E!
DECEMBER 5, 2018
NEWS
Black student study abroad participation stalls
KATIONAL STUDY ABROAD DEMOGRAPHICS
Elon pushes for study abroad
diversity but hasn’t influenced
black students’ experiences
Christina Elias
Elon News Network | @elonnewsnetwork
Between the 2015-2016 and 2017-
2018 academic years, the numbers of
Elon University’s non-white students
studying abroad increased from 9
to 17.3 percent. Despite those gains,
black participation went up less than
1 percent — from 3 to 3.3 percent of
all undergraduates studying abroad
— though from 2015 to 2018, the
percentage of black students at Elon
increased by more than 8 percent.
Alongside institutional initiatives,
the university’s Global Education
Center has taken steps to augment
diversity and inclusion in its global
engagement programs, a designation
that includes study abroad and Study
USA.
These efforts include hiring a
more diverse pool of Global Ambas
sadors, increasing awareness of fi
nancial aid and providing predepar- ^
ture programming for students from
underrepresented groups.
Another step
was creating a po
sition specifically
to focus on issues
of diversity and
inclusion. Allegra
Laing proposed
the position and
has served as as
sistant director of
diversity and inclu
sion since earlier
this year. Her job
is outreach to and
coordination with
underrepresented
groups on campus
to address these
gaps.
“I really saw a need for the GEC
to deepen their level of involvement
and knowledge in the areas of diver
sity and inclusion,” Laing said.
The GEC began reporting race
and ethnicity demographic data in
the 2015-2016 annual report. The
university has established 100 per
cent access to global engagement, but
access and participation are not the
same thing, said Amanda Allen, the
GEC’s business and data manager.
“We know that there’s a lot of
different reasons that students will
participate in our programs; we just
want to make sure that they have the
opportunity to do so if they choose,”
said Allen, who is part of the team
u
THERE WEREJUMENTS
WHERE I WAS THE
ONLY BLACK PERSON
IN THE ROOM, IN THE
CLASSES, JUST LIKE I
AM HERE [AT ELON],
CHARLEEN MARTINS LOPES
behind the annual reports.
“There has been a noticeable
shift in kind of national marketing
and financial support and program
types to support students of diverse
backgrounds,” Allen said. “It may be
we should have been looking at this
sooner, but we’re looking at it now.”
The Institute of International
Education ranks Elon no. 1 among
masters-Ievel institutions, but lags
behind national demographics.
During the 2016-2017 academ
ic year, 70.8 percent of American
students who studied abroad were
white. Black students made up 6.1
percent of study abroad participants
nationally. At Elon during the same
year, those numbers were 90.3 per
cent and 3.6 percent, respectively.
That year, the undergraduate student
body was 80.6 percent white and 5.3
percent black.
The sparse number of black or
other minority students has percep
tible impacts on students of color
abroad. Many top destinations are
European countries, many of which
have experienced recent waves of
anti-immigrant and minority senti
ment.
..•..-.^eiiiors Bridgette Agbozo, Char-
leen Martins Lopes and Eric Cun
ningham studied abroad in spring
2018.
Agbozo was
placed with a host
family in rural
Denmark before
moving to Co
penhagen. Her
host family’s reac
tion to her arrival
gave Agbozo the
impression they
weren’t made
aware she is black.
She saw her host
family interact
differently with
their other Amer
ican student - a
white man - but
keep her at arms length. She later
discovered from her host sister that
the mother’s boyfriend, who didn’t
live in the house but was around of
ten, “didn’t like refugees or like im
migrants.”
Agbozo said the locals kept their
distance from her, which she as
sumes stemmed from associating her
with a nearby refugee settlement. Af
ter continued discomfort, she moved
to Copenhagen and connected with
a Facebook group of women of color
in Denmark.
“Once I started to have a social
network, when I started talking to
other people, when I started sharing
my experiences as a brown person in
C/)
C/9
C/»
YEARS
Denmark, I felt a lot more connect
ed,” Agbozo said.
Cunningham and Martins Lopes
studied in London in the spring,
where one other black Elon student
joined them.
“There were moments where
I was the only black person in the
room, in the classes, just like I am
here [at Elon],” Martins Lopes said.
She faced insensitive questions from
classmates about race and ethnicity.
“No one wants to feel like they
have to defend themselves in every
space that they walk in on campus,
or sometimes you do feel like certain
things are expected of you because
you are a person of color,” Martins
Lopes said.
Martins Lopes reported fewer
negative experiences in classes that
were not strictly for Elon students.
She said non-Elon classmates were
more willing to speak up when they
saw her being treated diferently.
Cunningham was the only black
man from Elon in the program.
“I felt like I kind of knew the
challenges there would be ... that I
was going with a lot of Elon students
specifically and that there really
wouldn’t be a lot of black students on
the trip,” Cunningham said. “There
really wouldn’t be a lot of other stu
dents I wish I could kind of share my
own experiences and cultures and
kind of have some sort of a cultural
understanding, being a black Amer
ican student.”
ELON TOP SUMMER STUDY ABROAD
DESTINATIONS IN 2018
1. United Kingdom
2. Spain
3. Italy
4. Ireland
5- Denmark
6. Australia
7. Los Angeles (Study USA)
8. New York City (Study USA)
9. Czech Republic
10. New Zealand
Source; Global Education Center’s
2018 Report
ELON STUDY ABROAD
Senior Jazmine Langley studied
abroad in Cape Town, South Afri
ca, in fall 2017. After, she attended a
study abroad conference where she
spoke to other students about their
experiences. She said “it seemed as
if those who traveled to the Europe
an countries had a different type of
racial and cultural shock” than she
did in South Africa. “The majority
of South Africans are black,” Lang
ley said. “I think over 80-something
percent of the population identify as
black, and so it’s everywhere you go,
everywhere you are, every space, you
see black people. And so for me, that
was a wonderful feeling, because I’m
like, in the U.S., black people are the
minority; we only medee up like 13
percent of the population.”
“I felt like I was affirmed all the
time in spaces by black women, by
black men, in classes and social spac
es, like all different places,” Langley
said. “It felt like people valued my
presence and me being there, and
they always sought to let me know
that.”
Cunningham, one of two student
coordinators of the Global Ambassa
dors program, said he’s seen a “strong
initiative” to address these problems.
“I’ve had the opportunity to talk
to a variety of different counselors
working for the GEC about kind of
my experience and kind of what we
can kind of do ... to make the expe
rience a little bit more reflective as
well,” Cimningham said.
SOURCE: Irstitute of International Education
Ted Tliomas | Designer
Laing said its important students
see themselves reflected in the group
respresenting the GEC. “What does
it mean if my ambassador group
is homogenous but that’s a group
that does all the outreach to the
first-year Elon 101 classes, that does
outreach to the admissions events?”
Laing said.
The GEC is also working working
to establish relationships and pro
gramming with organizations
the Center for Race, Ethnicity and
Diversity Education and the Geadet
and LGBTQIA Center.
“I wasn’t really seeing study
abroad programs marketed to the
Black Student Union, which I’m a
part of, or you know, I wasn’t reall)'
seeing them in partnership with the
CREDE, where I work, where most
black students - where most students
of color are,” Langley said.
Laing has seen an uptick in di
versity-centered conversations and
resources, but says initiatives must be
forward-focused to make change,
“Historically, people approach
it as almost like one-offs like, ‘Let’s
make sure this marketing brochure
is diverse,’ or ‘Let’s make sure that
we have like X, Y and Z on that,’ but
not really a deliberate, intentional,
thought-out approach to diversit)'
and inclusion that’s looking at it from
a broad angle and actually making
strategic goals every year that you’re
trying to move forward to,” Laing
said.
17.3
percent of non-white Elon stu
dents studied abroad in the last
school year.
PHOTO COURTtSY OF JAZMINE lANGLEY
Senior Jazmine Langley spent her fall study abroad semester in Cape Town, South Africa.
D,, I, . , . ' PHOTOCOyRIESVOFBRIDGmEWW*
Bridgette Agboro traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, for her spring semester study abroail