Ohio University sends hundreds of students across the globe every year to further their education, but the university recruits more than twice that number internationally to study in Athens.
Almost 700 students studied abroad during the 2011-12 school year, according to the most recent data available from the Open Doors report from OU’s Office of Education Abroad. In the same 2011-12 school year, OU attracted slightly more than 1,600 international students to its Athens campus.
This is a decrease from 2009-10 when 775 students participated, the data showed. At the same time, more international students are studying on OU’s Athens campus than ever before — a number that has grown since the 2006-07 school year — the oldest data available.
Study abroad numbers fluctuate annually based on the university’s offered programs in a specific school year and the fact that some study abroad programs run every other year, said Catherine Marshall, director of the Office of Education Abroad.
“We have popular art programs in Italy and the UK that alternate summers,” Marshall said. “In a given year you might say ‘Wow our Italy numbers are high.’ That’s probably the year the art history program went to Italy.”
Social Sciences was the most popular major for students studying abroad and the Ohio Program of Intensive English was most studied at OU by international students, the data showed.
OU students traveled to 37 countries during the 2011-12 school year, with the most popular being United Kingdom and Spain.
But students traveling to OU were more likely to come from China, with almost 900 students on the Athens campus during the 2011-12 school year, or India, with a little more than 100 students.
Bowling Green State University sent its students to more than 42 countries in the 2013-14 school year, according to its website.
“Ohio University students are internationally engaged,” Marshall said. “We have a lot who are taking advantage of the (study abroad) opportunities.”
Students studying abroad outside a university program, including in an individual exchange or outside, non-university program are not counted in OU’s study abroad numbers.
Sam Girton, associate professor for the School of Visual Communication, has led four study abroad programs since 2007.
His first experience was a six-week design program that he led in Asia. While in Beijing, Girton’s translator, Li Li, expressed interest in coming to America.
“(Li Li) looked at Ohio University and ended up coming. She got her Ph.D. in communication studies,” Girton said. “Now, she and I are working to build an education abroad program for students at OU and the University of Wyoming to go back to Beijing.”
Krista McCallum Beatty, OU’s director for international students and faculty services, didn’t return a request for comment.
cs951612@ohiou.edu
@Claireismatic
