Education abroad is an essential part of the university student experience. Initiatives such as IIE's Generation Study Abroad encourage more U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to study abroad. According to the Open Doors 2019 Report by the Institute for International Education (IIE), 341,751 students participated in post-secondary education abroad programs during the 2017/2018 academic year. This figure represents an increase of 2.7% of U.S. students studying abroad from the previous year. Research shows that education abroad provides students with opportunities not only to see the world but also to develop intercultural competence, which is increasingly crucial in the 21st century workplace. There are also numerous studies that show gains in autonomy, confidence, and tolerance for ambiguity in students who complete some type of study abroad experience. In sum, the education abroad experience in itself represents a powerful learning environment that continues to support personal and professional development long after returning home. Nonetheless, these learning environments must be cultivated along with faculty who develop and lead programs, as well as university partners and providers. Furthermore, education abroad programming and assessment is complex and must take into consideration many factors including academic goals, purposeful curricular development, and a balance between academics and leisure activities on site. This book explores the many aspects of education abroad as a learning environment, such as student learning outcomes, faculty development, and program assessment and evaluation. In addition, several chapters present education abroad experiences as a model for community engagement and activism. The authors represent a diverse range of institutions and perspectives and discuss programs around the globe. The book represents the voices of faculty that lead education abroad programs, students who participate in them, and also those of international students on a U.S. campus reflecting on their personal experiences abroad. Furthermore, this book contributes to the discussion of best practices to assist faculty and program directors in creating robust education abroad programs that meet the needs of their students and institutions.

Coming Home Your Way offers college and university students returning from an education-abroad experience a wealth of pertinent information, opportunities for meaningful reflection, and practical guidance on making the most of their time abroad. Grounded in research and addressing an array of aspects of education abroad – including intercultural communication, changing relationships, and career impact – Coming Home Your Way will be an invaluable tool for any student planning, experiencing, or returning from a stay abroad. Drawing from theory and research from multiple disciplines, and real-world experiences of students who have studied abroad, the volume addresses key themes critical to understanding reentry, including individual differences in taking in experience, communication patterns and approaches, the reentry transition, the nature of relationships in reentry, bridging reentry and career, and more. Within each chapter are opportunities for self-reflection that allow readers to integrate the ideas presented into their own experience. Compelling short fictional accounts add flavor and detail that bring theory to life. Coming Home Your Way provides a window into the complex experience of intercultural reentry. Reentry from an education-abroad experience can be a period of intense growth, and can feel disruptive and confusing while it’s happening. The authors explain and explore these complexities in a conversational style that will engage students, and with the rigor expected by their instructors. Like no other book currently on the market, Coming Home Your Way will give college and university students insight into the challenges and intercultural opportunities that reentry offers.

With the same unique vision that brought his now classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know. . . . “A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction’s most important writers.”—The New York Times Book Review It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur—the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been—one that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is merely a historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power—and even love—in this bold New World. “Exceptional and engrossing.”—New York Post “Ambitious . . . ingenious.”—Newsday

We live in a continually changing global society where it is essential to become educated about life outside our own borders. Chris Westphal, his wife, and their two bright school-aged children decided to move to Prague, Czech Republic, to broaden their world perspectives. Their year abroad had a profound and positive effect on them all. They learned that life doesn't begin and end at their city limits. Both children also gained an appreciation of different people, cultures, and their place in the world. In this time of international uncertainty, Westphal's story of global understanding is more important than ever..

Are you returning "home" after living, working or studying abroad? Warning: for most people, re-entry (repatriation) is the hardest part of the entire abroad experience. The Re-entry Roadmap creative workbook is designed to take you by the hand and guide you through the challenging "moving home" transition with love and humor. Filled with fresh insights, thought-provoking activities, and actionable advice, the Re-enty Roadmap gives you the keys to a successful re-entry by helping you: - Process your complex emotions - Navigate changing relationships - Adjust forwards (no going backwards here!) - Articulate what you learned and experienced abroad - Reflect on who you are now - Identify your Global Life Ingredients This lively and engaging guide then shows you how to put what you've learned about yourself into a plan of action - your "Forward Launch" - for living a beautiful, meaningful, and satisfying global life that you love no matter where in the world you are. Whether you're just about to return, are in the middle of the re-entry transition or have been back a while, the Re-entry Roadmap will help you find confidence, clarity, and connection in re-entry. The Re-entry Roadmap workbook is perfect for: Expats Peace Corps volunteers JET program teachers Fulbright scholars Rotary scholars International school teachers Study abroad students Service-learning students Gap year students Embassy workers Missionaries Military families Solo, family, and long-term travelers

"Startlingly talented . . . he survives the inevitable, apt comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and writes in a tenderly mordant voice all his own." -Janet Maslin, The New York Times In this novel rich in character, Junior Thibodeau grows up in rural Maine in a time of Atari, baseball cards, pop Catholicism, and cocaine. He also knows something no one else knows-neither his exalted parents, nor his baseball-savant brother, nor the love of his life (she doesn't believe him anyway): The world will end when he is thirty-six. While Junior searches for meaning in a doomed world, his loved ones tell an all-American family saga of fathers and sons, blinding romance, lost love, and reconciliation-culminating in one final triumph that reconfigures the universe. A tour de force of storytelling, Everything Matters! is a genre-bending potpourri of alternative history, sci-fi, and the great American tale in the tradition of John Irving and Margaret Atwood.