ABSTRACT
Study abroad has been growing since the late 1990s. It is set to expand massively in the coming 10 years, spurred by the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act (2007). The combined thrust of globally fueled internationalization, economic imperatives of competitiveness, national security concerns, the urgency perceived for global academic outreach, ever growing student curiosity, and now fi nally a programmatic piece of legislation setting a national agenda, have made a hot topic of study abroad as delivered by America’s institutions of higher education. If the protagonists in this quest for substantive and experiential internationalization play their cards right, the outcome may be the key to overcoming the nationalistic stalemate of unilateral domination and adversarial perception of global relations that still plague U.S. policy in the early 21st century (O’Connell & Norwood, 2007, pp. 4-5). In order to weave a stronger web for global relations, study abroad needs to be the outgrowth of strategically wise, calculated, and sustainable choices of the goals to be attained as well as their constant reassessment against relevant external milestones. What will count cannot be less than a measurable contribution to global prosperity and peaceful coexistence through mutual understanding between communities, nations, and supraregional blocks, which can be achieved by transcending boundaries of language, culture, and self-centered aspirations.
