Program Development and Delivery

Located in Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern University is a private research university with 22,000 total students, approximately 8,000 of whom are international. Northwestern’s largest study abroad program is its Global Engagement Studies Institute (GESI), which has provided summer internships abroad focused on international development since 2007. When students were unable to travel because of the pandemic, staff and faculty were able to rapidly adapt the program to provide virtual coursework and remote internships.

With a focus on service learning and community engagement, the Global Engagement Studies Institute’s Virtual Global Development in Action program allows students to explore complex international development issues through virtual, credit-bearing coursework designed in collaboration with local community educators. Students also participate in a remote internship with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in one of nine countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Ghana, Guatemala, Peru, Uganda, or Vietnam.

The original in-person GESI program started over a decade ago at the request of Northwestern alumni who had gone to work for NGOs after graduation. Former students came back and said they wished they had learned the skill sets necessary to work in international development. “We realized that you need a mix of interning with an organization, but also reflecting critically about that internship experience from an academic perspective,” says Annelise Riles, executive director of the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and associate provost for global affairs.

“The GESI program is our answer to what we consider to be the critical challenge of our time, which is ‘How do we address the demand on the part of our students and the world for educational opportunities that advance students’ ability to engage with diverse communities, to work collaboratively with people who do not share their language, culture, ideology, religion, and background?’” Riles says.

The program recognizes the need to decolonize the curriculum and make the relationship between institutions in the Global North and Global South more equitable and mutually beneficial, Riles says. “This program provides that critical global learning that our students need and also enters into long-term, sustainable partnerships with institutions in the Global South.”

Supporting Partners Abroad

All GESI partner organizations receive financial support from Northwestern in the form of seed grants to fund projects that students work on through their internships, stipends paid to host families and other funding to support a collaborative learning and development experience.

“We're committed to staying with them for the long term and to having our students go again and again,” Riles says.

Patrick Eccles, senior associate director of global engagement programs, says the GESI program started in 2007 with 17 students interning at the Foundation for Sustainable Development in Uganda. Then they expanded to Bolivia, where the foundation also worked.

Northwestern representatives conduct site visits and all partners must be approved by the university study abroad committee. “We've found partners that share our ethos and have high standards for community work, health and safety, and student support,” Eccles says.

When the pandemic halted international travel, Northwestern staff wanted to find ways to support both the students and the organizations. “As soon as the pandemic happened, we started having conversations about how we can respond in order to provide students with access to a global learning experience, to maintain continuity in our global partnerships, and just to respond ethically to the pandemic,” Eccles says.

Coursework Combined with Community Engagement

During the in-person program, assistant professor Diego Arispe-Bazán meets with students for a week in mid-June for a predeparture seminar. Students study the theory, history, and ethics of global development and work in small groups to do simulations and other activities, Eccles says. Then they go abroad for eight to 10 weeks, live in a home stay, and complete a 30-hour per week internship.

The virtual program, which was held during the academic year, combines coursework taught by Arispe Bazán with 15 hours a week of research, advocacy, or project-based work complemented by a series of practical workshops with community partners abroad dedicated to contextualizing students’ international experiences. Around 100 students from 34 disciplines have participated in the virtual program since fall 2020.

Kelly Bates, who graduated in 2022 with a degree in neuroscience, participated in the virtual GESI program in fall 2020. She worked with an NGO in Salta, Argentina, called Fundación por Nuestros Niños (FNN), which focused on children's rights, violence prevention, and health and education. She created educational booklets on mental, sexual, and physical health to distribute to adolescents in Salta.

“Instead of taking a full load of classes as is typical with other study abroad programs, Virtual Global Development in Action provided a thrilling opportunity for personal and professional development through the program's internship-based learning,” says Bates.

The coursework complemented the work she was doing with FNN. “We engaged in various modes of learning that were all very helpful at contextualizing our experiences with our nonprofit organizations,” she says.

Bates and the other students had international development experts as guest speakers, participated in small group activities that promote critical thinking and reflection, researched the history of the issues that their NGO was focused on, and wrote reflection papers.

“This coursework exposed me to the complexity of global development, helped me understand my privilege and power as a Northwestern student, and taught me how to engage in my internship ethically and with cultural humility,” she says.

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Recruiting Diverse Participants

Both the in-person and virtual GESI programs are much more diverse than traditional study abroad participation across the United States. Sixty-five percent of virtual GESI participants were students of color, while 71 percent of all students who studied abroad nationally in 2019 were white, according to the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors report.

“We're appealing to a much broader group of students than traditionally are interested in study abroad,” Riles says.

For the in-person summer program, Northwestern provides financial support for tuition, travel, and living expenses thanks to funding from private donors. That allows students who would normally have to work or otherwise support themselves during the summer, to participate, Riles says.

They also intentionally recruit from multicultural student groups and reach out to students whose parents are reluctant to let them go abroad. The virtual GESI program during the academic year is an attractive option for those students because it’s just a regular academic class without a travel component, Riles says.

Creating New Opportunities

The pivot to the virtual program has created new opportunities going forward. “We really see the partnership between the in-person and the virtual GESI as now a feature that we probably didn't even anticipate,” Riles says.

Because Virtual Global Development in Action leverages the in-person GESI partners and can be offered during the academic year, program alumni who have previously traveled abroad are able to continue working with the same organization. Other students who are hesitant to travel are able to start with the virtual GESI and then later participate in the summer program abroad. “It creates longer and more sustainable relationships between the student and the organization,” Riles says.

Eccles added that one of the benefits of the virtual program was that Northwestern faculty and staff were able to sit in on the final presentation that students do when their internship concludes. Normally they give the presentation to the in-county team and the community partners, but during virtual GESI Northwestern representatives were able to participate. “We're going to try to figure out ways that we can still maintain that opportunity moving forward,” he says.

As travel to more GESI program locations once again becomes feasible, Northwestern staff envision offering in-person GESI as a summer study abroad program and virtual GESI during the academic year, when students can participate in virtual internships alongside other courses. Expanding locations through faculty research collaborations and institutional partnerships will provide additional opportunities to rotate in-person and virtual internship sites as needed based on student and faculty interests as well as world events.

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