Point: Counterpoint

Graduate Education Abroad

Make Study Abroad an Integral Part of U.S. Graduate Programs

By Elizabeth Brewer

Overseas study in the U.S. shifted in the early 20th century from individual students seeking graduate degrees overseas, chiefly in Germany, to organized programs that took undergraduates abroad for language, literature, and culture studies. During the 1993-94 academic year, 45 percent of international students in the U.S. were studying at the graduate level. In contrast, only 8.7 percent of U.S. students overseas were studying at the graduate level in 1989-90.

Why should so few American graduate students study abroad? The opportunities are there.

Roughly 36 percent of over 790 of the programs listed in the 1994-95 Academic Year Abroad offer opportunities for graduate study abroad. Increasingly, universities abroad offer specialized opportunities for graduate study, often in the form of 1-year master's degrees. Recent bachelor's degree graduates are taking advantage of these to add a credential to their resume, gain overseas experience, or stave off unemployment. A strong argument can be made for study abroad as an integral part of U.S. graduate education.

The Inhibitors to Study Abroad

The 1990 report National Mandate for Education Abroad:Getting on with the Task, by the National Task Force on Undergraduate Education Abroad, called on institutions to increase the number of undergraduates studying abroad and to address inhibitors to study abroad. Among these are lack of institutional commitment, faculty indifference or hostility to study abroad, curricula whose narrowness prevent study abroad, students' lack of foreign language proficiency, insufficient support services at home and abroad, the paucity of information about study abroad opportunities, and funding difficulties.

All of these inhibitors are even more pronounced at the graduate level. Departments usually offer a curriculum with few electives. This discourages graduate study abroad at least until completion of required coursework. Graduate students are either funded by their departments in the form of scholarships and teaching assistantships or they have to juggle work and study. Finally, if students have not learned a foreign language before embarking on graduate study, chances are they will not learn one as a graduate student.

Encouraging Study Abroad

My own university sends students overseas at nearly every stage of their studies. Our study abroad opportunities are tied into the curriculum, into the regional research interests of faculty and students, and into partnerships with overseas scholars and institutions. We have tried to limit costs so as not to discourage participation. For example, each year students can spend a semester or year engaged in coursework or research at partner institutions in Germany. Because we match tuition scholarships for the German students who come to us, our partner institutions offer our students small scholarships to help support their living costs. We award credit for the coursework, and charge a maintenance of status fee rather than tuition for the period the students spend abroad.

Because our students frequently do not come to us with the language skills for coursework in German, we have negotiated two additional arrangements with our German partners: Each summer, our students can enroll in German language study at one of our partner institutions, funded by that institution and the Carl Schurz Society of Bremen. Our foreign language department permits graduate students to audit courses at no cost. A second arrangement allows students to teach philosophy at two of our partner institutions. An active program of student and faculty exchanges promotes collaboration in research and teaching. We now are exploring similar professional development opportunities with university partners in South Africa.

Summer Enrichment Programs

Other programs offer summer opportunities. Each summer our students join students from 17 countries in East and Central Europe and the former U.S.S.R. in a credit-bearing school in Cracow, Poland. Exploring themes of democratization and diversity, students gain perspectives on these issues in discussions they would never have at home. Furthermore, our faculty, who teach the courses along with local counterparts, find that their research and teaching are enriched by the experience. A similar program takes a group of students and faculty to Italy each year, where they join a program sponsored by the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.

Finally, through a private donor we are able to sponsor summer field research grants for students working in Latin America. Recipients generally use their grants to explore archival resources and sites for future research. This relatively low-cost program (grants average $1,800) produces significant results. The students return to produce better master's theses and dissertation proposals and competitive proposals for external funding from such sources as Fulbright, Wenner-Gren Fellowships, Social Science Research Council, and the NSEP. Furthermore, they are able to share their results with other students and with faculty in seminars and workshops.

 ELIZABETH BREWER is Associate Dean for Student Affairs at The Graduate Faculty of The New School for Social Research.