Expanded Opportunities for Off-Campus Study Reflect Student Interests

Study tropical island biodiversity in Panama, public health in Thailand, or language and culture in Morocco. With Knox College's recent addition of more than 40 pre-approved study abroad programs, students who want to study off-campus will encounter a simpler application process as they choose from nearly 100 different opportunities.

The additions reflect Knox students' interests, in terms of geographic locations and topics they want to explore in depth.

"I wanted students to have good information about less-frequented locations and program options for study abroad (such as computer science study in Hungary)," said Brenda Tooley, director of the Eleanor Stellyes Center for Global Studies, which coordinates Knox's study abroad and off-campus programs.

"Quite a few students already seek out opportunities for study in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa—and that's wonderful! We also have many students going on excellent programs in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark, of course. It's good to have information about the rich variety of program opportunities readily available to interested students."

"The idea was not to compete with our own strong programs with a language and culture focus, but to add opportunities for students through programs with emphasis on complex global issues of interest to students in majors across the college—such as sustainability, development and its various impacts, globalization, climate change—that provide opportunities for research," she added.

For many years, Knox students have been able to participate in any off-campus or study abroad program for which they get approval. If a student is interested in a program that isn't on Knox's pre-approved list, the student may petition for permission to apply for it. The deadline for that process is in December, earlier than for the pre-approved programs, and most of those petitions are favorably received.

Adding programs to the pre-approved list will result in a smoother, less complicated application process for students, Tooley said.

Knox students already have a track record of participating in some of these additional opportunities, which take place on six different continents and represent a geographic expansion for the College's pre-approved off-campus programs. The new set of pre-approved programs also offer generous financial aid and scholarship opportunities for students.

The newly added programs provide students with the chance to study international relations, psychology, and peace and conflict in Israel; business, engineering, arts, and sciences in United Arab Emirates; global health and development policy in Switzerland; and other themes and academic disciplines in additional countries. These include opportunities in international studies, environmental studies, science and math, and programs with intensive research and mentored independent project options.

About 50 percent of Knox students participate in study abroad and off-campus programs at some point in their undergraduate education. That's a dramatic increase from just four years earlier, when about 32 percent of Knox undergraduates participated in study abroad, either in term-length programs or short-term immersion programs.

Knox is among the U.S. higher education institutions participating in Generation Study Abroad, a five-year initiative of the Institute of International Education (IIE). By the year 2020, Generation Study Abroad aims to double the number of U.S. students who study abroad. According to IIE, fewer than 10% of U.S. undergraduate students study abroad.

In 2016, Generation Study Abroad recognized Knox and 11 other U.S. higher education institutions for already exceeding their goals to boost students' participation in study abroad.