ABSTRACT
In 2004, editors of IIE Passport, an annual review of study abroad opportunities now in its 54th edition, renamed their summer program guide Short-Term Study Abroad, abandoning the old title, Vacation Study Abroad. In making this change, they sought to ensure that the book “more accurately describe[d] the directory’s focus and content, and … the academic integrity of its programs.” 1 The new title moved away from the associations between U.S. study abroad programs and the elitist Grand Tour, designed for wealthy women and grounded in the liberal arts tradition. At a time when the new American university was on the rise to educate men for leadership, liberal education was evoking more distrust. Doubts about the quality and utility of liberal education coalesced into powerful beliefs and generated even greater doubt in the value of study overseas. As the old Harvard adage put it, “If you are already at the best in the world, why go anywhere else?” 2
