From the Editor

Abstract

This Special Issue continues this journal’s practice of focusing on themes that help to advance our understanding and approach to education abroad program design and oversight. The insights provided by the authors featured in this volume challenge us to consider the meaning and import of the city as a study abroad landscape. This simple notion has yielded creative and thought provoking ideas that should inspire those who design and lead education abroad programs.

Betsy Brewer, one of the guest editors, approached the Frontiers editorial board with the idea for this volume. The board was very receptive to her proposal and asked Mike Monahan, one of the founding editors of Frontiers, to serve as a co-guest editor. Betsy and Mike worked together to organize a call for articles, which yielded an excellent response. The articles that they chose for this volume present a variety of innovative approaches to study abroad and the city, and cover a range of geographic locations. I and the editorial board thank Betsy and Mike for their outstanding work in overseeing this volume.

Besides the tremendous ongoing support of the institutional sponsors of Frontiers, this Special Issue has also received additional support from IFSA Butler, without which this publication would not have been possible. I and the editorial board thank our good colleagues at IFSA Butler for their commitment to bringing this high-quality research and writing about study abroad to the field.

I am very pleased that a number of the authors will present and lead discussions about their research at the Forum on Education Abroad’s Seventh Annual Conference in Boston, April 6-8, 2010 where this Special Issue will debut.

Brian J. Whalen, Editor