The Power of Collaboration to Advance Equity and Inclusion in Global Education

Too often, the responsibility of providing inclusive support for students falls on a single office, person, and/or faculty member. While many practitioners in international education and exchange recognize and vocalize the importance of developing collaborative partnerships across campus and/or an organization, in actuality collaboration across institutional/organizational units is either cursory or not common practice. How can we harness the power of collaboration across units to advance equity and inclusion within global education? How can developing partnerships with CDOs and SIOs help increase buy-in for the importance of global education experiences? How can support for international students be enhanced with thoughtful partnerships developed within our institutions and local communities? How might global education organizations coordinate across departments to ensure inclusive practices from advising to curriculum of course offerings?

 

Acknowledgements

A special thank-you to members of the Diversity Abroad consortium for supporting thought leadership at the intersection of global education and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Introduction

Jinous Kasravi, PhD

Director, Membership and Community | Diversity Abroad

The international education arena has faced staff turnover and changes to budgets in recent years, yet it is more important now than ever to retain diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices and initiatives within the field. We find ourselves charged with mission statements and campus goals to implement DEI within our offices, curricula, and practices. Yet many can agree that it is difficult to implement effectively due to the demands of day-to-day workloads and for those with fewer staff on hand. We regularly task specific individuals in our offices with these responsibilities but do not provide the proper support or resources.

Collaboration across campus units or with education abroad providers is a strategy to offset these challenges and help to develop partnerships. Through such collaboration the work of delivering an institution’s, program’s, or unit’s mission to address DEI does not fall under the discretion of one sole office, but rather creates meaningful dialogue and helps to pull from the resources and knowledge at our disposal. The importance of inclusive programming, advising, and resources comes to the forefront in increasing participation from underrepresented students in some form of global education experience. Faculty and senior leadership get involved and are able to see how those offices around campus, whether working with inbound or outbound students, help to advance the institution’s goals and implement the efforts into their strategic plan.

The following articles in the Fall 2022 edition of the Global Impact Exchange highlight various strategies used for collaboration across campus units, involving students and alumni, institutions worldwide, and effective use of virtual exchange.

Effective collaboration across various units helps create dialogue, foster self-exploration, and provide new or additional perspectives regarding the student populations we are helping. This increased understanding and effort helps to build effective measures and programming. As professionals in the field, we have to be able to acknowledge that it is not a one-size-fits-all approach and this work cannot be completed alone.

As you read the articles, if you are inspired to share how you or your office or organization is collaborating together to advance equity and inclusion in global education, I invite you to reach out and share a best practice with us. We would love to hear from you. Please share your reflections and ideas with us at [email protected]. We also invite Diversity Abroad members to join the conversation on our online community forums.

Editorial Board

The main task of the Editorial Advisory Board is to review article submissions for the Diversity Abroad Quarterly publication. While not a peer-reviewed academic journal, the Diversity Abroad Quarterly publication compiles articles to advance domestic and international conversations around diversity, inclusion, and equity in global education with respect to the thematic focus identified each quarter.

• Paloma Rodriguez - University of Florida | Director, Office of Global Learning
• Jinous Kasravi, PhD - Diversity Abroad | Director of Membership & Community

 

Table of Contents

• Achieving Equitable Global Education Without Mobility
• A Collaborative Model for Integrating Inclusive Practices Across an International Education Curriculum
• Cross-Institutional Collaboration on Curriculum Design, the Visibility of Counter-Narratives, and Allyship in International Education
• Campus-Wide Collaboration to Uplift Equity and Inclusion inInternational Students’ Career Development
• Collaborating for Self, Other, and World Well-Being: Infusing Coaching-Based Practices at Lehigh University
• Collaborating with Vocational Rehabilitation Offices to Support Students with Disabilities in Education Abroad

 

Note: To access the articles, you must be logged in as a licensed member user. Once logged in, the list of articles will appear below.