Pilot Program: Building Pathways to Global Careers for Community College Students

CCID, GCCTN, and University of Toledo band together to remove barriers for students

Community college students represent a disproportionately small percentage of students who participate in gateway opportunities important to pursuing careers in foreign service and global affairs. Internationalization opportunities, such as study abroad and nationally competitive government scholarships involving global learning, are often prerequisites to pursuing these types of careers.

Many community college international offices do not have the resources necessary to effectively disseminate information to students about internationalization opportunities that lead to these types of career pathways. This disconnect between internationalization opportunities and career pathways creates barriers to global learning and the pursuit of careers in foreign service and global affairs for community college students. This pilot seeks to address some of these barriers for community college students.

Project Partners

Community Colleges for International Development (CCID)

Founded in 1976, CCID is a global consortium of community, technical and vocational colleges dedicated to helping its members internationalize their campuses through capacity building initiatives for student mobility and curriculum innovation. As the premier organization for international education at community colleges, we are uniquely positioned to assist with developing and promoting programs that seek to address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in study abroad and expand access to these programs to underrepresented student populations.

Global Community College Transfer Network

Global Community College Transfer Network (GCCTN) is a non-profit dedicated to reducing knowledge barriers to global education opportunities for community college students and those at underserved public institutions, while building a platform to connect current community college and transfer students with recruiters, stakeholders, and participants within the foreign affairs landscape.

University of Toledo, Judith Herb College of Education 

The Internationalization Research Group (IRG), housed in the Judith Herb College of Education at the University of Toledo, consists of faculty researchers dedicated to studying the internationalization experiences of students. CCIRG researchers worked with the executive staff of CCID and with directors of international offices at community colleges nationally to develop the Community College Student Internationalization Experiences Survey (CCSIES) to examine the impact of student curricular and co-curricular internationalization involvements with academic and affective outcomes.

Project Overview

The goal of this project will be to expand access to global learning opportunities at community colleges, increase the number of community college students applying for nationally competitive international opportunities and increase students’ knowledge about careers in foreign service and global affairs. To meet this goal, the pilot will help participating colleges build structured, institutional funnels for information from partners at IIE, American Councils, Gilman Scholarship, Critical Language Scholarship and other opportunity providers. The result will be a streamlined approach to sharing and disseminating information about various programs to students and an increase in the number of students taking advantage of global opportunities and career pathways in US government agencies.

Twenty community colleges will be selected to participate in the pilot to achieve the goals of the project.

Participating colleges will receive the following:

• Free access to the Community College Students Internationalization Experience Survey (CCSIES) to help colleges better understand the internationalization experiences of their students and the impacts they have on student success metrics.
• Created by faculty from the University of Toledo and the executive staff from Community Colleges for International Development, the Community College Students Internationalization Experience Survey (CCSIES) is an online survey program for community colleges that documents students’ curricular and co-curricular internationalization experiences. It has been designed so that community colleges can track student involvement in internationalization experiences, and explore the impact of these involvements with academic and affective outcomes, including the likelihood of persisting and graduating from the college, academic achievement, familiarity with internationalization opportunities, and self-confidence in ability to work in the global economy and to be involved in the future with international activities.
• Access for students from participating institutions to register for summer/early fall workshops to help prepare students for applying for the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship and the Critical Language Scholarship.
• Information about and access for students to attend Global Community College Transfer’s summer Institute and apply for mentoring opportunities.
• Curated information from CCID and Partners on a wide range of scholarships and international program opportunities from our partners at American Councils, Gilman, Department of State, Cultural Vistas, First Trip and more!
• Access to a network of community college educators via pilot orientation and semester check-ins to discuss and brainstorm best practices to expand access to global learning on campus.

Participating colleges will agree to the following:

• Identify one individual (faculty or staff) at the institution as the pilot lead who will be responsible for attending a virtual pilot orientation, one virtual fall meeting, and one virtual wrap-up meeting.
• Agree to disseminate the Community College Students Internationalization Experience Survey (CCSIES) to their students in early fall 2021.
• Agree to work with campus stakeholders to disseminate information about appropriate gateway opportunities and pilot student event opportunities to students.
• Agree to hold at least one campus event (virtual or face-to-face) in early Fall 2021 to promote gateway opportunities to students.

Eligibility:

• Participating institutions must be a community college or an institution that primarily offers 2-year degrees and workforce certificates/diplomas. Institutions outside the United States are welcome to participate but the majority of opportunities discussed will be for students in the United States and/or U.S. citizens. 
• Pilot lead must be a full-time employee (faculty/staff/administrator) of the participating institution.

To apply to be a part of the pilot, please fill out the interest form. Institutions will be selected based on first come basis after prioritizing geographic diversity and diversity in institutional size.