■ CONTINUED ADVOCACY:
“Institutions have to be able to make much more nuanced region-specific, country- specific, sometimes city-specific decisions. And we don’t have a framework or an argument for that right now, but it’s absolutely critical because we’re painting with a very broad brush… I guess what I’m getting at is advocacy, nuance advocacy is absolutely critical to the Forum’s mission and to the future.” – Lorna
• Nuanced advocacy • Forum can be the voice of the industry • Forum can prioritize the voices of the underrepresented in the industry • Advocate for legitimizing education abroad in an academic sense - make sure that they understand that this is a vital and critical component of a student’s academic career. • Direct the conversation of how do we grapple with our identities as intercultural educators, rather than international educators • Boost confidence about the reopening of study abroad
“One of the things that I’ve been hearing more and more from our university partners is what opportunities are there for the Forum to really be the voice for the field, and look to present and speak for the voice of the industry.” – Carri
“But I would love to see the forum do more work in the space of legitimizing education abroad in an academic sense. I think they’re uniquely positioned with its organizational composition to contribute in this space… I think just being the centralized body they are for our field, there’s a lot of opportunity here to really help us legitimize the profession.” – Kyle “We really do do more work than just send students to take classes abroad. I think there’s a lot more to be done in helping those who don’t speak our language, who don’t do this work on a day-to-day basis, understand the sheer breadth and complexities that we are grappling with and the work that we do.” – Kyle “How do we grapple with our identities as intercultural educators, rather than international educators, and find ways to pivot to these modalities that will allow us to accomplish that. Again, the Forum, just because they’ve established credibility as the go-to resource for those of us in the field, this could be an opportunity for them to direct that conversation.” – Kyle “I think we’ve seen more of this with the Forum, especially recently with the pandemic, is an opportunity for advocacy, both at the federal level and then providing some resources for us perhaps for advocacy at the state level, and even at the local level if necessary.” - Tracey
■ RESEARCH:
“Maybe there is kind of a gap in research on the results of this kind of hybrid model. So I think Forum could be a good platform for that kind of research and it would be useful I think for many of us and for many stakeholders to have that from the Forum, which is a trusted institution who can have that kind of level of research.” - Rosa
• As a trusted institution, Forum can do/provide research on hybrid study abroad model • Opportunity for Forum to do industry research • Incentivize industry professionals to contribute to a larger research study by providing data (assists with legitimizing the field)
THE FORUM ON EDUCATION ABROAD // SOAR WHITEPAPER
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