As the academic school year comes to an end, many students will continue their studies by packing a suitcase and heading overseas.

About 3,000 91探花 students will study abroad this school year, a number that surpasses the previous high set in 2018-2019. That means study abroad participation is back to pre-pandemic levels. 91探花leaders say these programs promise profound experiences and lifelong memories. and 听new research shows that college students who study abroad are more likely to graduate.

鈥淪tudying abroad increases success for everyone,鈥� said Gayle Christensen, interim vice provost, Office of Global Affairs, and a coauthor on a paper that evaluated graduation rates of students who study abroad. 鈥淏ut it increases the success for underrepresented students and underserved students even more.鈥�

The , published last year in the Journal of College Student Development, found that students on college and university campuses who study abroad complete their degrees at higher rates, particularly among historically underserved students 鈥� defined as students who identify as Black, Latinx, Native American or Pacific Islander.

Study abroad exposes students to other cultures, teaching them valuable lessons, including a better understanding of themselves, which they often discover by immersing themselves in the rich fabric of cities like Rome, Tokyo and London. But study abroad is more than a long-distance trip, it鈥檚 a rigorous academic experience, too.

鈥淪tudents earn tens of thousands of 91探花credits every year through study abroad,鈥� said Wolf Latsch, director of 91探花Study Abroad. 鈥淲e see academics as the key anchor of a study abroad experience.鈥�

About 400 study abroad students from the 91探花spend their time based at the 91探花Rome Center. Since the 1980s, the 91探花has used the historic Palazzo Pio, a 15th-century building overlooking Campo de鈥� Fiori, built on the ruins of the complex where Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. Today, the recently renovated building serves as a classroom, meeting space and apartments for faculty 鈥� and a gateway to exploring Rome, other parts of Italy and the European continent.

Other popular study abroad destinations include the in northern Spain, and the great cities of Europe, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. There are also many program offerings in the global south, including Peru, Ghana, Vietnam and India.

Many outside organizations and groups on campus also offer programs, and around 200 91探花faculty per year take students to other countries to learn and do research, and to step out of their comfort zone.

Joe Lott has traveled to the United Kingdom, China and Italy teaching students and conducting research. He鈥檚 an associate professor in the 91探花College of Education and the founding director of the , a cohort-based program that provides support to underrepresented men of color, inviting exploration of intersecting identities and creating opportunities for academic growth and leadership.

For his students, learning can begin before they even board a plane. Just by gathering the required documents to travel outside the U.S., a Native American student saw his identity expand and become more complex.

鈥淚t really questioned like, well, so what does it mean to be American, to get this passport?鈥� Lott said. 鈥淭hat brought up a whole bunch of issues between the relationship between tribal communities, tribal governments, U.S. government, and what that means for that student.鈥�

And that was just one example, Lott said. Students gain new confidence in conquering complex challenges, exploring new cities, getting from place to place. Stepping outside their surroundings, they return to 91探花with a focus and purpose, and with a stronger sense of who they are where they want to go.

鈥淚t’s just more of a confidence of navigating a familiar environment after having navigated an unfamiliar environment,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou have a greater sense of focus and purpose about what you’re going to do, because you just have 听more sense of direction and a belief that you can meet challenges that come your way.鈥�

About one in five of UW鈥檚 study abroad cohort from last year identify as an under-represented minority. 91探花Study Abroad is strongly committed to expanding access to, and support for, students who are historically underrepresented in study abroad.

Lott now recruits for study abroad from students enrolled in the Brotherhood Initiative and 听its companion program for women of color, the . And the Office of Global Affairs works with academic advisors and scholarship counselors across all three campuses to make sure all students understand that study abroad could be for them, including students who rely on scholarships to pay for their education.

The Office of Global Affairs awards up to 500 scholarships each year to support students who want to study abroad, Christensen said.

91探花officials want students to understand that study abroad is for everyone, regardless of major, including transfer students, and at all points in their academic career. In the nearly 10 years Christensen has worked at UW, Global Affairs has been able to increase the number of scholarships it awards fourfold to students who want to see the world.

鈥淥ur goal as an office is that every Pell-eligible student, or even every Washington need-grant student would know coming in, 鈥業 have a scholarship to study abroad,鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淭hat’s the visionary goal for us.鈥�

For more information on the research or to learn more about the Office of Global Affairs, contact Christensen at gsc6@uw.edu.

Starting college is full of unknowns: Can I handle my classes? Will I find friends? Will I feel at home here?

Am I ready for this?

For nearly four dozen young women of color starting at the 91探花 this fall, wants to assure them: Yes.

Love is the director of the , an effort to create community and foster academic and social success for young women of color, from their first month at the 91探花all the way to graduation. Now in its first year, the cohort-based program of weekly seminars, regular support groups, guest speakers and activities is designed to take on 30 to 40 young women a year, allowing each class to become mentors to the one entering after it.

Love calls it a holistic program. The primary goal: Support students through graduation. But that takes more than teaching study skills; it鈥檚 about cultivating the whole person, in community with others.

It’s the kind of program Love wishes she鈥檇 had during college and graduate school.

鈥淚 wanted the opportunity to work with women of color who are just starting their academic career and confirm right from the start,听you are strong, you are amazing, and you have so much to give. Everything that you need to succeed is already in you,鈥� Love said. 鈥淪o with the Sisterhood Initiative, how do we draw that out, and continue to draw that out?鈥�

One model is another College of Education program, the , whose success led to the creation of the Sisterhood Initiative. Launched in 2016 to help address lower graduation rates among young men of color (a trend nationwide), the Brotherhood Initiative has created a supportive network centered around mentorship, service and academic success for some 250 students.

This year, the Brotherhood Initiative welcomed its largest cohort of 60 students, double the number from the program鈥檚 first year. 听And the five-year graduation rate among students in the program is nearly the same as that of male students who are not from underrepresented communities.

The fundamental goal of the Brotherhood Initiative, Founding Director said, 鈥渨as really to create a smaller learning community of people who look like each other, and support one another in a way to build trust and just rely on one another to succeed.鈥�

Both the Brotherhood and Sisterhood initiatives rely on donors to sustain and add programming and services. That support ranges from providing new activities for an entire cohort, Lott said, to something as individualized as helping a student find a place to stay to finish the quarter.

鈥淚t鈥檚 all about the students, and their learning and social trajectories, and seeing them grow and change,鈥� said Lott, an associate professor of education. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just here to create the conditions to help them succeed.鈥�

That often means exploring leadership and career opportunities. Last year, the Brotherhood Initiative piloted (and now continues) the Positive Social Change Challenge, in which students work with the Foster School of Business and CoMotion to develop ideas for a socially minded business enterprise. It was something students had expressed interest in, Lott said, and the Brotherhood Initiative was able to innovate to meet the need.

In this first year of the Sisterhood Initiative, Love wants to focus the group on identity development and awareness, mental and emotional health, and leadership from a very specific kind of intersectional lens, beyond the usual white male leadership perspective, Love said.

But for the Sisterhood Initiative to truly succeed, it will take engagement from the students, as well.

鈥淛ust being in proximity with women of color does not do anything different for you. The Sisterhood Initiative is going to be what you make it,鈥� Love said. 鈥淚f you challenge yourself to grow, if you ask the hard questions, if you do or think about things a little differently than you’ve done them in the past, you are going to get so much out of this program.鈥�

鈥淏ut it’s only if you go there with us that the Sisterhood Initiative will really become the shining star that I know that it can be.鈥�

For more information about the Sisterhood Initiative, contact Love at rlove1@uw.edu. For the Brotherhood Initiative, contact brother@uw.edu.

For some young men of color, college might seem a world away.

To an African-American boy growing up in poverty, a Latino son of migrant farmworkers or a young Native American man living on a remote reservation, the path to post-secondary education can be hard to visualize. And once on campus, the reality can be daunting. Role models might be lacking, the sense of isolation overwhelming.

A new 91探花 pilot program aims to address those obstacles and boost enrollment, retention and graduation rates among young males of color. The , to launch this fall, includes a yearlong freshman course focused on introducing students to research and providing guidance in areas like choosing a major and financial literacy.

Additionally, a Men of Color Academy is planned to provide mentoring and activities intended to keep students engaged from their first year through graduation, such as study abroad opportunities and professional development.

鈥淲hat we鈥檙e trying to do is help create a tighter community, particularly among males of color, to increase their presence on campus, to make them feel like they belong and to let them know that the 91探花is part of their community,鈥� said , a 91探花associate professor of education who is spearheading the initiative.

The project is being shaped by research. For the past six months, Lott and a team of doctoral and postdoctoral students have been interviewing male 91探花students and faculty members of color about their experiences on campus and what they think the program should include. They鈥檙e reviewing existing 91探花programs that target students of color, poring over educational research and looking at similar initiatives nationally.

The team has been meeting for the past year with an advisory committee of academic advisers, project directors, student affair professionals, and faculty members from various cultural groups to discuss findings and shape the program accordingly. Trying to serve a diverse population of students is a challenge, Lott acknowledged.

鈥淭here are many different sets of experiences that students have to deal with before coming to college,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ne thing I want to be clear about is not jumping to the solution before really defining the problem.鈥�

One well-defined issue is the persistent graduation gap between minority male students and other groups at colleges and universities nationwide, despite overall graduation rates rising. And though the UW鈥檚 graduation rates for males of color are higher than at some universities, they remain stubbornly stagnant and lag behind graduation rates for women of color.

The graduation rate for black men enrolling at the 91探花between 2006 and 2009 was 67 percent, compared with 77 percent for black women. American Indian and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander male students in the same years lagged behind their female counterparts by 7 percentage points, at 64 and 66 percent, respectively. Latinos had a graduation rate of 76 percent, slightly lower than Latinas鈥� 78 percent.

By comparison, graduation rates were 83 percent for white males and 85 percent for Asian American males during the same period.

But numbers don’t always tell the whole story, said , assistant director of the PhD program at the 91探花School of Social Work. While the six-year graduation rate for Southeast Asian males enrolling at the 91探花seems high, at 84 percent, the group comprises a diverse population of students from various countries and ethnicities whose graduation rates vary.

“Without disaggregating the data, the needs of certain Southeast Asian populations can be masked,” Sperry said. “The Brotherhood Initiative will play a significant role in supporting Southeast Asian males.”

And attracting minority students to the 91探花in the first place remains a challenge, said , senior advisor to the vice president in the 91探花Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity.

鈥淭hese groups are called 鈥榰nderrepresented鈥� for a reason,鈥� said Pitre. 鈥淲hen you compare the percentage of those groups that are college-age versus those who are enrolled here, the percentages are low. We want to increase access for them.鈥�

The 91探花is working to address disparities through other efforts 鈥� most notably, the initiative President Ana Mari Cauce launched in April 2015. The project aims to tackle institutional bias and racism by actively encouraging dialogues and solutions across campus and through community engagement.

The Brotherhood Initiative is intended to meet one of the six goals of the that President Obama launched in 2014. The effort encourages communities to implement strategies to improve outcomes for young people, including the goal of all young people completing a post-secondary education.

Lott, who like Pitre grew up in Louisiana, attended Talladega College, a historically black college in Alabama. He started at the 91探花in 2007 and was struck by the dearth of black people in the area and on campus. The father of two boys aged 3 and 5, Lott began thinking about his own experiences as a black man, about his role as an educator.

鈥淚 started thinking, how can I provide a sort of road map through life and through the education system?鈥�听

The Brotherhood Initiative is a partnership between the 91探花College of Education, Division of Student Life, Office of听Minority Affairs听& Diversity and Undergraduate Academic Affairs.

The initiative is expected to enroll its first group of students in fall 2016. Lott hopes those young men will not only succeed academically, but also serve as ambassadors and role models who can help build an academic pipeline from their home communities to the UW.

鈥淚 want them to be civically and socially conscious, and to feel the need to reach back and help other black and brown males understand what it takes to get to college and succeed in college,鈥� Lott said.

鈥淚 want to let them know the 91探花is a place for them. The brotherhood could be their home.鈥�

91探花 researchers studied , a collaborative effort to dramatically improve student achievement in seven school districts in South Seattle and South King County. In their after a yearlong study of the initiative, they found that students were most successful when schools and communities found creative and culturally responsive ways of engaging parents.

“The Road Map Project was very clear that parent-community engagement was one of the key mechanisms for achieving its 2020 goal, to double the number of young people who are on track to college and career and to close the opportunity gap,” said , assistant professor in the and co-author of the report.

The 91探花is also one of many community partners of the project.

The idea of The Road Map Project is to go beyond traditional involvement such as parent-teacher conferences and associations and school open houses to offer parents more relevant ways to help their children succeed.

“We know from decades of research that it makes a difference when parents are involved in their child’s education,” Ishimaru said. “It helps not only students’ test scores, but also their behavior in school, attendance, the coursework they take. They are involved in higher-level programs and they’re more likely to graduate. Our study suggests promising ways to create more meaningful opportunities for family participation, especially in a region of such dramatic cultural and linguistic diversity.”

Districts in the project are Auburn, Federal Way, Highline, Kent, Renton, Seattle (only South Seattle schools) and Tukwila. Of the 119,000 students in that region, 66 percent are students of color, 58 percent come from low-income families and 167 different primary languages are spoken. Ishimaru and colleagues studied two of those districts 鈥� Federal Way and Kent 鈥� plus a community effort called White Center Promise Initiative.

Each Road Map Project entity is engaging parents in different ways. Federal Way uses family liaisons to help parents cultivate good relationships with school staff, and parents are given a “menu” of choices about how to be involved, from using specific tutorials at home to observing school board meetings or participating in leadership training.

Kent uses parent facilitators in different languages to teach a nine-week evening , which helps parents learn how to best advocate for their child and create educational partnerships with teachers and staff.

is a long-term effort to eradicate poverty by involving families in the services and support they need through schools and community organizations, and to help students graduate and go on to living-wage careers.

The 91探花report shows one of the most effective strategies across school districts is to listen to parents to find out their concerns, priorities and expertise, and to do it in their own language. For instance, Federal Way Schools hosts workshops that allow parents to speak in their native language while the director of the district’s Family and Community Partnerships Office hears real-time translation through a headset. Those workshops, part of the district’s Parent Leadership Institute, also allow parents to share concerns and ideas with each other.

“Sometimes parents can’t speak English and schools don’t even think to plan for that,” Ishimaru said. “But more broadly, the problem is whether parents feel like they belong or are welcome. When schools only have traditional activities, like joining the PTA or giving money to a fundraiser, that’s telling parents there’s only one way to interact with the school.”

Ishimaru said it’s important for schools to be culturally responsive and use “cultural brokers.” Those are parents or others in the community who are usually bicultural and bilingual, and can guide immigrant and other non-English-speaking parents through the world of American public schools. They also can help educators better understand multi-cultural families and communities.

“These cultural brokers exist in every school and every community,” Ishimaru said. “At one school we found it was the woman who worked in the cafeteria. There was no family liaison at the school but everyone knew to just walk into the lunchroom and she would tell them what was going on.”

Ishimaru said the three sites they studied continue to refine their approaches to parent engagement. The Kent School District is now moving beyond the copyrighted California parent-engagement curriculum it bought to engage parents in developing its own curriculum, which adds components to help students develop a positive racial identity and better deal with bullying. Kent would then be able to share its curriculum with the rest of The Road Map region.

The report was co-authored by and a team of doctoral students in the 91探花College of Education.

听###

For more information, contact Ishimaru at 206-543-9840 or aishi@uw.edu, or Lott at 206-685-9204 or jlott1@uw.edu.