Innovation Competition

Diversity Abroad is thrilled to bring the Innovation Competition back to the Global Inclusion Conference! An initiative pioneered eight years ago, the Innovation Competition is a unique aspect of the Global Inclusion Conference that champions creative and innovative approaches to advancing inclusive excellence in global education to achieve student success.

Whether it is supporting student academic success or positioning them to tackle the greatest challenges and opportunities of the future, global education is a high impact practice that prepares students to succeed academically and professionally. The Innovation Competition celebrates bold and transformative ideas from student leaders, higher education professionals, and community stakeholders that ensure all students have equitable access to these impactful opportunities. The 2024 Innovation Competition brought many ambitious ideas and the winners have been announced!

WHY AN INNOVATION COMPETITION?

The Diversity Abroad Innovation Competition aims to support a culture of innovation and recognize new ideas and solutions that can create positive change, break down barriers, and provide access and support to diverse and underrepresented students.

Selected presenters competed during the 2024 Global Inclusion Conference in Washington, DC. Presenters will be judged by a panel of experts in international education.

COMPETITION DATE & AWARD LEVELS

Members of the Conference Planning Committee reviewed all submissions and identified the most promising ideas that were presented on November 1st in Washington D.C. during the closing plenary session of during the 2024 Global Inclusion Conference.

Awards:

1st place – $5,000

2nd place – $1,500

All Pitches – Global Recognition

2024 Innovation Competition Winners Announced!

First & Second Place Innovation Competition Winners

Seeing Me: Self Definition through Study Abroad – 1st Place Winner

University of Maryland – College Park

Imagine a program development process that included student voices in every step of the process while providing students who have been historically underrepresented and underserved by Education Abroad programming valuable mentorship skills and leadership development along the way. The program model, Seeing Me: Self Definition through Study Abroad, has the hope to launch an innovative identity-based, student-led approach to faculty-led programs. The model aims to have two students of a particular social identity group paired with a faculty member of the same social identity in the development of a custom program from the beginning.

Each year, a new custom identity program would be launched with the flagship program being focused around Black Women Abroad. This would be a custom program designed by Black women for an audience predominantly made up of Black Women using a Black feminist thought lens in the course design and creation. Key themes in Black Feminist thought are empowerment, self definition, and being an outsider within.
Students would be embedded in the design from the beginning to give behind the scene insight into how this program can best support students. From choosing the program location, to sharing feedback with providers on what activities would be of the most interest, these student specialists will be given an inside peek into the behind the scenes development of a program. The students would also be tasked with heading up identity forward recruitment to speak with their peers about the opportunity and why they themselves are excited to participate in this experience.

Students would have no on-site responsibility in order to be able to take the course for credit and fully engage in the program that they helped design. They would however receive mentorship throughout the process to help them consider how this experience could prepare them for other opportunities.

With the flagship program, the hope is that this program model will provide the tools so Black undergraduate women can empower themselves to create their ideal study abroad program that defines their identity on their own terms, while having a community of Black women students and faculty grounded in collective empowerment through program design.

WorldKind: Belonging and Wellbeing – 2nd Place Winner

WorldKind

The Problems: According to a 2017 AFS survey, Gen Z students rated “safety and security” as their number one concern about studying abroad along with other anxieties, such as “social isolation” and “discrimination.” A 2023 Forum study on “Student Risk” found that mental health was the number one critical incident leading to early program withdrawal. WorldKind’s own exit survey from our current pre-departure health and safety training also reveals the need for more targeted support around identity, mental health, and cultural adaptation. To compound the problem, recent “anti-DEI” laws are limiting the type of pre-departure information that public institutions can directly give to support diverse travelers.

The Proposed Solution: The adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is apropos because when students aren’t prepared to handle their personal health and safety risks abroad, their ability to learn is affected and critical incident rates rise (which also means that institutional liabilities do too!). So, WorldKind wants to build a new interactive and scenario-based “Belonging and Wellbeing” training program that focuses on the intersection of cultural adaptation, identity, and mental health.

There has yet to be a comprehensive, forward-thinking program addressing all of these factors under the umbrella of identity, but our course will prompt appropriate reflection for those students for whom identity is a complex and compounding factor. This proactive, creative method empowers students to prepare personalized plans to address stressors and obstacles they may encounter during their time abroad.

A special congratulations to the 2024 Innovation Competition Finalists

Diversity Abroad would also like give special recognition to the 2024 Innovation Competition finalists.

Global UN SDG International Courses in Emerging Economies! – Bentley University

STEAM IDEAS – Jessica Hicksted, PhD

VCU Global Learning Student Retreat: Building Intercultural Connections at VCU’s Rice Rivers Center – Virginia Commonwealth University

A group photo of all the 2024 Innovation Competition finalists

AREAS OF FOCUS FOR 2024

An award of $5,000 and $1,500 was distributed to the top two innovation proposals that support global inclusive excellence in one or more of the following areas:

Addressing barriers to accessing global learning opportunities for diverse and historically under-supported student populations

Creating inclusive support initiatives for diverse and historically under-supported student populations while participating in education abroad

Linking global education to career preparation and success

Developing inclusive support and programming for incoming international students

Engaging diversity in global education locally and abroad

HOW TO APPLY

Members of the Conference Planning Committee will review all submissions and identify the most promising ideas to be presented at the closing plenary session during the 2024 Global Inclusion Conference to be held in Washington D.C., October 29 – November 1, 2024. Application questions can be viewed here. Applications should submit contact & project details via this form (optimal with Safari or Chrome) describing the following key areas:

The applicant’s expertise and/or interest in relation to the proposed topic (250 words)

The project which highlights innovations and/or creative qualities (300 words)

How the project will measurably impact access and/or inclusion efforts in global education (300 words)

Applicants should also submit a two-minute video via email ([email protected]) which:

Pitches the proposed idea, and

Describes the plan for project implementation

Previous 2024 Innovation Competition Winners

2020 Innovation Competition Winners

Domestic Exchange: Creating Global Experiences for Undocumented/DACA Students – 1st Place Winner

Kevin Graham, UC San Diego

The UC San Diego Domestic Exchange Program provides undocumented/DACA students with access to domestic travel experiences. This program is designed to positively influence their personal development and career outlook. The Domestic Exchange Program is an essential initiative for undocumented/DACA students as their immigration status does not allow for international travel. Exposure to academic life at different institutions will enable students to self-reflect and gain perspective on how their identity mobilizes in different spaces (states, social groups, fields of study, etc.). These insights and experiences will have implications for students’ career development. Participants would have the opportunity to build a network and to further understand the impact of their immigration status.

Once the program commences, a cohort of UC San Diego, Undocumented/DACA students will have the opportunity to travel to New York State. Each student participant will be exposed to academic life at the University of Rochester for one academic quarter. Within the duration of this timeframe, students will take courses related to their interests and majors. They will also actively participate in a series of professional and personal development workshops. The funding from the Diversity Abroad Innovation competition allows UC San Diego to provide each student with a travel grant to cover the cost of health fees, airfare, ground transportation, and winter clothing.

Increasing Black Male Achievement through International Experience – 2nd Place Winner

Lavar Thomas, Co-founder – Leaders of the Free World (LFW)

Leaders of the Free World (LFW) is an international experience and leadership development program for young Black men (18-27). The program focuses on creating dynamic leaders through access to global engagement opportunities and personal development experiences. The program is funded through institutional contributions, small grants, and individual donors.

Currently, Black men make up just 2% of all US study abroad participants, so LFW works to remove barriers to participation. The program integrates the paradigm-shifting experience of short-term study abroad, with mentorship, an identity-based curriculum, and leadership development training. These components are designed to improve academic retention while developing each student’s confidence, potential, and leadership capacity.

While the trip to Ghana has been postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19, the funding from the Diversity Abroad Innovation competition will allow the Leaders of the Free World program to increase their impact domestically and internationally. The program plans to partner with institutions in the US and Ghana to expand their virtual platform for cross-cultural dialogue, and encourage more young Black men to build their leadership skills through global engagement and intercultural exchange. The funds will also be used to support the current LFW cohort.

STAMPED – The Study Abroad Podcast – 3rd Place Winner

Charis N. Tucker, Founder – Travel Gene LLC

STAMPED: The Study Abroad Podcast launched during International Education Week 2019. This podcast was designed with two audiences in mind: international educators and underrepresented students. For international educators, the goal of STAMPED was to move our conversation (about BIPOC participation) from deficits to one of determination. The stories shared on STAMPED illustrate how our guests overcame barriers to make their study abroad dream a reality. For students, the hope is that they see themselves represented in the stories our guests so openly share. STAMPED is the first major project of Travel Gene LLC, a boutique tourism research and consulting agency where Black travel research and study abroad intersect! Funding from the Diversity Abroad Innovation Competition will provide upgrades to podcast equipment, support enrollment in training designed specifically for podcast hosts, and begin the development of a professional development course for industry professionals. Tune into STAMPED at anchor.fm/STAMPED.

2019 Innovation Competition Winners

Teens of Color Abroad — 1st Place Winner & People’s Choice Award
Lamar Shambley, Founder, Teens of Color Abroad

Teens of Color Abroad is a non-profit initiative whose mission is to cultivate the next generation of globally conscious youth of color through language immersion study abroad programs. There is extensive research on the long-lasting academic, social, and professional benefits of studying abroad, yet, students of color, especially Black students, have been excluded from this experience. Our aim is to confront this racial disparity in college study abroad participation earlier by providing high school students of color, who are enrolled in foreign language courses, with culturally immersive language training programs that enhance global competency skills and mindsets.

In a partnership with Centro MundoLengua, a private international language school and educational tour operator, TOCA facilitates programs in Seville, Spain for groups of U.S. high school students of color. The scholars will take 3 hours of small group daily language instruction, live with a local homestay family, and participate in engaging cultural activities such as visits to historic museums and palaces, salsa and flamenco dance lessons, kayaking the Guadalquivir River, paella cooking workshops, and much more. Part of our curriculum is centered around the PISA Global Competency Framework which will provide a foundation for intercultural conversations between our participants and their homestay families. Prior to departure and upon returning from our trip, students will organize and run a series of “Bingo!” nights for the Spanish-speaking members of the Carter Burden Network, a New York City-based nonprofit leading the way in aging services. Learning to participate in interconnected, complex, and diverse societies is a necessity in 21st-century education. Young people want to engage with the world, but lack the resources. TOCA provides a unique opportunity that gives underrepresented youth a globally informed perspective while bolstering their linguistic skills.

Indigenous Storytelling from the Amazon: Reimagining Diversity and Inclusion from the Grassroots – 2nd Place Winner
Daniel Bryan, Executive Director, Pachasanya

Pachaysana is an Ecuadorian non-profit organization that creates intercultural education and study abroad programs with indigenous and other underrepresented communities of the Amazon and Andes. Over the years, we have learned that to truly break down barriers that systematically exclude marginalized communities, it is imperative to rethink diversity from the epistemological point of view. How we see and approach Diversity and Inclusion on our college campuses is shaped by a Eurocentric epistemology, excluding multiple ways of knowing and being that surely need to be integrated. This project reverses the dominant trajectory of the Diversity Abroad conversation. It grounds the center of knowledge creation in Amazon communities of Ecuador and then disseminates it to universities and study abroad organizations, encouraging them to rethink how they understand and operationalize diversity on their campuses or in their programs.

This project takes Pachaysana’s Team and students from the “Uni-Diversidades” office of the University San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) to two indigenous Amazon communities that have experience working with Pachaysana’s study abroad programming. During 2-week residencies in each community the team works to convert indigenous epistemologies into a performance and workshop. The community members then travel to Quito where they share with USFQ and other in-country study abroad programs with the goal of influencing their policies, curricula and pedagogies. The same workshop/performance will be offered at international student orientations, resulting in no less than 800 students, faculty and staff that will have access to the program during the academic year. Finally, Pachaysana and USFQ will create workshop videos and manuals in order to make the experience available to educational institutions abroad, especially USFQ’s 100+ international university partners around the world.

Rhode Island Global Education Project – 3rd Place Winner

Becky Spritz, PhD – Professor of Psychology and Public Health, Roger Williams University (RI)

Conor Largey – Student Youthworker St. Peters Immaculata Youth Club (Belfast, Northern Ireland)

Rev. Glenn Grayson – Executive Director, The Center that Cares (PA)

In Rhode Island, largely Latin X youth living in the Urban Core—Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Woonsocket, and Newport—lack access to experiential education programs known to improve academic, social, and emotional outcomes. Our vision is to reduce the achievement gap in Rhode Island by creating a coalition of educators, philanthropists, and community leaders, and create a formal model to provide youth in the Urban Core unique opportunities for global youth education.

Building on previous scalable global education innovations from Belfast, Northern Ireland and Pittsburgh, PA, Amizade will partner with Highlander Charter School to pilot a project for young people to engage and learn from the world. The first project will involve a small group of Rhode Island youth taking part in a full semester of pre-activities for high school students (mentored by university professors), followed by a brief summer immersion to Northern Ireland, and completed with a social action community project that the young people will create and implement in Providence on return, with actual project funding.

The power and innovation in this model is in transforming global education from being viewed as a luxury, to being viewed as a necessary experience in all young people’s education. The main goal, therefore, is to ensure that like math and science, global education gets a place in policymakers minds for being part of the building blocks of creating the next generation of Americans. At every turn of this pilot project, Rhode Island political and education leaders will be hearing stories and being exposed to the research. The end game is a formalization of innovative global education practices and more equitable opportunities in high schools not only in Rhode Island, but all over the country.

2018 Innovation Competition Winners

The Amandla Project – 1st Place
The Amandla Project is an internship/experiential learning and leadership development fellowship program that aims to increase participation of disabled students in the pursuit of educational opportunities abroad. All fellows spend eight weeks interning in Cape Town for organizations which in some way serve disabled South Africans, but the program relies on a vast network to find each fellow a placement that aligns with their professional goals (from architecture to teaching to film).

Retention and Leadership Through Diversity Innovation (Dom McShan, Dr. Virginia Hosono, and Kimber Guinn; University of Louisville) – 2nd Place
The Retention and Leadership Through Diversity Innovation course includes an embedded international experience to the Dominican Republic. Ten to fifteen students from the African American Male Initiative (AAMI) cohort at the University of Louisville (UofL) will participate in a 3 credit hour course with a two week in-country service-learning component. The course facilitates students in the critical examination and articulation of their personal strengths, social identities, leadership capacity, and understanding of global citizenship.

Finding your EDGEs: Engineering, Diversity, Global Experiences & Service (Tojan Rahhal, PhD and Miguel Ayllon, PhD, University of Missouri) – 3rd Place
Finding your EDGEs is an academic program that combines a social science and engineering curricula to provide students with hands on leadership, diversity, and project management skills in a global context. This study abroad course was designed to be an affordable opportunity for students to participate in a hands-on, global experience while learning about the importance of diversity and inclusivity in the engineering field. Students gained project design skills through their participation in an Engineers Without Borders water pipeline service project in Panama, which was added as a technical, hands-on service component of the course.

Macalester College was awarded $500 as an honorable mention for their proposal to connect people of color of different backgrounds, ages, and identitiesto share their experiences living abroad through a webinar series.

2017 Innovation Competition Winners

Building Skills, Empathy and a Vision for the Future: At-risk Youth and Study Abroad (Carol Reyes, Miami Dade College)- 1st Place

Educate Tomorrow Abroad is a groundbreaking initiative focused on reducing barriers to global education for one of the most marginalized groups of college students, homeless and foster students. The initiative will send three homeless students abroad in summer 2017 with plans for annual scholarships for future generations. The program’s holistic model focuses on academic support, professional development, mentorship, relationship building and leadership skills and is the result of a partnership between Miami Dade College’s Office of International Education and Educate Tomorrow, a non-profit focused on helping homeless and foster students.

Diversifying the Disability Perspective: Exploring Inclusive Practices in Japan and the U.S. (Drs. Michael Schwartz & Louis Berends, Syracuse University) – 2nd Place

Syracuse University Abroad is interested in creating a credit-bearing, faculty-led program in Japan for students of color and for students with disabilities, two core populations that are underrepresented in U.S. education abroad. This comparative international education abroad program seeks to examine two nations’ approach to disability law, policy and practice, and an opportunity for U.S. students to meet Japanese people with disabilities.

Global Access Initiative Challenge (Neal McKinney, DePauw University) – 3rd Place

DePauw University proposes to create a scholarship/year-long mentorship program for first-generation students of color, called the Global Access Initiative Challenge (GAIC). The GAIC will offer five DePauw students of color with a $2,000 donor-funded scholarship to subsidize a short-term, faculty-led course through DePauw University – if these students also commit to a full semester abroad. Students will receive structured mentoring opportunities from a faculty member of the student’s choosing, and be paired with a returned alumni peer mentor of color, as well as expected to participate in monthly workshops to prepare them for their study abroad experience.