Teresa Cisneros-Donahue
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Welcome
It has been five years since the College of Business Administration (CBA) hired me as the Director of Study Abroad Programs. The task was simple: to increase the number of business students who studied abroad. The challenge was great. On average, only eleven business students, out the more than 6,000 that we had back in 2005, studied abroad per year.
My strategy was straightforward. It was based on both my twelve years of experience as the director of study abroad for the International Business (IB) program at San Diego State University (SDSU) and on my background in business education (I received an International Business degree and a Masters of Business Administration, both from SDSU). As the director for IB, I created all study abroad opportunities for students in this program from the ground up. This included the creation of the first ever dual-degree and triple-degree programs with Mexico and Canada, in the US. The program that I directed won the Andrew Heiskell Award for the Best Study Abroad Program in the nation in 2002 from the New York-based Institute of International Education (IIE).
My business education taught me what I am applying today. Be strategic. Know the internal and external environment of your “business”. Provide your “clients” what they want, when they want it, at the price that they want it. CBA students did not have that.
Program History
In 2002 the American Council on Education (ACE) conducted three national surveys, working with 752 U.S. colleges and universities, and reported that almost half of the students who participated in this study “would like to participate” in a wide variety of international activities, including study abroad. So I knew that the demand was there but the problem was in the process. CBA students who wanted to study abroad before I took this job had to endure a very lengthy, convoluted and cumbersome process. They had to locate the program in which the wanted to participate. They had to find out which courses they were being offered at any given semester. They had to know if they had the prerequisite to take these courses. Finally, they had to request syllabi from the foreign university and secure academic credit. No wonder why only very few brave souls were successful in this endeavor. I changed that.
Present Day Success
CBA students now have over 70 study abroad opportunities available to them. This includes student exchange programs, paid internships, faculty-led programs and a dual-degree program. These opportunities are listed on the CBA study abroad web site that I also developed. Each of these programs has a course articulation. Students now know the courses that they can take while they are abroad and most of these courses have already been preapproved. Finally, most of these opportunities cost the same or less than being at SDSU. As expected, students have responded to these changes.
We have substantially increased the number of students who have study abroad. A total of 757 students from academic years 06/07 through 09/10 have studied abroad. But most remarkable is that the majority of our students, around 70% on any given year, study abroad for a semester or a year. This is significantly different than the national average. Almost 60% of students in the U.S. who study abroad do so in short-term programs. These are programs that take place between academic terms, over Spring Break, or during the summer months.
Future Direction
My attention now has turned to finding scholarships for students to participate in these programs. I have just received an $180,000 grant from the Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE). Of this, $120,000 is for scholarships.
I invite you to read these pages and learn about our international journey in the last five years.
Teresa Cisneros-Donahue, Ed.D.
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