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In a report by the Institute of International
Education (IIE), which tracks the figures in its annual “Open Doors” report,
Dartmouth ranks third in the nation among doctoral degree granting institutions
in undergraduate study abroad participation, with a participation rate of 60.9
percent. That ranking is up seven spots from the 2006 report. Of other Ivy
League schools, only the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Harvard
made the list, with participation rates of 34.2 percent, 30.8 percent, and 28.7
percent, ranking 28th, 34th, and 40th respectively.
Sarah Stern ’08 (left) and Caleb Ballou ’08 explored Milford Sound during
Dartmouth’s New Zealand Foreign Study Program in the winter of 2007.
Based at the University of Auckland, the program is offered jointly by the
Department of Anthropology and the Program in Linguistics and Cognitive
Science. (Photo by Andrew Klein ’08)
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“Dartmouth is unique among our peers, not only because of our extremely high
participation rates and the length, depth, and variety of our offerings, but
also because our extensive programs have been in operation for 50 years,” says
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Carol Folt, who is also
the Dartmouth Professor of Biological Sciences. “Moreover, while most of our 48 programs include living with
families or studying with students and faculty from other countries, all are
led by Dartmouth faculty, which is unusual. This ensures the academic quality
of study abroad remains as high as our on-campus offerings.” Most schools use
third-party providers of study abroad programs for their students, explains
Folt.
According to the IIE report, the number of U.S. students studying abroad is
on the rise, with an 8.5 percent increase over 2006. Although Western Europe
remains the most popular destination for American students, the number of
students traveling to Asia and South America has grown significantly. The
numbers at Dartmouth mirror this overall trend, says Lindsay Whaley, associate
dean of the faculty for international and interdisciplinary studies and
professor of classics and linguistics, who notes that all of Dartmouth’s recent
and soon-to-be developed off-campus programs are located in non-European
countries.
A number of factors account for Dartmouth’s high rate of participation, says
Whaley. “Primarily, it’s because study abroad is so embedded in the culture of
the place,” he says. “Dartmouth has been committed to international study and
service abroad since World War II. Many students choose Dartmouth specifically
to participate in study abroad, and even those who don’t come for that reason
realize once they get here that it’s the thing to do.”
Dartmouth’s year-round, four-term school year makes study abroad a very
attractive choice for Dartmouth students as well. The quarter system and the
Dartmouth D-Plan (which provides for one term away from campus during the
sophomore and junior years), allows students the opportunity to do significant
off-campus study without spending half a year—one-eighth of their college
career—off campus. More terms also give students the option to do two study
abroad programs, an option that many Dartmouth students choose, says Whaley,
often using D-plan flexibility to pair their off-campus study with an
additional term of service and travel abroad.
“Dartmouth faculty are deeply committed to these programs. They take great
pleasure in personal contact enabled by programs and the incredible growth that
they see in their students over the course of the term,” says Folt. “And you
can imagine that working for a term in the great cities, museums, theaters of
the world, in tropical rainforests of Central America, in the parks of Tanzania
and elsewhere is stimulating to faculty as well as students.”
Dartmouth, home of the Dickey
Center for International Understanding, has a long tradition of promoting
cross-cultural exchange, and Whaley says that above all, this is what Dartmouth
students take from time studying abroad.
“They learn an awareness of what it means to be a foreigner, and that the
world is a big place and there are lots of different perspectives on things.”
Whaley adds that students also benefit from developing and refining
skills—languages for example, but also cross-cultural communication, and the
ability to navigate cultural boundaries. “And of course,” he says, “they’re
taking good classes and learning a lot about a particular subject matter, and
they’re getting fieldwork experience they can’t get anywhere else.”
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