Goucher College’s 287 leafy acres are tucked off Interstate 695, a short drive north of Baltimore City, but its students are a world away.
The liberal arts school became the first in the United School two years ago to require its students to study in other countries, and the distinction has piqued the interest of other schools while attracting students from states near and far.
“There’s a tendency to dress this up as a crusade or something like that,” said Sanford Ungar, president of the college. “I don’t see it that way. I think we have to think about what do we have to do for them to call themselves educated.
“I don’t think you can call yourself an educated person unless you know something about the world. You need to have the sense that there are other perspectives to be heard.”
It’s an attitude that has always defined Goucher. Originally a women’s school, it was renamed in 1910 for John Franklin Goucher, its second president and a Methodist preacher in Baltimore who traveled the world to establish missionary schools in China, Japan, Korea and India.
In 2004, 58 percent of Goucher’s seniors reported participating in the overseas program.
The study-abroad requirement for incoming freshmen two years later cemented and publicized the small school’s identity. While school officials believe enrollment numbers have generally stayed the same, Goucher is carving out a niche as the college to attend for anyone who wants to study overseas. Of the more than 1,350 undergraduate students enrolled last year, about 82 percent said the requirement was a main reason why they decided to attend the school.
Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, Calif., enrolls almost 400 students and was founded on the Buddhist principles of peace and human rights. It is perhaps the only other school in the country with the graduation stipulation.
“The requirement wouldn’t work everywhere,” said Angela Shaeffer, assistant director in Goucher’s office of international studies. “It works for us, from what I can tell, because of our size and our financial model.”
Goucher students are offered $1,200 vouchers to help defray travel and living expenses when completing the requirement. The school’s International Scholars Program, which is meant for high-achieving, honors students, requires members to spend a semester abroad and offers $3,000.
John Boughton, acting director of the International Scholars Program, has traveled with students to Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, and London. He said the journeys are an “intense educational experience” in which students “immerse themselves culturally.”
For Ungar, a former reporter who headed American University’s communications school, the requirement provides students opportunities similar to those that he embraced at their age.
Sitting at his desk, he is surrounded by reminders of the world outside America’s borders, from the West African cloth adorning the wall behind him, to the wooden, royal pillow from Ghana where the king would rest his head.
When he was 22, Ungar, a native of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., covered French students’ and workers’ 1968 revolt against poor living and working conditions for the United Press International news service.
The experience changed his life. As America was retreating from the Vietnam War into isolationism, he realized that, contrary to many citizens’ unwavering beliefs, his country may not be inherently supreme.
“We were brought up to think we were the best,” Ungar said. “Well, it turns out other people think they have some good ideas too.”
GOUCHER AT A GLANCE
- Enrollment: More than 2,300 undergraduate and graduate students
- Faculty: Includes 173 full- and part-time members; nearly 90 percent of full-time faculty members hold a doctorate or the highest appropriate degree in their fields.
- Student-to-faculty ratio: 10 to 1
- Majors offered: 31-plus individualized interdisciplinary programs
- Tuition: $16,084 per semester for full-time undergraduates
- Students receiving financial aid: About 90 percent
- Campus size: 287 acres
Source: Goucher College
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