More lessons: Building capacity and getting vocational students abroad
Many students attend community colleges to earn vocational degrees or certificates. Kirkwood Community College, in Iowa, is building study-abroad opportunities that make sense for such students.
Kirkwood students can study welding in Brazil, agriculture in South Africa, and construction management in Germany. In fact, students in career- and technical-education programs at Kirkwood are more likely to go abroad than their classmates, said Dawn Wood, the dean of global learning. (Low-income, first-generation, and rural students also study overseas at higher rates than the college’s student body as a whole, Wood said.)
The outcomes at Kirkwood might seem counterintuitive. But Wood, who recently completed her doctoral dissertation on the participation of such underrepresented students in international-education programming, said they’re often hungry for these kind of opportunities.
“We say study abroad is for everyone, but the fact is, we often just assume certain students aren’t interested,” she said. Many of her students jump at the chance to go overseas. “They see this as their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If they can take it, they’re going to do it.”
The challenge is how to make studying abroad work during the fairly narrow window of their studies. While Kirkwood has some more traditional cultural-immersion programs in places like Italy and Ireland, many of its programs start with the curriculum, making sure the international experience integrates with what students are learning on campus. Then intercultural components are added on.
That can mean making practical choices. Studying in Canada and Australia, two of Kirkwood’s key partners, may not be as big of a cultural leap as other parts of the world. But those countries offer the ease of studying in English, and they have similar vocational systems to the United States. “You’ve got to think, where is it going to work?” Wood said.
Kirkwood, which routinely ranks among the top community colleges for study-abroad participation, has a long history of marrying international experiences with technically focused education. Wood, who has been at Kirkwood for 15 years, traced that mindset to the college’s first international-education director — who was also an agriculture dean.
But Kirkwood has continued to try new approaches, expanding its virtual-education offerings since the pandemic. For instance, Kirkwood students studying electronics have connected with classes in France, working together to build circuits remotely.
Meanwhile, Davidson-Davie sent a group of students to France this spring, for a short-term study experience focused on French language and culture.
The study-abroad trip grew out of a “boot camp” organized by the French embassy that is focused on bringing students from American community colleges to France. The program, which was started in 2017, is meant to encourage more Americans to study in France and to diversify the foreign students who study on French campuses, said Benoit Labat, a higher-education and French-language attaché.
This year, the boot camp brought 60 students from 31 community colleges to four different college sites around France for two-week programs focused on issues of sustainability. Two-thirds of those participating were the first in their family to go to college.
Surveys of participants found that most hope to study abroad again. And two dozen French universities have already submitted proposals to be hosts next summer, Labat said.
In addition to the students, the program also included eight community-college administrators. One of the goals of the boot camp is help make long-lasting institutional ties between French and American colleges.
That’s what happened with Davidson-Davie, which, after sending two people to participate in the program in 2018, connected with a technical university in Bordeaux.
LaVenture, the international director, has been running study-abroad programs at Davidson-Davie for more than two decades. She thought the experience should be available to community-college students across North Carolina, not just those at institutions with offices like hers.
“Since most colleges don’t have the capacity,” LaVenture said, “we can do it.”
The first 20 students, from across North Carolina’s two-year college system, traveled to France in the spring of 2022. With support from the French government, each student received a $750 scholarship to take part in the program, which had a theme of entrepreneurship and technology.
In the fall, the French and American partners organized a virtual exchange. When students traveled to France in June, some of them were able to stay with host families they had met virtually. Although the program no longer received grant support, each of the six participating colleges awarded scholarships to help students to defray the costs, LaVenture said.
Also along: Two faculty members from outside Davidson-Davie who were interested in doing their own programming. “I’m happy to proselytize,” LaVenture said.
