Spring 2007 Newsletter
IEA Goes Deeper into Study Abroad
Letter from the Managing Director
Those of you who have read our newsletter over the years have noticed that most of our articles focus on Intrax Education Abroad's core program offering: faculty-led study abroad. After customizing study abroad for two decades, IEA has developed a particular expertise and reputation in this field. Word-of-mouth from our network of client-partners, coupled with the exponential growth of short-term study abroad, has resulted in a tremendous amount of requests to develop more and more faculty-led programs.
In order to manage this growth, and continue to offer only the best service to the faculty and students for whom we work, we have made some exciting changes in 2007. Rather than expanding our client-base, IEA is focusing on deepening our existing partnerships with our university partners. This new focus has allowed us to explore innovative ways to help our partners internationalize their campuses and expand their study abroad offerings. As of January, 2007 we have begun implementing the following:
- Allowing students to enroll directly. Traditionally, most of our partner institutions have handled their own recruiting, which consisted almost exclusively of students from their university. Currently, we are implementing a "Direct-to-Student" offering whereby students from a variety of institutions can enroll on-line through IEA's website. This initiative will allow IEA to deepen our partnerships with select schools by developing a program that meets their needs while also helping them recruit additional students. In 2007/2008, we will offer such programs to China and Costa Rica.
- Faculty-development seminars. Following the success of last year's seminar to Italy, IEA led an even more popular session last month to Costa Rica (see article by Lorien Liptack). The wide consensus from participants is that we continue to help institutions offer opportunities for faculty and administrators to experience study abroad destinations first-hand as part of their professional training. IEA is thrilled to be a part of this important trend.
- Focusing on non-traditional destinations. Despite the popularity of our European programs, we have made a concerted effort to encourage our partners to create programs in more "exotic" countries such as South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, India and China (see article by Sue Strow). The many conferences we have attended, the surveys we have conducted, and the faculty we have interviewed all confirm that these destinations not only provide innovative educational programming, but also can make study abroad much more affordable than going to Europe.
- Linking to high school students. Recent research has shown a convergence of trends in the high school and college study abroad. For university administrators, study abroad is now seen as a carrot to entice top students to apply. For high school students, studying abroad earlier is an increasingly important way to differentiate and prepare themselves for the more internationally-focused educational experience that awaits them in college. With our high school division, Intrax Study Abroad (formerly Ayusa Study Abroad), we sit well positioned in this nexus of high school and college and look forward to helping those universities who may want to reach out to their future applicants.
We are very excited about all these initiatives and are looking forward to working more closely with many of our partners. If you'd like to speak to us about any of these ideas, or you have some of your own you'd like to share, please don't hesitate to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.
