Generated by the dual goals of moving the STIA Gateway course away from lecture format toward a case-based approach and of better integrating study abroad experiences within the curriculum, Dr. Hultman is creating a classroom environment where students learn about relevant topics through the real-world experiences of their fellow STIA students.

By integrating e-mail "dispatches" from STIA students in foreign countries as well as in-class presentations by students who have returned from study abroad, Dr. Hultman aims to expose younger students to study-abroad opportunities while deepening their intellectual understanding of global issues from a personal perspective. For the more advanced STIA students who are sending the dispatches from abroad, this exercise requires them to reflect on, organize, and communicate intellectual aspects of their experience in ways that value their abroad experience and create a more integrative context for their remaining work at Georgetown.

After one semester of piloting this project, Hultman and CNDLS conducted an initial assessment by surveying both the in-class students and the abroad students who participated. CNDLS provided the online survey environment and data analysis of student responses. Survey results showed that both current and abroad students thought this exercise was valuable in helping students see the relevance of STIA issues, in showing how STIA concepts are applied abroad, in highlighting new possibilities and opportunities for STIA careers, and in showing how students have used their knowledge in the field. Based on student comments on how this exercise could be made more useful, Hultman plans to improve integration of the dispatches with class topics and lectures and to create more opportunities for communication between students abroad and in class at Georgetown. He hopes that this experience will encourage students who study abroad to develop as mentors by serving as resources for other students in the program.