Making Study Abroad a Winning Proposition for Pre-Tenure Faculty

William G. Moseley, Macalester College

Abstract

Internationally focused faculty at the nation’s top liberal arts colleges face an increasingly challenging mix of expectations. First, junior faculty must clearly maintain a high level of scholarly productivity. Second, faculty-student research collaborations are increasingly encouraged even though such mentoring is especially difficult for scholars with an international research agenda. Finally, the integration of research and teaching is also encouraged at many of these same institutions. Study abroad programs may represent underutilized opportunities for faculty to further their own research and contacts, to involve students in aspects of their own scholarship, and as venues for sharing their expertise and place-based knowledge. Using a Macalester-Pomona-Swarthmore sponsored program at the University of Cape Town as a case study, this article explores how study abroad opportunities may be leveraged in support of: the research imperatives of junior faculty; a mechanism for encouraging student-faculty research collaborations; a vehicle for exploring collaboration with non-US faculty and a joyful opportunity for sharing faculty member’s place-based knowledge. In exploring these synergies, I seek to answer the question of how study abroad programs might further encourage the participation of junior faculty.