Vanessa Barton, Michigan Kinesiology’s academic program manager for global engagement, had already put in years of effort to define the school’s study abroad policies and grow student participation in international programming. It was time to take that same approach to improve the quality of SoK’s study abroad programs.

‘Are our students getting as much out of these experiences as we hope?’ she started by asking herself. ‘Are students only meeting course objectives or are they engaging with the communities they’re visiting? Are Kines international experiences providing students with increased intercultural awareness, broadening their world views, and making them better contributors to diverse teams?’

In response to these questions, Barton partnered with Elena Simpkins, SoK’s manager of DEI, and Jacqueline Freeman, associate librarian and informationist for kinesiology, medical education, nursing, and physical medicine and rehabilitation, to develop a new online course that allows students to prepare for, engage with, and reflect on international experiences.

The course is designed to provide students with the framework and skillset to research and think critically about their global impact, the team says, ensuring that this learning and preparation will continue even after the programming is finished. 

Students will complete sections of the self-paced online course before, during, and after their study abroad experiences. Each module within the course will focus on a distinct goal, such as increasing students’ capacity to navigate intercultural differences or understanding more about themselves, including their subjective cultural beliefs and inherent biases. (Students are also encouraged to think about and establish their own goals for the course.)

Weekly prompts will include questions like, ‘What’s my plan to be successful in this immersive experience?,’ ‘What were my expectations about this place?,' ‘How is the trip comparing to my expectations?,' and ‘What have you continued to do back at home that you started while abroad?'.

Simpkins says she hopes to get students thinking about their impact when they travel, noting that this could range from climate change considerations to being aware of sacred events within a community.

“Instead of ‘I went to Mali,’ we want our students to start asking, ‘What does my presence in Mali mean?’” Simpkins says. “I feel like we would be doing our students a disservice to not better prepare them for what perceptions of them may be when they go to a different country. How people view America elsewhere is not how America views itself.”

Students will also learn to use a range of information sources, including library databases and free internet resources like government websites to investigate topics related to identity and culture through different perspectives.

“It’s important for students to learn to find these other perspectives as they work for a more complete understanding of other cultures and communities,” Freeman says.

At the end of the course, the students will complete an individualized assessment to evaluate whether they’ve achieved their goals and what contributed to their success. Ideally, graduates of the course will be able to explain the value of their study abroad experiences to others — the problems they learned to solve, the levels of empathy they cultivated, the worldviews they’ve broadened and the intercultural communication skills they strengthened.

“All of these skills will help our students as they develop their careers but also build relationships more generally,” Simpkins says. “If they know how to navigate the world in an empathetic way, that will set them up for success on all different kinds of stages.”