Abstract
Study abroad programs (SAPs) are desirable experiential learning opportunities that can enrich students and faculty alike. Faculty participate in SAPs because their immersive learning contexts offer a variety of personal and professional benefits, including the chance to meet new research contacts, tour cultural sites, and get to know students in a more informal context. Despite these benefits, SAPs contain a substantial shadow side for faculty and involve unanticipated temporal, financial, and physiological costs. Additionally, risks—some of which can never be fully avoided—also remain sources of stress and anxiety. This study uses a qualitative approach to identify and shed light on these understated issues that are typically relegated to the shadow. Questionnaires and semistructured interviews with experienced SAP faculty leaders provide evidence for these elements, which is the first step in aligning faculty expectations with the likely realities that await them abroad. The study concludes with practices and strategies to mitigate some of the costs and risks that faculty may face before, during, and after their involvement in an SAP.
It was romanticized, initially. And I looked at is as a cool thing to do. It seemed fun and exciting. Plus, you get paid to go to Europe and see cool things. Part of it not living up to the vision is the students being more interested in getting drunk than seeing a new culture.
Study abroad programs (SAPs) are engaged-learning experiences (Nikolova & Andersen, 2017; Stone & Petrick, 2013) that can influence students for a lifetime (Hopkins, 1999; Lutterman-Aguilar & Gingerich, 2002). Administrators and accreditors encourage SAPs (Forray & Woodilla, 2009) because “with the increase in globalization comes the need for universities to graduate students with a global perspective” (Zhuang, King, & Carnes, 2015, p. 32), and student participants report improved cultural competence (Kitsantas, 2004; Sutton & Rubin, 2004), higher academic scores (Miller-Perrin & Thompson, 2014), expanded worldviews (Dwyer, 2004), and increased cultural sensitivity (Olson & Lalley, 2012).
Positive student experiences are well-documented (Hadis, 2005; Stone & Petrick, 2013); however, faculty experiences can differ greatly (Festervand & Tillery, 2001; Hamza, 2010). As a form of experiential learning (EL), SAPs require extensive faculty involvement before, during, and after the trip (Dewey & Duff, 2009). SAP faculty report expectations of rewarding learning opportunities for students, but these expectations may not align with their lived reality or with the messages faculty receive about SAPs (Sandgren, Elig, Hovde, Krejci, & Rice, 1999).
This exploratory study identifies understated SAP faculty experience elements through a questionnaire and follow-up interviews that address the research question, “What unspoken or unanticipated aspects constitute the shadow side of SAPs for faculty?” Seventeen respondents from 10 institutions shared their SAP experiences, resulting in several contributions. First, this study provides a rich description of the lived realities of SAP faculty. Second, it addresses the need for a dialogue to reduce unanticipated SAP costs and risks (Leuthge, 2004). Finally, to document best practices, it offers strategies that faculty employed to improve their own SAPs. These strategies illuminate the shadow side of SAPs and hold value for faculty, staff, and administrators.
Study Abroad Programs
As a form of EL, SAPs incorporate travel to pursue academic, professional, and cultural goals (Hopkins, 1999). Time commitments and immersion intensities vary, resulting in programs ranging from short-term study tours to long-term exchange programs (Engle & Engle, 2003). Management SAPs tend to focus on business site visits, cross-cultural issues, and international competition and require students to integrate new information with previously held assumptions. The faculty-focused SAP literature addresses administrative issues (Lokkesmoe, Kuchinke, & Ardichvili, 2016; Peng, Van Dyne, & Oh, 2015), but SAPs take time and effort beyond the course design (Howard & Keller, 2009). Faculty must organize the trip and then deal with in-country student issues such as homesickness, alcohol consumption (Hummer, Pederson, Mizra, & LaBrie, 2010), and romantic entanglements (Wright & Larsen, 2016). Faculty also act as subject matter experts, disciplinarians, and institutional ambassadors. These myriad issues are misaligned with the received view of SAPs as wholly positive opportunities.
The Organizational Shadow
The shadow is an archetype derived from Jungian psychology (Jung, 1968) that focuses on portions of the self that are intentionally or unintentionally repressed, censored, or rejected to maintain a positive self-image. Organizations develop shadows (Kostera & Kociatkiewicz, 2010) from the “facts which organizations wish to deny about themselves, due to the threat posed to self-image . . . and more generally, the need to be viewed in a favourable light by others” (Bowles, 1991, p. 378). In EL, censored facts (Fitzgerald, Oliver, & Hoxsey, 2010) relate to the faculty activities necessary to generate effective pedagogical opportunities. The shadow’s destructive power can be lessened by assimilating previously concealed elements into the conscious personality (Jung, 1968), but this creates a conundrum for institutions, as awareness may also cause novice faculty members to avoid SAPs. Consequently, understated facts about organizational support, costs, and risks remain hidden to maintain a favorable view of faculty SAP participation, and, when left to “accumulate at the margins” (Kostera & Kociatkiewicz, 2010, p. 258), form the shadow side of SAPs.
Data Collection, Analysis, and Results
The dearth of research on faculty SAP experiences necessitated an exploratory approach to the shadow side of SAP involvement. To that end, this study proceeded in two stages, beginning with a questionnaire followed by interviews with a subset of respondents. Questionnaire items included “How many times have you been involved with study abroad?,” “Would you recommend study abroad to a colleague— why or why not?,” and demographics. We pretested the instrument with four faculty members and two graduate research assistants before soliciting responses from 25 known faculty colleagues from management programs in U.S.-based colleges of business. We received 17 responses from 10 institutions for a response rate of 68%. Within this sample, 71% have tenure, 65% are employed at non–research-intensive institutions, and 52% identify as female. Table 1 presents additional descriptive statistics.
Sample Descriptive Statistics.
For each category, n = 17. bDue to rounding, not all category percentages sum to 100.
We conducted semistructured interviews with five respondents who expanded on their questionnaire responses. Each audio-recorded interview included two researchers, ranged from 22 to 48 minutes in length, and was professionally transcribed within 24 hours. Table 2 presents the interview protocol.
Semistructured Interview Protocol.
Note. SAP = study abroad program.
Researchers imported the interview transcripts into QDAMiner (provalis.com) for text analysis (Eisenhardt & Bourgeois, 1988) and iterative content analysis (Charmaz, 2006). Consistent with the concept of the shadow as consciously or unconsciously minimized elements that maintain a positive self-image (Fitzgerald et al., 2010), researchers identified issues that were beyond faculty expectations, contradicted the received view of SAPs as a wholly positive experience, and if shared, could dissuade other faculty from participating in SAPs. This heuristic resulted in two themes related to the shadow side of SAPs: shadow costs and shadow risks. Following each interview, the two researchers (1) discussed and refined their notes and (2) coded each transcript independently for the two themes while developing a codebook for subthemes. After reconciling differences and finalizing a common codebook for the questionnaires and transcripts, the codebook was locked and applied to the questionnaires and transcripts. Table 3 presents the main themes, subthemes, and example quotes.
Themes, Subthemes, and Example Quotes for Shadow Costs and Shadow Risks.
Note. SAP = study abroad program.
Shadow Costs for Faculty
SAPs require substantial faculty effort (Howard & Keller, 2009); however, the first main theme was that of shadow costs in excess of faculty expectations.
Temporal Costs
The first cost-related subtheme dealt with time. Respondents acknowledged expecting temporal costs prior to the SAP but also referenced the shadow by noting (1) how much greater the time commitments actually are and (2) the range of unanticipated activities that they engage in. One respondent said, “Study abroads are worth the effort, but faculty should be aware that it is much more work and time than they are anticipating.” Another noted that the investment is not always worth the outcome: “We don’t get enough credit for these trips. It takes a large amount of time.” Furthermore, temporal costs can extend into periods when faculty would not ordinarily interact with students: “In the middle of the night, I was in bed and I hear this raucous outside yelling [. . .] and I realize that it’s [our students] making the noise.” These commitments wear on faculty, who may ultimately lean away from SAPs. In the words of another respondent, “I’m at the point that my time is so valuable . . . I don’t really want to do [study abroad anymore].” When even experienced faculty members face greater-than-anticipated time commitments, the shadow becomes evident.
Financial Costs
The second cost-related subtheme deals with financial costs before, during, and after the SAP. Although some respondents noted that SAPs can be a lucrative source of income, compensation varied widely across institutions. Before the SAP, budgets are based on projected exchange rates but subject to amendment. During the SAP, some faculty incur expenses on personal credit cards for group purchases. After the SAP, some respondents were reimbursed for fewer expenses than expected. Some faculty were not compensated for leading an SAP at all. One respondent remarked, “We don’t get paid or even a course release for the Fall and Spring trips, only Summer.” Respondents also identified opportunity costs: “You could teach summer [instead] and take a really nice trip and not have to be responsible for students.” Regardless of compensation, unanticipated financial costs can be a challenge. Even with extensive up-front budgeting, “things almost always cost more than you expect,” and this shadow element conceals the full picture of costs and compensation. Faculty who experience unexpected financial costs may discontinue their SAP involvement; as one respondent said, “It’s cheaper and more fun to travel on your own.”
Physiological Costs
The third cost-related subtheme deals with the physiological toll stress and illness take on SAP faculty. Respondents mentioned anticipated issues such as jet lag and general fatigue, but travel can take an unexpectedly physical toll when “the commitment to student safety is a 24/7 concern and stressor.” Respondents noted lasting effects on perceptions of their students, institutions, and society: “I lose a little bit of faith in humanity on each trip based on student behavior.” Many of these costs were greater than expected, suggesting that physiological shadow costs go beyond worrying about missed flights.
Shadow Risks for Faculty
The second main theme that coders identified was shadow risks. Risks differed from costs in that even if they did not come to pass, the potential for harm was a decision-making factor. Nearly every respondent described risks, some of which loomed large enough to convince experienced SAP faculty to discontinuing their involvement.
Relational Risk
Respondents indicated that one of the most rewarding parts of SAPs is getting to know people in a less formal context. They described the benefits of “seeing my nontraveled students suddenly realize the benefits of learning about different cultures” and “getting to know the students well,” but these carry risks as well. Relational risk describes the unexpected impact that long hours and close quarters can have on relationships with students and colleagues. One respondent noted, “That last group [of students] finished me off. It was just too many mean girls. That was my big revelation that it’s not worth it for me.” This theme of relational risk also applied to collegial relationships: “I’ve been on study abroad trips with people that I don’t get along with. That is taxing.” The shadow side is the way SAPs can strengthen some relationships but weaken others.
Legal Risk
Many respondents also mentioned their perception of personal legal risk. One said, “I always worry about our legal responsibilities,” while another said, “Universities haven’t figured out how to handle the liabilities for students travelling abroad.” Nine respondents indicated that they attended formal institutional training sessions with modules focused on student safety and legal policies. Despite this training, one respondent advised, “[Protect yourself, because] the university won’t have your back if a student gets hurt. . . . My insurance agent told me to quit doing these trips because they created a personal liability.” Legal risk constitutes a shadow issue because personal liability is unknown until after an issue unfolds overseas.
Professional Risk
The third subtheme is professional risk. Despite the expectation that SAP participation sends favorable signals about commitment to students and institutions, respondents noted that SAP involvement could be a career-limiting move. One associate professor said, “It might not be the best way to set oneself up for the tenure process,” and a full professor advised, “If you don’t have tenure, don’t do it. . . . You don’t want to be known as the person who is spending their summer running around Europe with students.” This perception that faculty—especially untenured faculty—will bear the professional risk can shrink the pool of potential SAP leaders, creating an element of the SAP shadow for institutions that want an active pipeline of interested faculty.
In sum, these three risks exemplify the adage that “no good deed goes unpunished,” when faculty who assume the temporal, financial, and physiological costs also need to consider potential risks related to personality clashes, lawsuits, or tenure votes. Each risk presents the shadow side by illustrating a reality not often fully described in the literature or the SAP marketing. Because faculty members voluntarily participate in SAPs, an exhaustive discussion of potential risks may diminish interest. There is an incentive to highlight the personally fulfilling aspects and to downplay the potential costs and risks of leading an SAP, so keeping these issues in the shadow may benefit the organization and its programs at the expense of the individual.
Discussion
Beyond risks and costs, respondents also described plenty of benefits associated with their participation in SAPs, including a renewed interest in teaching, “I learn something new every single time I go,” and broadening horizons: “Getting to share that kind of experience with students who would never otherwise be exposed is tremendously rewarding to me.” This “lightbulb” moment is described as the best part of SAPs, but shadow costs and risks can still change the value proposition and lead to burnout (Eckert, Luqmani, Newell, Quraeshi, & Wagner, 2013). A respondent who had led five SAPs remarked, “At my age, it’s not how you want to spend your time,” suggesting that SAPs exact a toll.
SAP shadow elements can stem from varied sources, including inexperience or naïveté, poor planning with students or university offices, or an incomplete accounting of risks and costs from more experienced faculty members. In acknowledging these costs and risks, respondents also offer guidance for faculty to improve their own SAPs. In many cases, these strategies are field-tested and have worked well in the past. In other cases, respondents offer hard-learned lessons so that other faculty members can avoid repeating mistakes. Both forms of guidance represent touchstones; as such, these recommendations shed light on SAP involvement. Rather than attempting to dissuade faculty, many respondents note that this is a form of EL that faculty should not be afraid of but should be more informed about ahead of time.
Save Time and Money: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
Although many universities provide SAP support offices (Whalen, 2015), most respondents noted that informal mentorship was their most useful resource because it produced program-specific information. One respondent noted, “[Another faculty member] shared her syllabus and helped me understand what I needed to do.” Multiple respondents recommended reducing workloads by delegating tasks to professional travel groups or staff chaperones, which echoes literature (Barr, 2013). Faculty can also look to broader initiatives such as the Maximizing Study Abroad Project (Paige, Harvey, & McCleary, 2012). As faculty develop their own resources, exposure to ideas at conferences and forums can reduce time and effort, particularly for inaugural trips (Howard & Keller, 2009).
Protect Yourself: Structure Programs for Well-Being
To minimize unanticipated physiological costs and legal risks, respondents described using interviews and orientations to screen student applicants ahead of time. Some SAPs also use personal conduct contracts to communicate behavioral expectations. One respondent recommended minimizing free time to reduce in-country problems: “I don’t think there should be free weekends. [Maybe] an option of, ‘You can go see this with [Professor A] or that with [Professor B].’ Other respondents noted lower stress levels by reducing the student-to-faculty ratios and exchanging multiple forms of contact information. Respondents and research (Sachau, Brasher, & Fee, 2010) also suggest fighting the temptation to fit everything into one trip to protect faculty time and health. Finally, multiple respondents and research (Gordon & Smith, 1992) recommend securing an individual insurance policy.
Keep it Professional: Reputation Maintenance
To mitigate reputational risk, the strongest advice from respondents was to get involved with SAPs only after tenure. This recommendation related to job security if a trip should go badly and the priority of research productivity at an early career stage. Using SAP-specific language also clearly communicates expectations. One full professor said, “We don’t call them trips. We’re trying to get everyone to say ‘program.’ It makes it sound less like a boondoggle.” Respondents also advocated maintaining professional boundaries: “You don’t ever want to start drinking with students.” Another respondent used a nonfaculty chaperone from the Academic Affairs office to maintain professionalism by separating roles between teaching and nonteaching staff. Taken together, these recommendations offer strategies for faculty to plan their own SAPs.
Boundary Conditions
This exploratory study is purposely bounded in scope in several ways. First, it focuses exclusively on identifying faculty perceptions of SAP shadow elements. Additional research could incorporate perspectives from other stakeholders, such as administrators, chaperones, professional tour organizers, and students to more fully understand the constellation of shadow elements associated with SAPs. The inclusion of these additional voices would make for more robust SAPs that account for a variety of expectations from the experience. Second, this study relies on a sample of faculty with direct SAP experience. Future research could compare this to faculty members without SAP experience to better understand whether these issues influence rates of participation. Third, although the SAP host countries in this sample vary widely (e.g., China, Ireland, Costa Rica), all of the respondents are employed in the United States. Expanding on this study to include perceptions of faculty from other countries could be useful to explore home country culture and SAP shadow elements. Finally, the breadth of faculty experiences identified through this exploratory study offer additional research opportunities. Some faculty found SAPs lucrative, while others received unexpectedly low reimbursements, suggesting that shadow elements can vary. A closer analysis of these issues could generate insights into how shadow elements change over time as faculty members gain experience with particular programs.
Conclusion
SAPs can be a rewarding form of EL for students and faculty alike, but meaningful and successful SAPs do not happen in a vacuum. They result from hours of work by faculty who are also willing to assume that despite unanticipated costs and risks, the end result will be worth it for everyone involved. Understanding the shadow weakens its destructive potential (Bowles, 1991), so faculty who approach SAPs with their eyes wide open can spend less time worrying and more time providing their students with the kind of experience that make these programs so worthwhile.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the constructive comments that the anonymous reviewers and the editors provided on earlier drafts of this article. Additionally, we want to acknowledge our colleagues from various institutions who participated as respondents. Without their candid firsthand insights, this study would not have been possible.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
