With the onset of a new year, the Global Education Office highlighted many of Vanderbilt's 70 international study abroad programs at its annual Study Abroad Fair.
While the national average of students studying abroad is 8 percent, the Vanderbilt student body stands strong with 28-32 percent every year. Due to a stronger global culture and extra efforts made by students and administrators to encourage participation, there has been a 24 percent rise in student involvement in the last year.
Though in the past students with certain majors have been largely left out due to rigorous course requirements and difficulties with AXLE criteria, in the last two years many new programs were created that are specifically aimed for students within these majors.
"We want students from different disciplines to study abroad," said Marie Martin, the assistant director of the GEO. "We have opportunities which we are working on expanding, like engineering abroad, and we want students to know that it's an option."
With the expansion of the programs bringing in more students, financial aid has become very important. For traditional study abroad programs over the fall and spring semesters, most students can apply their Vanderbilt scholarships and financial aid to cover expenses. In addition, scholarship opportunities have been increasing, from those that would pay for a plane ticket to monetary awards.
Despite these program enhancements, another important issue arises.
"A lot of students, because of their majors, like engineers, or whether they are a leader, can't easily leave campus, and their study abroad opportunities only come in the summer," said Vanderbilt Student Government president Joseph Williams. "There is currently no financial aid available and a lot of people may not be able to afford that."
Last spring VSG discussed making financial aid available for summer or Maymester study abroad programs. Since then, VSG has been working with the Vanderbilt administration and many departments on that proposal. Although the details about funding and criteria to receive the financial aid are still in the early stages of negotiation, the proposal itself has been well received so far.
Williams has stated that his big goal is to have some sort of pilot program in place during the semester and hopefully have it finalized for the 2009 summer session. There still remains much to get done, and the biggest goal is to mobilize groups of students to take advantage of this initiative.
"By making it more financially feasible, it opens the door for more students," said Wyatt Smith, VSG vice president.
