Recruitment Strategies for Faculty-Led Education Abroad

In-person promotion always surpasses virtual interaction

A decent percentage of faculty leaders excitedly propose new or repeat programs each year, secure the necessary approvals, and ask their education abroad offices to monitor applications with the expectation that they’ll naturally roll in. If a program fails to generate enough student interest, the faculty member’s instinct may be to conclude that the international office didn't do enough to promote it.

That said, as many education abroad professionals know, their offices cannot serve as the primary engines of recruitment for a faculty-led program. Research on education abroad participation, along with years of practitioner experience, points to a clearer conclusion. Faculty engagement with students, through personal relationships, visibility, and enthusiasm, is the single biggest driver of applications to short-term faculty-led programs. Education abroad offices can extend that reach but cannot replace it.

Practitioners who work closely with faculty-led programs consistently find that direct, in-person contact between a faculty leader and prospective students outperforms virtual or office-mediated outreach. Presenting in person in their own classes and colleagues' classes, attending education abroad fairs, or hosting in-person information sessions is far more effective than a virtual webinar.

A 2015 study in the Journal of International Education Research proposed a framework showing that students' intentions to study abroad are shaped heavily by their expectations of personal, intellectual, and professional growth, which are expectations built through relationships and reinforced messaging, not brochures (Bandyopadhyay & Bandyopadhyay, 2015). Citing earlier work by Salisbury and colleagues, the authors argue that positive beliefs about study abroad need reinforcement at multiple levels, explicitly including faculty who lead the trips, not just education abroad advisors or staff.

A separate student-recruitment model published through ERIC makes a similar case from a marketing angle: for the experienced program leader, recruiting and promoting a program are treated as essentially synonymous activities, with faculty knowledge and visibility functioning as the core “sales” mechanism rather than a supplement to it (Lukosius, “Marketing Study Abroad Programs”).

direct Faculty engagement with students is the main driver of program recruitment

Students want a relationship, not a brochure

Short-term programs ask a lot of students in a short window: program fees, a break or summer, and ultimately a measure of trust that things abroad will be handled well. For many students, this trust attaches to a specific person before it attaches to a destination or a course description. A ten-minute pitch delivered in person, by the actual faculty leader, to a captured audience in a relevant class students, tends to do more work than any flyer or webpage ever will achieve.

Faculty can’t outsource their own enthusiasm

An education abroad office manages a portfolio of dozens of programs across every discipline on campus. Few staff members can match a faculty member's depth of feeling about their own subject. Faculty leaders should explicitly share their own background and experiences, their passion for the destination or subject matter, and personal travel stories during any presentation. Authenticity is an essential avenue for trust. A generic slide about “cultural immersion” cannot compete with a professor explaining, in their own words, why a specific place changed how they think and see the world.

Faculty of color recruit differently—and it matters

Faculty identity must be part of the recruitment strategy to target diverse participants, as well.  Research on inclusive excellence in education abroad notes that the presence of faculty of color has been linked to stronger outcomes for students of color in other academic contexts. Identity-based mentoring—while sometimes an uncompensated burden faculty of color are asked to carry, to be fair—carries genuine weight with students deciding whether a program is “for them” (Sweeney, 2013, Frontiers).

A widely cited example comes from the University of Texas at Austin, where a faculty-led program built in partnership with the university's diversity office attracted primarily low-income, first-generation students of color. The program's leaders point to word of mouth—participants telling siblings, cousins, and classmates about their experience—as a major driver of continued interest (Inside Higher Ed, “Expanding Opportunities for Minority Students to Study Abroad”). Separate research on Black students' experiences with education abroad marketing has found that finances, family, and faculty support (not to mention a fourth “F,” friends) are recurring factors—sometimes barriers, sometimes enablers—in whether underrepresented students apply at all (Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad). Faculty relationships, whether based on shared identity or not, aren't incidental. For many students, they're decisive.

Collaborate with education abroad colleagues

In no way, though, should faculty sideline their education abroad colleagues. In most cases, offices can help organize information sessions, fairs, and parent presentations, manage scholarships and safety compliance; assist with intentional program design, and maintain student information and applications systems that faculty often can’t replicate alone. NAFSA's guidance on faculty-led programming frames program execution as a close, collaborative partnership between faculty and the education abroad office, not a handoff from one to the other (NAFSA, “Recruiting the Best-Fit Faculty to Lead Study Abroad Programs”).

Teaching is ultimately a relationship, so Faculty must leverage it for their students’ success

Practical recruitment strategies that faculty can use now

Direct, personal outreach

●       Present in person in your own and colleagues' classes. In-person sessions consistently outperform virtual ones.

●       Collect interested students' phone numbers, not just email addresses, early in the process, and follow up personally where appropriate.

●       Host informal drop-in Q&As during offices hours or designated times alongside (or instead of) a single formal information session.

Peers and alumni

●       Recruit former participants as student ambassadors. Their firsthand testimony, not to mention photos and videos, are often the most persuasive recruitment tools available, more so than any official messaging.

●       Encourage alumni to share about the program on their own social media channels rather than relying solely on institutional posts.

Institutional leverage used, not depended on

●       Ask the education abroad office for listserv access, fair tables, or parent-presentation slots, and treat these as distribution channels, not persuasion.

●       Ask faculty colleagues in related departments to mention your program in their own classes.

●       Build (or personalize) a program webpage that includes your own photos, videos, voice, and a direct note to students, not just office-template text.

Equity-focused tactics

●       Partner directly with your campus's diversity and inclusion offices and identity-based student organizations.

●       Lead with scholarship and financial aid information early, since cost is one of the most consistently cited barriers for underrepresented students.

●       If your own identity connects meaningfully to the program or destination, say so openly in your pitch—the research suggests this is a genuine draw for students, not a token gesture.

The most successful short-term programs abroad are rarely the ones with the flashiest brochure. They're the ones where a specific student can point to a specific faculty member as the reason they had the best experience of their college life through education abroad.