Recruiting Intelligence

When Vice President Harris said, “Your nation is SO proud of you,” to a group of 20 Frederick Douglass Global Fellows, you could not have found more inspired university students anywhere. Absolutely anywhere. Their eyes said it all.

International education speaks deeply to all of us. And yet it remains inaccessible to so many. What we know is that roughly 6% of US students participating in study abroad are Black. How to make this privilege and opportunity available to many, many more?

Intead’s international team has been deeply honored to work alongside our colleagues at CIEE on an inspired and inspiring project – a concerted effort to bring the opportunity of international education, experiential education, to more BIPOC students. In just a few months, we’ve watched this effort draw pledges from dozens of university presidents who have matched CIEE’s scholarship funding to allow more students to experience the power of international education.

As the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship barrels forward with applications for 2022 now open, we bring you this bottle of inspiration — a 5 minute film featuring the perspectives and experiences of the 2021 cohort. This will lift your spirits and get you thinking.

To hear Dr. Roslyn Clark Artis, president of Benedict College tell it, this program offers a lot and demands just as much back from the students who participate. Frederick Douglass Global Fellows and Scholars have a responsibility to share what they’ve learned as they become leaders in their chosen fields. To be, as one Frederick Douglass Global Fellow put it, “the first of many.”

We are gratified to see university presidents not just encouraging, but taking real action — signing up to catalyze their DEI initiatives in a valuable and visible way through this program. Will your institution be next? 

Read on to watch the film and hear from these future change-makers. 

Dr. Carlos Cortés has had an amazing career and tells a great story. He was one of our keynote speakers at our International Student Recruitment Bootcamp back in January and we’ve captured the best parts of his talk here in an 18-minute podcast.

Along with a great talk and discussion over dinner, everyone who attended received a signed copy of his book Rose Hill: An Intermarriage Before Its Time. This was a treat. And now we can share it with all of you.

Dr. Cortés addressed campus diversity and cultural competency issues from a unique perspective. And he asked us all to consider some provocative questions that are hot issues on campus today. How do we evaluate our desire for freedom of speech when students are fighting to squelch offensive speech? And what does this mean for the integration of international students who are learning English as a second language?

Take a listen to his fascinating talk. You’ll be glad you did.