Faculty Pre-Departure Checklist

Develop a budget for your study abroad program using the resources available in this UD Study Abroad Faculty Resources folder. 

Deadlines

Approved preliminary budget is required to open a program for student applications. 

Students are responsible for purchasing their own airfare. Programs begin once the group arrives at the site.

Schedule at least two interest meetings to be held no later than one week before your program's application deadline. To schedule your meetings, submit a Classroom Reservation Request with the Registrar’s Office or create a virtual meeting using Zoom. Once your location has been confirmed, please email your program coordinator to have the meetings posted on your program’s website.

Review sample interest meeting presentations in your Study Abroad Faculty Resources folder.

Find out if your students will need visas to enter any countries visited during your program. It's important to know the costs and application process.

If the program budget can support the added cost, CGPS will fund a program assistant for single-director programs that enroll at least 18 students and for co-directed programs that enroll at least 32 students. 

We'll cover the assistant's expenses (airfare, single room accommodations and whatever else your program fee includes) if appropriate and financially feasible. 

The assistant should be an undergraduate or graduate student at UD. Individuals with some other status at UD may be considered to serve as an assistant on a case-by-case basis, but the assistant may not be a student enrolled in the program. The spouse or child of a faculty director is not permitted to serve as the assistant to that faculty member's program.

PAs must register with us in order to be accepted. Please forward your assistant these online instructions.

CGPS will create a website for your program and produce a package of promotional materials, including an 11 x 17” poster (print and pdf) and social media assets. A full social media toolkit can be found in the Study Abroad Faculty Resources folder. 

Every Fall and Spring semester, CGPS also hosts a Study Abroad Fair, where faculty are invited to promote their programs. 

Then, it's up to you to get the word out. Share program information with students in your classes and those of your colleagues. In addition, leverage department and college events, email lists and social media accounts. When possible, rally past participants to share their experiences and help you recruit from their networks. 

Effective promotion can take considerable time and effort. The S-contract for Administrative Service is intended to help compensate you for this time.

Utilize the database to monitor applications submitted and to communicate directly with applicants.

If the number of applicants is less than 80% of minimum enrollment 10 days before a program’s final closing date, the CGPS coordinator will initiate discussion with the faculty director(s) regarding the possibility of program cancellation, or measures that must be taken to ensure the program’s feasibility. CGPS reserves the right to cancel any under-enrolled program one week before the stated application deadline in order to allow students time to choose another study abroad option.

For a full list of appropriate acceptance criteria, please visit our Study Abroad Interviews page. Faculty are encouraged to develop their own rubric for rating applicants on all or some of these criteria that are relevant to their program. The use of criteria and a rating system allows for more objective decision-making and a fairer process for students; it also gives faculty a written record of how decisions were determined, should these ever be called into question. When possible, applicants should be interviewed before the application deadline so that acceptance decisions can be made immediately thereafter.

By the deadline CGPS provides, you will need to review each submitted applicant in the database using the Reviewer Console.

Important notes on using the Reviewer Console:
 

• Your acceptance decisions are final so we recommend that you finalize your decisions in a separate document.
  
• If there are 2 faculty directors of a program, you should meet and have just one of you enter all of the acceptance decisions. If Faculty Director 1 enters a decision for Student A, Faculty Director 2 will no longer see Student A on their list.  
  
• Please note how many students have withdrawn:pre-decision so that you know exactly which students to review. A quirk of the system is that students who have withdrawn:pre decision still appear in the Reviewer Console count.
• You will be asked to put a number next to each student you decide to Waitlist. Having a separate ranked waitlist document will make entering this information in the database much easier.
  

 
Acceptance process for students:
 

• CGPS will notify students of acceptance decisions
• Students who are offered acceptance into a program must click on the commit or decline button in their application portal.  If they fail to take action within three business days, they will be marked as Withdraw:pre-decision.
  
• If students wish to withdraw from a program after they have Committed, they need to email studyabroad@udel.edu with their reason for withdrawing and a member of our staff will withdraw their application and they will face a minimum $500 withdrawal penalty up to the full program fee depending on what has been expended on their behalf.
  
• Student Financial Services handles all billing for study abroad programs. Any questions regarding billing should go to SFS.

UD students, faculty and program assistants are covered by GeoBlue Health Insurance and Crisis24 Horizon. Familiarize yourself with coverage, exclusions and more.

To schedule rooms for your meetings, submit a Classroom Reservation Request with the UD Registrar’s office or create a virtual meeting using Zoom. CGPS will hold a mandatory pre-departure orientation for faculty directors as well as a separate mandatory pre-departure orientation for all students going abroad in a specific term.