through an already established program, either at their own school -- which

may encourage such participation even if it has no direct supervision or

investment in the international study -- or at another institution. Models for

study can include traditional classroom experience in a foreign setting,

usually with lectures by host scholars; foreign-language-driven study;

research; foreign consulting trips; internships, particularly in business; and

service-learning. Service-learning programs often struggle with a perceived

dichotomy between experiential learning and academic rigor, partly because

such learning is markedly difficult to measure.

Colleges and universities, and their faculties, usually have less control

over particular learnings when the international study is experientially

based, and that reality frustrates some faculties. Few doubt, though, that

international study experiences, with at least minimal supervision, can be

mind-opening and life-altering, better preparing participants for thinking

critically and living authentically in the multicultural world they are

entering.⁶Experiential, international modes of learning seem immensely

valid and valuable in a postmodern world, building bridges between the

particular communities out of which students come and the multiple,

overlapping communities in which they will live. In many cases, perhaps

especially at church-affiliated liberal arts colleges, faculty and program

administrators make the assumption that students needa kind of "conversion"

from parochialism toward a broader world perspective; from modern notions

of radical individualism toward a recognition of the power (for good or ill) of

communities and relationships; from universal rationality toward a critique

6_{See below for some of the studies which have sought to measure such change.}

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