Sustainability, Diversity and Study Abroad
OfSA advisers travel by train to CIEE conference in Toronto
By Lini Ge
It took Lori Eiserman 36 hours to travel by train from Iowa City to Toronto. A study abroad adviser in the Office for Study Abroad (OfSA) at the University of Iowa, Eiserman was traveling to Toronto to attend a conference of the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) held Nov.14-17, 2007.
The journey could have been much shorter—three hours and 15 minutes by air—but Eiserman chose the train ride for a reason.
“Because I was presenting about carbon offsetting, I was really struggling with the idea that I would fly to Toronto, essentially jet in and jet out,” Eiserman said, adding that the decision was definitely worthwhile.
Autumn Tallman
Tallman with her sister and brother-in-law outside of a recently completed experimental building project on Tallman’s family land in Marmora, Ontario, Canada.
Eiserman and her travel companion, Autumn Tallman, also a UI study abroad adviser, said they enjoyed taking in views of the countryside, exchanging ideas with each other and talking to other passengers on the train.
“We had a blast,” Eiserman said. “At this point, I wonder if I’ll ever fly domestically again.”
At the conference, Eiserman took part in a panel with two colleagues from different universities. She presented as an environmental activist, starting with her efforts in initiating an Environmental Committee within UI International Programs. Her presentation consisted of two overlapping theories, the Prochaska and Diclemente’s Stages of Change and the 10-step Project Plan, which focus on individual change and changes in a broader system, respectively. She encouraged the audience to apply the two models to their work in an effort to create “a greener field of international education.” In the end, Eiserman urged everyone to “start light with the ‘low-hanging fruit’ and make realistic and achievable goals.”
“My intention was to give people ideas of very tangible ways of creating their own environmental committees within their national programs,” she said.
Eiserman believed her presentation was closely-connected to the theme of the 2007 CIEE Conference—“Challenging Assumptions: Evaluating Study Abroad’s Past, Fashioning Its Future.” A leading U.S. non-governmental international education organization, CIEE creates and administers programs that allow high school and university students and educators to study and teach abroad.
“In our field, especially with all of the traveling, I think it’s really important that we look at that,” Eiserman said.
As a traveler herself, Eiserman said she is always sensitive to the environmental implications of any voyage. Before attending the conference, Eiserman and Tallman spent four days at Tallman’s family farm in Marmora, eastern Ontario, where they hiked, visited a sustainable cob structure built by Tallman’s family members, and watched for Canadian geese.
Autumn Tallman
Eiserman by the river on Tallman’s family land.
However, when their time in Marmora was over, it was time for Eiserman and Tallman to shift from the rural areas of Ontario to the metropolitan city of Toronto.
Upon arriving in Toronto, the two went to the top of the CN Tower and enjoyed the view of the city.
“All of the city lights were just incredible. It’s a little disconcerting at the same time because I realized that kind of living is not sustainable,” Eiserman said. “At the conference we were talking about environmental awareness. It was hard for me to see all of those city lights, to see how much traffic was within the city.”
Sustainable tourism was one of the focuses of the presentations of Eiserman and her panel members. They raised the question of how students who study abroad can reduce their global footprints as tourists. According to NAFSA—the Association of International Educators—223,534 individuals studied abroad in the 2005-2006 academic year. A 2007 bill, the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act, aims to increase the number of students studying abroad to one million a year within the next 10 years. Eiserman noted that, as universities follow the mandate to send more students abroad, they must also look at how increasing study abroad participation affects the quality of the programs and student experiences.
Tallman was also involved with several sessions at the conference.
“One of the biggest questions that is coming up currently for the profession is: how do we increase the number of the students going abroad and at the same time pay attention to the quality of the experiences they have, set goals for participation and measure outcomes,” Tallman said.
One topic Tallman was involved in during the 2007 conference was diversity in study abroad programs. Tallman said that she spent a significant amount of time attending sessions that specifically dealt with the inclusion of under represented groups in study-abroad programs.
“That [under-representation] might be based on ethnicity, or arise from the specific needs and concerns of other specific student populations like first-generation college students,” Tallman said. “Under-representation must also be seen in terms of disciplines that traditionally don't have the opportunity to study abroad as often as others—students in the sciences, for example, who have very specific ic coursework to complete here on campus in order to meet degree requirements.
In the 2005-2006 academic year, students of science, namely physical/life sciences, engineering, and math/computer sciences, only accounted for 11.3 percent of the total studying abroad, according to the Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange released in November 2007. The report also shows that in the same academic year, 83 percent studying abroad were Caucasian, followed by 6.3 percent Asian-American, 5.4 percent Hispanic-American and 3.5 percent African-American.
Lori Eiserman
Tallman sampling fruit in a Chinatown market in Toronto.
Tallman said she had many discussions with other attendees about generating funding to stimulate an increase in the number of under-represented students studying abroad. However, she said she also realized that the goal cannot be achieved with funding alone.
“It’s a matter of looking at how we market opportunities to students and what other support and services we might need to provide in order to allow students who might not otherwise have done this to gain access to study abroad.”
Curriculum integration is another incentive for study abroad.
“We can reach out to students in more disciplinary areas by working carefully with the faculty in those departments to develop road maps for study abroad,” Reisinger said. “So students can start planning early on how they can fit study abroad into their curriculum, into their career here in Iowa.”
Tallman said diversity in advertising and extensive research on the destination places by the staff also help stimulate students’ interest in study abroad programs.
As the OfSA outreach coordinator, Eiserman said she gained valuable ideas at the conference. She said she was inspired to incorporate new initiatives into her routine work. She plans to organize re-entry reunions to invite students who have studied abroad to volunteer for the office, expand the annual photo contest by adding photo workshops that helps improve students’ photography skills, and encourage students to make video clips of their experiences.
“It is always hard to go to a conference because you come back with so many ideas, which are not going to come around right away,” she said. “But the ideas are there.”