CoNfErENCE ProgrAm finding Meaning and fulfillment in restructuring the education abroad office Stephen Appiah-Padi (Bucknell University), Jennifer Ellis Fritz (Bucknell University), Jeff Whitehead (University of Pittsburgh), Anne-Marie Bruner-Tracey (University of East Anglia), Adriane van Gils-Pierce (Clark University) Restructuring the education abroad office is a common yet painful exercise for many international educators. This session presents case studies from a variety of institutions that have recently restructured their education abroad offices and offers tips on how to navigate the process with less pain and more gain. how far are we prepared to Go? : implementing a constructivist paradigm Milton J. Bennett (Intercultural Development Research Institute), Lilli Engle (American University Center of Provence) Recent research and technology have supported and enabled “new paradigm” approaches to education abroad, yet real-life practices that reflect and sustain these new approaches are slow in coming. This session examines the limits and the potential of three conceptual paradigms and discusses how to make program design more coherent and consistent with desired learning outcomes. institutional student exchange: a fresh look at an old concept James Buschman (New York University), Kim Kreutzer (University of Colorado), Kristine Clay (Syracuse University), Jenifer Cushman (Juniata College), Sinéad Ryan (Trinity College) This session reviews and updates university-to-university student exchange as a model for education abroad. Panelists will share experiences from leading institutions in the U.S. and Ireland and will analyze the role played by exchanges in today’s panoply of study abroad options. The “New” student diversity and what it Means for education abroad programs Margaret Heisel (University of California, Berkeley), Andrew Gordon (Diversity Abroad), Gregory Spear (Rutgers University) Students who are immigrants themselves or children of immigrants constitute a large and rapidly growing component of the U.S. postsecondary population. The level of diversity and complexity in this group exceeds earlier notions of diversity. As U.S. campuses seek to internationalize, they need to carefully examine this cohort’s sense of identity, social capital and aspirations. Study abroad can respond to these students’ needs with curricular opportunities crafted to engage their unique academic and social goals. reading, writing, arithmetic, reentry: assessing student learning from pre-departure through re-entry Laura Paris (University of Georgia), Erica Ledesma (Macalester College) Through the lens of re-entry programming, participants will examine how assessment efforts can contribute to an integrated learning process from pre-departure through return to campus. Re-entry programming must be developed with this larger learning process in mind in order to identify the activities necessary to facilitate student learning. 9