Top Tips
- Plan early (at least 18 months in advance) of your optimal program/course launch date
- Avoid repetition/competition with existing offerings abroad by familiarizing yourself with the courses already offered abroad. Identify gaps in course offerings to increase student interest and participation.
- Consider courses that effectively incorporate the local context
Courses that are most successful in the abroad environment are ones that are designed with the location in mind – they present a unique opportunity for students to develop new skills, knowledge and competencies that they would not be able to obtain on their home campus. These could be special courses that are only offered abroad, or ones that incorporate local speakers, projects, field trips or other engagement opportunities leveraging the local context.
For academic disciplines with tightly sequenced curriculum (e.g. Engineering) that necessitates the replication of main campus courses, students respond well to having the local context incorporated through unique case studies, site visits, guest speakers etc.
Intentionally integrate abroad opportunities into students’ degree progress plan
- Review program requirements and typical progress plans to identify opportunities for students to study abroad (e.g., either by taking electives already in place or by developing courses necessary for students to stay on track for graduation).
Only propose new offerings that will measurably increase study abroad participation
- Only propose new offerings if you identify a gap in offerings abroad
- Identify your target student audience by reviewing data on cohort size, their current enrollment in programs abroad, and then determine how many more students would likely go abroad because of your proposed course/program
Maximize student participation by ensuring the following:
- Ability to meet requirements (including general ones)
- Attractive topics that incorporate the study abroad location
- Early and robust advising
- Broad faculty buy-in
Collaborate with Syracuse Abroad and faculty abroad to develop a realistic plan for courses and programming that is compatible with local resources (faculty availability, facilities, center capacity etc.)
Ensure that the target student audience and the proposed course/program are the priorities for your school/college. Please identify the school/college strategic priorities for study abroad/away through a conversation with your Study Abroad/Away Liaison.
Meeting Academic Needs via Syracuse Abroad Centers: Planning the Abroad Curriculum
A successful curriculum plan abroad needs to meet students’ academic needs. Depending on your degree structure and discipline, you might consider one approach or a combination of different approaches that have a solid track record of working well.
The following diagram illustrates the main approaches to curriculum development and how each has different implications for improving student access.
Approaches to Consider
1. Meeting General Requirements. Since most students across the curriculum need to meet Liberal Arts Core and other general requirements, these types of courses offer the easiest way to maximize participation.
- Top tip: General requirements are especially useful for students combining different majors and minors.
2. Meeting Disciplinary Requirements or Electives. For disciplines with a high number of majors, or ones that are consistently popular with students across different disciplines, you might consider offering 3-6 credits in the major – if you are confident those courses will enroll well. This is a valuable way of adding disciplinary depth for majors or minors to their education abroad.
- Top tip: Courses that fulfill degree requirements for multiple majors and minors, similar to General Requirements, work best because they are less likely to be cancelled because of low enrollment.
3. Meeting the Needs of Cohorts with Tightly Sequenced Curriculum or Shared Requirements. To meet the academic needs of students in such programs, you may consider developing a Special Cohort Program. These involve 9-12 required credits in the major that all students in the abroad cohort take together. These have the advantage of providing focused, in-depth work in the major and building a community of student scholars abroad.
- Top tip: Cohort Programs work very well in a small number of cases: in disciplines that have a tight sequence of required courses or a group of required courses taken together. Typically, these are pre-professional and first/second-year programs.
- At the same time, these programs come with numerous challenges as they can only serve a limited population of students, are dependent on predictable guaranteed enrollment, and can be expensive and labor intensive to set up and maintain.
These are different approaches but not mutually exclusive; curricular pathways can work through one or a combination of these. Ultimately, the best curricular approach is the one that meets the academic needs of students while maximizing access and doing so in a most resource effective way.
Final Tip: Collaborating with Syracuse Abroad
In our experience, the most successful academic programs abroad are those involving close, regular collaboration between the school/college/department and Syracuse Abroad. Each complements the other.
We rely on faculty guidance about curricular offerings based on their specific disciplinary expertise, departmental goals, and student academic needs. At the same time, the course selections and curriculum planning are only part of the process.
- Generally, faculty abroad are in the best position to design the actual course, typically incorporating experiential learning components appropriate to the local context. Wherever helpful, they consult with campus faculty, and these can be fruitful collaborations if structured thoughtfully.
- Schools, colleges and departments have approval over both the final syllabus and the proposed instructor. They are also responsible for academic advising and much of the recruitment of majors and minors.
- Syracuse Abroad communicates outcomes from evaluations and assessment, and integrates students’ intercultural development abroad across their curricular, co- and extra-curricular learning.