When Curriculum Integration (CI) was started at the University of Minnesota (UMN) Twin Cities campus (UMTC), many of us knew it was the direction in which education abroad needed to go. To get there, though, we needed to work through some barriers. It took a great deal of thoughtful research and work to develop, test, and revise our methodology; to implement it across all academic departments; and to gather feedback and data from and about students to demonstrate the impact and value.

In this brief essay I outline three of the perceived barriers to CI in international education: the perceptions that student interest is low, that international education experiences slow graduation rates, and that international education negatively impacts the integrity and quality of the undergraduate curriculum. Our data-driven strategies, supported by powerful partnerships, formed the core of the Minnesota Model for Curriculum Integration (CI). Some of the model’s goals are as follows:

1. Increase integration of study abroad into all undergraduate majors and minors.
2. Improve faculty/adviser awareness of the contributions that study abroad makes toward creating global citizens and well-educated students.
3. Develop innovative practices, materials, partnerships, and professional alliances.
4. Create long-term institutional change—a more “internationalized undergraduate experience” (Isaacman & Okediji, 2006).

Building the structures for widespread CI at a major research university was the work of a decade.

I conclude this essay by discussing the success in bringing the “Minnesota Model” of CI across the country, with the example of the University of California, San Diego. UC San Diego became the model for the entire UC system on how to develop and implement CI, and the data on time to graduation across a wide range of variables was compelling—so much so that NAFSA asked me to write an article dispelling myths about CI for science and engineering majors.

Barrier #1:  Perceived Student Interest

To get students of all majors, minors, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and economic groups to successfully participate in education abroad, it was critical to address and dispel myths about perceived barriers. And the barriers didn’t exist just among students and their parents.

When I first approached UMTC Director of Admissions and offered to do a workshop on education abroad at “Admitted Students Day,” he was reluctant; he didn’t think the topic would be of interest to students and their parents. He finally agreed that I could be one of the presenters, and gave me a small room that would hold about 25 people. When he came by to see if “anyone had shown up,” he was amazed to see over 100 people crammed into the room. He gave us bigger rooms at future admissions events, and later began to let me address the entire group of prospective students and parents. After a few years, we also heard from admissions staff and academic advisors that students said they had selected UMN because they could study abroad, whatever their major, and still make timely progress toward graduation.

Barrier #2:  Perceived Impact on Graduation Rates

The work of each education abroad professional to prepare for meetings with academic departments, chairs, and deans was critical to finding the right matches to courses required for majors and minors, ensuring that studying abroad did not cause a delay in graduation and cost students more time and money.

I asked the data guru for the UMTC’s academic VPs to run the time-to-graduation numbers for students who had and had not studied abroad (by major, ethnicity, gender, financial situation, etc.). He called after he had run the data, asking me to come to his office and saying there “must be some error,” since the data was so good for those who had studied abroad. After he and I reviewed the data, however, it was clear that there was no error. What we had hoped—that careful planning would allow students of all majors and backgrounds to study abroad without delaying graduation—was indeed happening.

Once Craig Swan, the Academic VP for the Twin Cities campus, received the data, he asked “what do you want, Lynn?” The data was so compelling, as was the experience of the students going abroad and taking courses that would count for their major, that his support was permanent, and he advocated on our behalf with reluctant deans and department chairs.

In fact, the data gathered at UMTC, and later at other campuses across the country, showed that students who participated in education abroad graduated, on average, in less time than those who did not study abroad. In large part, this was due to the careful academic planning done by the students with their academic advisors and with their education abroad advisors, all of whom were trained and had access to on-line information about the programs approved for each major.

Barrier #3:  Perceived Impact on Curriculum and Accreditation

Departmental chairs and faculty are responsible for ensuring that students receive the education needed for their major.  Some departments can create the major without outside controls or input, but some majors must meet national accrediting standards. Physics majors around the US and the world take calculus, for example, and calculus is calculus no matter where you take it.

I remember talking with the chair of one academic department who was reluctant to allow majors to study abroad, believing they might not get the education they needed and that it might delay graduation, make them less successful in subsequent courses, or limit their career success. To address his reluctance, I slid a syllabus from a course offered at one of our partner institutions abroad across the table to him. He reviewed it,  and noted with surprise that “they even use the same text books we do.” Needless to say, I had done my homework.

He became a strong supporter of education abroad for his department.

This kind of one-on-one work was critical to the realization of a strong set of offerings abroad for each major, and our education abroad colleagues became experts and liaisons to each academic department on campus. Gayle Woodruff was an incredible colleague in this (and every) regard. Having also worked in academic advising, she understood the broad range of undergraduate students at UMN, their goals and challenges, and how to best engage them. Woodruff was an insightful and creative force in our curriculum integration work, and led the UMN CI initiatives from January 2007 until her retirement.

Once education abroad programs had been identified for a major, we developed a “major advising page” (MAP 😉 ) that was available online and in print through academic departments, collegiate advisors, and the education abroad office.

Determining which courses could be taken abroad for each major required a great deal of effort and collaboration with our partners abroad (universities and education abroad organizations). Many of them transformed their online and print information to reflect students’ ability to select a program abroad based on their major or minor (or other academic goals, such as learning another language and gaining pre-professional experience through internships or structured volunteer opportunities).

Strategies for Success through Partnerships

The academic VPs at all four of UMN campuses were crucial partners, supporters, and advisors. We first met with them in central Minnesota, an intentional choice signalling that it wasn’t about “coming to the Twin Cities” but about meeting at a location roughly equidistant for all of us. We continued to meet in that central location on Bay Lake, bringing education abroad professionals, faculty, advisors, and administrators together to learn about, discuss, refine, and implement curriculum integration.

The CI colleagues in the Learning Abroad Center (called Global Campus when we began our CI work) were each key to the ability of the University to offer so many outstanding opportunities abroad for students. Also essential were each of the departmental chairs and faculty with whom we worked, and the academic advisors in all of the collegiate advising offices across campus. Their expertise and support allowed curriculum integration to be developed and flourish to the enormous benefit of UMN students.

Dissemination of Curriculum Integration across the United States

Curriculum integration spread across the country over the next years and decades, and it is still being developed on some campuses. The model is strong, and each campus develops and administers it based on the needs of their students and their majors, gleaning insights and specific program offerings from what other US campuses have accepted and are offering.

When I was hired as Dean of International Education at UC San Diego (UCSD) in January 2007, it was in large part due to the success of CI at UMN and at other places where I had done consulting. The integration of education abroad into the curriculum at UCSD was also challenging, as many of the major programs and faculty were top ranked in the country and departments were eager to maintain that quality and ranking. Proceeding much as we had at UMTC, we were able to demonstrate to faculty and chairs that UCSD students would be getting the same high-quality education abroad—in some cases even better—through programs that were identified as excellent matches. The time-to-graduation data run later at UCSD, with even more variables than we examined at UMTC, was as good and in some cases better than the UMTC data.  At UCSD we also found that alumni who had studied abroad donated to UCSD at a higher rate than those who did not study abroad.

Conclusion

The incredible insights, wisdom, and expertise that colleagues like Gayle Woodruff brought to CI and to our collaborations with academic departments, academic advisors, faculty, and administrators created the partnerships that paved the way for students to participate in life-defining experiences abroad. The one-on-one exchanges of ideas, insights, and issues made it possible for students to study, intern, and volunteer abroad without delaying time to graduation. Once they graduated, those experiences in turn propelled students into graduate and professional schools, into amazing employment opportunities, and into becoming globally aware and engaged citizens. They carry on the power of one tradition.