Fanta Aw is President and Chair of NAFSA, Association of International Educators. Having experienced an international upbringing herself, she is passionate about making international education more widely supported and more accessible.
The PIE: Fanta, Please explain to me the dual roles you have as an international educator.
FA: As president and chair of the board of directors of NAFSA I am a volunteer leader. My primary role is to work with the association and its members in terms of strategic planning and ensure that our field of international education is as vibrant as it can be.
My day job, as I call it, is Assistant Vice President of Campus Life at American University. In that capacity I am in charge of international and intercultural programmes and I oversee the international students’ scholar services office along with our centre for diversity and inclusion and several other administrative units. I’ve been at the same university for the past 21 years.
The PIE: So you’re not directly involved in student recruitment?
FA: Overseeing the international students’ scholar services, I work in very close partnership with the university as it looks at its international student recruitment, retention and experience as well as how we bring in international faculty and research scholars to the campus.
“Close to 70% of our undergraduate students study abroad for at least a semester”
The PIE: Where does American University lie on the landscape of inbound and outbound mobility?
FA: Our inbound numbers are strong for the size of our institution. We are a research-intensive private institution with a total enrolment of 12,000 students and out of that we have about 1,200 to 1,300 international students on our campus from 137 countries. Quite a diverse group of students.
In terms of outbound, close to 70% of our undergraduate students study abroad for at least a semester. Our study abroad office does a very good job of being able to convey to students and particularly to faculty and the academic units the value of an international education.
The PIE: What’s the key to increasing outbound mobility?
FA: The more it’s integrated into the curriculum, the more I think students just see it as a natural part of getting a holistic education. Transferability of credits and making sure that there’s portability of financial aid are also elements that are really crucial to education abroad for our students.
This is a generation of students that wishes to be challenged intellectually and the more we can make the education abroad component a strong part of academic learning, the more we’re able to also convince faculty of the merit of it.
The PIE: What trends are you seeing in US outbound mobility?
FA: We’re starting to see growth in what I would call non-traditional study abroad programmes – particularly around students who want to go to other parts of the world to understand critical issues of our time from communities that are different from theirs and be able to reflect on that in a way that is different.
“The more we can make the education abroad component a strong part of academic learning, the more we’re able to also convince faculty of the merit of it”
In that sense there’s a growth of non-credit education abroad. I think much of that is tied to a generation that’s quite curious about how local issues are having a global impact. This also provides us an opportunity to reach other destinations because the social justice issues that students are interested in tend to be in the developing world.
The PIE: You come from a private business background, how do you think that has benefited you in your position in academia?
FA: I often say that I come at this from an unconventional background in that I started more in the corporate world before getting into academia. I initially started in finance and accounting. But then through my time in the field I’ve supplemented that with a background in organisational development and as a sociologist looking at this from the perspective of how structures work, how organisations function, the role of culture, etc.
This combination of skill sets has benefitted me quite a bit in an environment and at a time in international education where you really need to be able to make a compelling case for the value of international education with various stakeholders. From vice-chancellors, to governments to the folks who are in charge of the purse strings, your CFOs, to then also making the case with academics.
The PIE: Let’s talk about your upbringing. You were born in Mali, moved to Liberia, and then?
FA: From Liberia I came to the US, and then from the US I moved to Kenya, from Kenya to Rwanda and then I came back to the States for college.
When I graduated I went and worked in Senegal and then came back to the States. I often say that my background is probably what today you would say is more the norm. At the time, I think it was somewhat unique and frankly I feel privileged that I was able to grow up overseas. [more>]
FA: I was able to go to French international schools that were extremely diverse when it came to geography and race, ethnicity, religion, you name it. I functioned in that world, thinking that’s how the world was. I think that has shaped tremendously my lens on life. I have a natural bias for this work because I’m deeply passionate about it. What it has done for me has been my aspiration for what it can do for generations of students.
The PIE: You’ve lived in some very high-conflict areas. Was there any event that impacted you the most?
“I functioned in that world, thinking that’s how the world was”
FA: One of the things that I always remember in this field is that this work in many ways is political and personal. It brings it home to me when I’m reading the headlines about something that’s happening somewhere in the world – either it’s a place that I’ve known and have fond memories of or it’s a place that I know because of students, or others that I’ve been working with. I read various newspapers from around the world and I start with the single question: how is this going to affect the work we do today?
The PIE: What are your thoughts on international education’s role in soft power agendas?
FA: I believe that international education has a critical role both in terms of soft power, smart power but really more fundamentally in terms of its potential to affect in real and some concrete ways the human condition.
The students and the faculty that are moving across borders and the learning and exchange that’s taking place result in them beginning to see “the other” in a very different way. “The other” is different, but “the other” is not threatening and not to be feared. If we can keep that in mind and if our core work can continue to stay focused on that, then I have a lot of hope for this field.
The PIE: What would you like to see more of in the industry?
FA: A couple of things come to mind – and I’m coming from a US perspective – I think there’s a lot more to learn from each other. Both in terms of the ways in which international education is being shaped in different parts of the world and the lessons that we can learn from that.
I’d like to see much more dialogue that’s regional and global. Secondly, I’d like for us to think about innovative ways to get American students to be more engaged with the world. I’m a deep believer in study abroad and its value, but I’m also a pragmatist and I understand that there will be generations of students who will never leave the borders of the US.
“The advocacy that it takes to make that happen is going to be one of the critical issues for international education in the US”
But I think that those students can have the same benefits of a global education while remaining in the US. The advocacy that it takes to make that happen is going to be one of the critical issues for international education in the US.
The PIE: How will changing demographics affect the ability to engage American students?
FA: I think the sea change in who’s accessing higher education and for what purpose, and the socioeconomic background of the students who are coming in who are really struggling financially to make ends meet and yet really need the skill sets to be competitive in the 21st century is very real for the US. We have to ask ourselves as practitioners and academics in the field, what does this mean for the state of the field and how do we begin to imagine or re-imagine this field in the next five, 10, 20 years.
The PIE: Speaking of changes, do you have an opinion about the NACAC decision to allow the use of education agents?
FA: It’s funny because the rest of the world is looking at the US and saying “wow it’s taken this long!” But again context and culture matters. I think the NACAC decision and the deliberations that took place to me symbolises an important milestone in the sense that these were fruitful discussions. I think ultimately there was the realisation that the environment for this work is changing, all around the world including the US, and that issue of the agent debate really needs to be shifting not from “is it happening?”– because we know it is – to, in the context of the US, “what is it going to take to do it right?”
“We have to make sure that this is not seen as a quick fix to larger systemic and structural issues”
In the case of the US, going back to soft power, your reputation is everything. It takes a long time to build. But it doesn’t take much to lose it. In light of that we’re going to have to tread very carefully and work with institutions to make sure that this is not seen as a quick fix to larger systemic and structural issues. And that first and foremost we need to do right by the students and their families.
