Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Our Approach to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
CET believes in making study abroad accessible to all students. We recruit and actively support academically qualified students of all races, religions, origins, abilities, gender identities, and sexual orientations, fostering a welcoming, hospitable program environment that promotes student learning.
We take a holistic approach to supporting students of all identities: we provide program-specific information on cultural climate, accessibility, and health and diet on our website, our application materials are gender-inclusive, and we offer trainings on supporting students to on-site staff and faculty.
We are committed to becoming a more anti-racist organization by transforming our workplace, our programs, and our industry.
Student Resources
Identity Abroad
Location-specific info on cultural climates, accommodations, etc., and alumni-created sources to help navigate identity abroad.
Student Voices Blog
Student blogs and photo essays from current and former CET students to get an idea of what life abroad could be like.
Blog: Identity Abroad
Whether it’s reading about adjusting to a language pledge, the heritage student experience, or leaving home for the first time, CET Student Correspondents provide realistic insight to each program with regular blogs and photo essays.
Alumni Support Network &
Identity Abroad Support Network
Once a student has started an application, they gain access to these two internal directories of recent alumni who have volunteered to talk about their experiences abroad. Identity Abroad Support Network volunteers also name certain lived experiences that prospective students can reach out to them about specifically.
The Curriculum Review
What started as a working group to reflect on the colonial implications of international education has since evolved into the Curriculum Review—a three-year audit of our programs with a view to identify and interrogate structures of difference, power, and equity that are uniquely present in each of our program locations.
Our Approach
We employ a query-based approach that is largely helmed by on-site academic staff and their respective program directors. Each program site then has a common set of questions to guide critical engagement with issues of power, difference, and equity in the development and delivery of our curricula.
The Review Process
Each year, every program site conducts a query-based self-study. Based on those findings, academic staff identify three to five elements that could benefit from greater attention to issues of difference, power, and equity. The team then creates an actionable work plan and works with the Curriculum Review co-chairs and senior faculty to identify strategies for execution. We then pilot the changes in each program through the year and then assess their success.
Our End Goal
At the end of this 3-year audit, we hope to have established a new normal for the what and how in our approach to education. For the what, we aim to have identified power structures that characterize the local/regional contexts in which our programs operate—historical and/or colonial legacies, national geopolitical forces, political, social, and economic factors that shape the host environment—and hope to more skillfully and explicitly address them in our curriculum and co-curriculum. The how of this audit involves the production of knowledge itself within our programs—we strive to create a learning environment that eschews hierarchical classroom structures and encourages students to think critically and include perspectives beyond mainstream narratives in their pursuit of answers.
Though this initiative is considered “complete” after three years, we acknowledge that this type of work is never truly finished. It is our hope that the built-in repetition of three structured audit cycles over three years establishes a system for us, as educators, to continually challenge and refine our curricula. Learn more about the Curriculum Review and see examples of its implementation.
Our Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Action Plan
In November 2020, Academic Travel Abroad (ATA), CET’s parent organization, announced what is now known as our Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (JEDI) Action Plan. This plan serves as a roadmap to guide us in doing our part to eliminate policies, procedures, systems or other structures that perpetuate inequity and implement ones that are inequitable to all our stakeholders, including employees, students, travelers, vendors, partners, etc.
JEDI Action Plan: Goals and Commitments
Accountability
We believe that everyone across the organization is responsible for contributing to our JEDI goals. We aim to hold ourselves to our commitments and push ourselves further.
Education
Action and change first starts with awareness and listening. We value and prioritize making time to learn, teach, and challenge our employees, travelers, and students.
Belonging
We strive to foster a sense of belonging and security in all stakeholders to be their authentic selves—whether that’s in our offices or our classrooms abroad.
Justice
We commit to reviewing and revamping company policies, procedures, and systems to promote equity and create opportunities for all stakeholders to thrive.
Annual JEDI Action Plan Audit
Each year, every department at ATA contributes team-specific SMART goals (i.e., goals designed to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based) that contribute to the organization’s overall JEDI Action Plan goals. These goals that are annually reviewed by ATA’s JEDI Coordinator and anonymous, internal advisors. Once feedback is returned and any edits and clarifications are made, the JEDI Coordinator creates a report for the entire organization to review and discuss during the annual audit each February. Read our latest annual JEDI audit summary.
In November 2020, Academic Travel Abroad (ATA), CET’s parent organization, announced an organization-wide anti-racist action plan. This plan extends out as far as 2030 and aims to make diversity, equity, and inclusion work an integral part of who we are and what we do as an organization. We want these actions to be woven into the very fabric of our organization, so that the work of this plan will be viewed by internal and external stakeholders alike not as an “add-on” series of steps, but instead as a key component of the CET/ATA workplace. By achieving the goals we have set in this plan, CET and ATA will establish a solid platform from which to extend the plan’s continuation, one that aims even higher, when the next decade arrives.
Actions to Transform our Workplace
- Hire and retain more people of color, with the goal of having a staff that is more diverse in each racial/ethnic category.
- Identify and remove barriers that might be impacting our ability to hire more candidates of color.
- Conduct a yearly audit that focuses on retention of employees of color, and make recommendations that will enhance our retention of these employees.
- Continue organization-wide discussion sessions at least three times annually on racism and inequity in the U.S. and abroad.
Actions to Transform our Programs
- Overtly include DE&I considerations in program goals, descriptions, and curricula.
- Create, provide, and update yearly resources for CET students and ATA travelers that forefront DE&I considerations, such as information on race and racism in the countries in which we operate.
- Conduct a yearly audit of print and digital marketing materials that focuses on looking at our materials through the lens of diverse student experiences.
Actions to Transform our Industries
- Commit to increase the number of people of color-owned businesses, vendors, restaurants, hotels, venues, and tour staff we work with wherever possible within the U.S. and in foreign destinations.
- Continue our strong support of the Fund for Education Abroad.
- Support National Tourism Association efforts to increase diversity and inclusion efforts in travel.
Scholarships
Fund for Education Abroad Access Partner
CET is a proud Access Partner of the Fund for Education Abroad (FEA). FEA’s mission is to increase the number of underrepresented students from the U.S. who study abroad. FEA awards scholarships help make study abroad a reality for their scholars. Every year, students are eligible to apply for CET-specific scholarships through FEA.
Identity Abroad Scholarship
CET is committed to helping students of all identities access international experiences—especially those historically underrepresented in study abroad. To support this mission, the Identity Abroad scholarship is awarded to students with demonstrated experience engaging with their communities and who can thoughtfully articulate how study abroad might challenge, reinforce, and shift how they approach their identit(ies).
Three awards are given each term: $3,000 for fall/spring programs and $2,500 for summer programs. Priority is given to students who also demonstrate financial need. Explore scholarships at CET.