Study Abroad and Students with Disabilities: Making it Work at Community Colleges

Diversity is everywhere at today’s community colleges – both in the student population and in the myriad of programs and opportunities available on campus – so students with disabilities merge easily into the campus flow. The combination of open enrollment policies, location and low cost make attending a community college practical for many different people. In fact, one in five people with a disability attended a community college after high school, and they are as equally represented among their non-disabled peers at two-year colleges as in the general population, according to the 2005 National Transition Longitudinal Study II.

Promoting study abroad for community college students, including students with disabilities, is a natural extension of the community college commitment to diversity and the reality of today's global community. The challenge, perhaps, is not whether or how to include disabled students, but rather finding the means for establishing study abroad programs in the first place. Can commuter students with family and job responsibilities afford to go abroad? With limited funds, can they step away from life’s obligations to participate in an off-campus experience? These questions, that faculty and staff at community colleges often conclude are the obstacles to their students’ participation in study abroad, may impact the development of study abroad opportunities at community colleges.

“I think for a lot of students it’s not practical, economically feasible or compatible with their family responsibilities to take off for six or eight weeks. This is the same for students with or without disabilities,” says Dayna Defeo, who dually advises students with disabilities and teaches Spanish at New Mexico State University-Carlsbad, which previously was an independent community college and still offers Associate's degrees. While she values study abroad, and has heard of students going on community or family trips across the border to Mexico, she doesn’t see many students going abroad for academic credit.  
 
Currently, students who traveled abroad through their community colleges for academic credit totaled 4,823 students in 2004-05 according to the Institute of International Education (IIE); while increasing each year, it is still a small fraction of the total number of students attending community colleges nationwide, and only 3% of all study abroad students in higher education even though community colleges serve half of all students.

“I think another issue for all community college students, not just students with disabilities, is money,” says Jill Heffron, Study Abroad Coordinator at the City College of San Francisco. “If the student is disabled then they may not be able to get a job that would allow them to earn the extra money to afford the cost of study abroad. They may also be concerned that if they study abroad they may lose some [state or federal disability-related] benefits.”

Rosalind Latiner Raby may have agreed with all the above reasons, until she, along with Gary Rhodes of Loyola Marymount University, conducted a Coast Community College District research study on the topic. It’s not so much the inability to travel, lack of interest or program costs that prevent community college students from going abroad, explains Raby, Director of California Colleges for International Education, in a 2006 IIE Networker article. In fact, she and Rhodes concluded that the biggest barriers may be institutional – the community colleges’ lack of overseas options, the absence of a central study abroad office and insufficient outreach to students about existing programs.

The biggest barriers may be institutional – the community colleges’ lack of overseas options, the absence of a central study abroad office and insufficient outreach to students about existing programs.

In surveying community college students, the study found that students find creative ways to address personal barriers to participation, whether involving family, work or finances. “Finances alone would not deter 70% of the students surveyed from study abroad,” Raby writes. Nor would full or part-time jobs, although shorter, low-cost programs are helpful.  In the student survey, Raby found that 57% of students have been to another country. They are going to visit family or volunteer in another country and not making the connection of how going overseas fits into their curriculum, or how they could earn credit traveling on an academic program.

Working on barriers that community colleges can address – increasing programs, study abroad staff, and awareness among students – will have a greater impact than focusing on personal challenges that will always be present in diverse community college populations.

Increasing Overseas Options

How can community colleges increase opportunities for all students to go abroad? For example, if Southeast Community College in Nebraska trains students to repair John Deere tractors, become electricians, and work in manufacturing – what study abroad programs are available to these students to practice their trade or improve their skills? Researching existing programs, like the following, is a good place to start:

• The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program, an award for undergraduate students with financial need to study abroad, especially in non-traditional destinations, including students from diverse ethnic backgrounds or who have disabilities,
  

• The Congress-Bundestag Young Professional Exchange, a vocational scholarship program to Germany, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State,
  
• ACCENT International Consortium for Academic Programs, a customized option for creating programs to match majors offered, 
• College Consortium for International Studies, a wide selection of programs from which students can individually participate.

Disability-specific exchange programs, either created by community college faculty or offered by non-profits, may also attract students with disabilities. In particular, students with disabilities from minority backgrounds, who often live at home, may find their families hesitant to allow them to go abroad. For example, Krystle Allen, an African-American student who is blind from Essex County College in New Jersey, and Reveca Torres, a Latina wheelchair user from Harper College in Illinois, traveled abroad to Japan and England respectively through a Mobility International USA summer exchange program. They were able to address their parents’ concerns about their readiness to travel alone because the programs included peers with disabilities and experienced staff. Since going abroad, Allen and Torres have mentored others on ways to reassure nervous parents, and break down that personal barrier to go abroad.

Community colleges could also tap further into the wide variety of non-disability specific overseas programs offered by local non-profit or community organizations. These short-term, service-learning opportunities often attract students who attend community colleges with opportunities to participate over school breaks.

For example, Azulai Booker from Montgomery College in Maryland, an early education major who has a learning disability, interned for a month in the summer at a children’s day center in South Africa through the non-profit, Medical Care Development. Drew Hunthausen, who is deaf-blind and studies sociology at Coast Community College in California, volunteered two years in a row over winter break with his Lutheran church at a juvenile center in Jamaica. Both successfully fundraised before heading abroad and gained practical experience related to their majors, but neither received academic credit for their expense and experience.

“For volunteer projects or non-credit activities, we have some information we hand out and encourage students to do a lot of research. We are happy to answer questions, but we don’t really process those students,” says Carolyn Kadel, Director of International Education at Johnson County Community College in Kansas. “We do have a service project we offer to Mexico, but in general our office deals specifically with credit-based study abroad programs.”

While service-learning experiences are gaining ground as valuable activities for community college students, their promotion as overseas credit-bearing programs isn’t common. Until more community colleges have a full-time study abroad coordinator, volunteering abroad for academic credit depends upon each individual student’s ability to get that credit – either through the admissions office, a counselor or perhaps even a faculty member through independent study, explains Raby.

 
Establishing a Central Study Abroad Office

If education abroad programs are looking to further develop at community colleges, then nearby four-year institutions with established study abroad programs can be a valuable resource. “We have a lot of procedures in place that enable us to work with students with disabilities, but we have fewer resources,” says Carola Smith, Senior Director of International Programs at Santa Barbara City College, who borrowed procedural guidelines and forms from the University of California’s Education Abroad Program based in the same city (see some suggestions from established programs in the blue highlighted box below).

Collaborating with other community colleges in the area through Community Colleges for International Development (CCID) Troika programs, can be one way to address the lack of a central study abroad office, or limited staff time in a new office.

Collaborating with other community colleges in the area through Community Colleges for International Development (CCID) Troika programs, can be one way to address the lack of a central study abroad office, or limited staff time in a new office. Administrative logistics are covered by the CCID central office, and college faculty are allowed to rotate every year in their responsibilities for leading programs. Disability service providers at each community college, who often work in small offices with limited staff too, can then collaborate in advising students with disabilities about studying abroad.

Ideally, more long-term institutional planning for internationalizing the college’s mission, developing an office to coordinate policy across all study abroad programs, and securing funding through general college budgets will make a significant difference, according to Raby. She also suggests using online orientation and re-entry programs and mentorship resources to meet the demands of a non-residential campus, and limited staff resources.

Increasing Outreach on Existing Programs

Having a central office for study abroad doesn’t solve all the issues, according to Heffron from City College of San Francisco, who finds little time as the sole staff member in the office to track and follow-up with the students who drop in to inquire about programs. While she has been able to hire some students to help with outreach, most students arrange to study abroad in one of their last semesters at a community college.  As a result, many do not return to campus long enough to share their experiences with other students. Effective and growing programs depend on active alumni who are willing to be mentors for future students or share their success stories through articles or essays long after graduation. Sometimes providing scholarships that include a follow-up component can make a difference in the likelihood that a student will contribute beyond graduation.

Obtaining stories from study abroad alumni with disabilities or their commitment to do outreach following a program is even more important to reverse the under-representation of people with disabilities in education abroad programs.  Many students with disabilities who participated in international programs through non-profit organizations, heard about these opportunities through community disability organizations they work with or from their parents. These same students report that they were unaware of the many credit-bearing programs that exist on their own campuses or through other community colleges, or thought it was not for them.

“I put out all the study abroad flyers outside our doorway and a student came up to me who is deaf and said ‘Can I even go?’” says Carol Duss, who works in international education at Austin Community College, about a student interested in a scuba diving trip to Mexico over spring break. “I said, ‘Sure.’ He said, ‘What about an interpreter?’ and I said, ‘Well you know, that’s a good question.’ I asked the instructor and he said, ‘Well, I’ll give it a shot.’ I was glad the student was interested in the Mexico program because he thought that he couldn’t go. I ran into the instructor and asked about the student, but the instructor said, ‘No he didn’t enroll, and I really wanted to give it a try.’ That’s too bad.”

Many students with disabilities work less than their non-disabled peers while in college, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics, and often depend on Social Security and Vocational Rehabilitation benefits. As a result, students with disabilities may experience another barrier when it comes to going abroad – a lack of awareness that disability-related income benefits can continue abroad and even be used to pay for overseas educational and living experiences that are directly related to their career path. This is a funding source that community college students without disabilities may not have. Posting information about using Vocational Rehabilitation Funding or Supplementary Security Income on study abroad websites and sharing it with disability offices can change the perception that study abroad isn’t for people with disabilities and prevent more students with disabilities from self-selecting out of applying.

“I don’t have an answer as to why a student doesn’t sign up. It’s a very informal process; the students just come into my office and say, ‘Hi, I’m thinking of studying abroad, what do you have?’ I answer their questions, give them program brochures or other information and send them off to think about it and do more research,” says Heffron. “I may see the students ten more times, and they may or may not sign up, or I may never see the students again.” For underrepresented students, study abroad program leaders have to do outreach and populate the idea of earning credit overseas through a variety of methods, including photos on brochures, statements of non-discrimination, presentations by role models, hiring student workers with disabilities in their office or department, etc.

“A lot people here in Newark, if they are disabled and don’t have the determination and motivation like I do, they just sit around and feel sorry for themselves. They don’t even think that they could actually be part of a program like [study abroad],” says Allen, a minority student with a visual impairment, who attends Essex County College and went to Japan on a summer exchange program. When Allen returned to the United States, she made a point to tell her disability advisor and academic counselor about her experience so that others with disabilities could learn about it. She also wrote an article that was published in the National Youth Leadership Network newsletter, which is distributed to U.S. youth with disabilities ages 15-24.

Disability-related income benefits can continue abroad and even be used to pay for overseas educational and living experiences that are directly related to their career path. This is a funding source that community college students without disabilities may not have.

While concerns about family, health, jobs, and finances are frequently cited as barriers to participation in international exchange programs, untold fears about the experience itself may prevent many students from finding solutions to perceived barriers. “I had never been away by myself before; leaving my family and friends behind. I was scared and excited at the same time because I didn’t know who I was going to meet. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to speak the language, that no one would like me, that I wasn’t going to get out of my experience what I hoped, and that I was going to look silly. The silly worries people worry about,” says Booker, the African-American student with dyslexia who attends Montgomery College. It was her mother’s persistence that helped Booker to overcome her fears and participate in programs in Costa Rica and South Africa.

“I think for community college students in general, part of our goal is to make everybody feel like they could and should do study abroad and that includes students with disabilities certainly,” says Kadel, from Johnson County Community College in Kansas. “We’re positive and realistic about some of the issues they have to think through. We certainly want students to participate in the programs and if there’s anything we can do, we certainly try.”

The next article “Making Arrangements for Study Abroad” includes tips on how to plan for accessibility and inclusion on study abroad programs for students with disabilities.