in it who is going to do what. Sometimes there’s a need for concrete goals and sometimes there’s a need for a more abstract vision.
The PIE: How do you measure if a study abroad experience is “successful” or not?
BB: That’s always the hard part. We have a number of ways of going about it. You can tell some stories of how the student changes and then reflected on that. You can do self reported student surveys and ask about the impact of that. We’re also present in the research space. We’re certified to support three of the major instruments that test for this. Intercultural Development Inventory, the Global Perspectives Inventory and the Beliefs, Events and Values Inventory.
It doesn’t mean the anecdotal personal stories aren’t powerful, but we have some serious research design built into it institutionally.
The PIE: What benefits does outbound mobility bring to the university?
BB: It meets a lot of our key goals including global competency and multi-cultural skills for all undergraduates. About two thirds of our students don’t go overseas with their degree and we’re also supporting them with programme and activities. It’s also part of our identity. You ask high school students what they think about when they hear Michigan State and study abroad is one of the things that comes out. It’s not the only thing but it’s really integral to our brand.
The PIE: What’s the difference between a US student studying abroad and an international student in the US?
American students understand that the cultural experience is of equal value to the technical experience
BB: A lot of times students who come for the full degree have goals for technical competence, it’s really career motivated. And for the US undergraduate student going overseas, while we’ve hit goals in terms of expanding on the technical side and doing more curriculum that’s strongly integrated into their degree plan, for a lot of the students it still continues to be a discovery voyage. They understand that the cultural experience is of equal value to the technical experience.
The PIE: In your five years at the university, what’s the strangest study abroad experience a student has had?
BB: One student studied abroad seven times during his undergraduate career with us. Two of them were over winter break but one of the things we’ve been doing at Michigan State for about a decade are pre-freshman programmes. After a day of orientation you’re off to the airport for a two and a half week programme.
So when students start racking up these numbers, it always starts with one of those programmes. 51% of students who do the pre-freshman programme study abroad again.
