Nolan Jones/Cornell Abroad

Nolan Jones '13 dresses in traditional Tibetan garb with assistance from a local resident at Jiuzhaigou National Park in Sichuan, China, during his semester abroad in 2012.

Cornell was ranked 24th based on figures for the 2011-12 academic year, with 1,773 students earning academic credit for study abroad. New York University led the list with 4,378.Cornell has been included in the Institute for International Education (IIE) “Open Doors” report listing the top 25 universities with the most students studying abroad. However, Cornell leaders have set even higher goals to improve the rate of students studying internationally.

IIE’S annual report, published in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, found that the number of U.S. students studying abroad for credit increased 3 percent in 2011-12 to an all-time high of 283,000; at the same time, the number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities increased by 7 percent to 819,644 (in 2012-13), also a record high.

The report notes that while the number of U.S. students studying abroad has more than tripled over the past two decades, fewer than 10 percent of all U.S. college students study abroad at some point during their undergraduate years.

It is that figure – the rate of study abroad by students – that President David Skorton seeks to improve. In his 2012 white paper, “Bringing Cornell to the World and the World to Cornell,” Skorton noted that the rate of Cornell students having “significant international experiences,” at 27 percent, was behind that of many of the university’s peers. The white paper challenged Cornell to regain its global edge, internationalize the curriculum and increase to 50 percent the number of enrolled students having international experiences. A subsequent report by a faculty task force offered more than two dozen recommendations to enhance and expand the university’s already extensive international activities, engagement and student experiences.

“At Cornell, study abroad is a core component of our educational mission – fostering understanding, expanding curiosity and tolerance for ambiguity, and supporting learning through active and reflective engagement,” said Laura Brown, senior vice provost for undergraduate education. “International education intersects with the values that shape the learning outcomes of a Cornell undergraduate education.”

Fredrik Logevall, vice provost for international affairs, noted that Cornell takes pride in the ranking, but “Vis-a-vis our peer institutions, our numbers are not as good in percentage terms, in part because we don’t offer as many summer opportunities as most of them do.” He added: “Internationalizing the student experience is one of our priorities at Cornell. There’s no doubt in my mind that study abroad helps facilitate the kind of cross-cultural understanding that our graduates will need as they make their way in the world and compete in today’s increasingly globalized work environment.”

Brown, Logevall and Marina Markot, the new director for Cornell Abroad, along with individual colleges, departments and faculty members, are working to increase short-term abroad experiences and immersive programs for students during and between semesters. Markot noted that Cornell has scored well for many years in semesterlong undergraduate study abroad, and that this year’s Open Doors ranking also reflects recent growth of short-term programs initiated and led by Cornell faculty.

Markot says the ranking is impressive because it measures by number of students, and many of the schools on the list are much larger than Cornell.

“I am particularly pleased to note the growth of study abroad in Asia and Africa,” Markot said. “In 2011-12, the number of [Cornell] students studying in China almost doubled.”