• Title Page

• Table of Contents
• Table of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Legal Disclosures
• Executive Summary
We propose to create the North American Youth Abroad (NAYA) at Clemson
University, with the goal of sending African-American high school students from
South Carolina on study-abroad trips, first to Canada (alternatively British
Columbia and Quebec), and eventually to other destinations (e.g., Spain, Haiti,
Bahrain, Nigeria, India). Such trips would increase those students’ global
awareness, enabling them to contribute to the United States’ global leadership.

This planning proposal will be submitted simultaneously to the Houston Center

for the Study of the Black Experience in Education and the Pan-African Studies
Program. Starlett Graig, the director of the Office of Academic Excellence at the
Houston Center, would administer the program and liaise between it and Clemson
University.

• Purpose Statement
The purpose of this proposal is to provide an entity to strengthen the United
States’ global leadership position as it enters a more interdependent world by
preparing South Carolina high school students of color, through study abroad
programs, to be full participants in the global economy.

• Background
Globalization has gained such public currency as to no longer warrant critical
analysis or definition. Experts from the former US Secretary of State Collin
Powel to countless university presidents, including our own James Barker, to
CEOs of almost all Fortune 500 businesses, all agree that the United States, if it
would remain the world leader, must prepare its workforce to compete globally.

To that end, education and other professionals have conducted endless

modifications of and additions to the American education system, with the goal of
raising students’ international interest and competency. And so, other than during
the immediate post-9/11 period, American students have gone abroad in
continually greater numbers.

But students studying abroad fit a certain profile: undergraduate, female, of

traditional college age, from middle class families – and white. That profile fails
to reflect the current American reality: by 200?, the country’s non-white citizens
will be in the majority. By their sheer numbers, they will play an increasingly
large role in the fate of the United States as the world’s economic leader. Students
 of color, African-American students more specifically, must respond to that
challenge.

That assertion is rooted in both ethical and practical concerns. First, African-
Americans represent, lest we forget, America’s soul. They have long toiled, often
under harsh and thankless conditions, to its benefits. No other group has
contributed so much while gaining so little. If black students fail to grasp the
importance of globalization, they will also fail to reap its benefits, lagging further
behind their peers.

The practical consideration is no less important: the country will simply not
succeed if 15% of its population is ignored, excluded, or otherwise incapacitated.

To facilitate a full American participation in the globalization process, this

proposal suggests the establishment, under the aegis of Clemson University, of an
entity that would take black high school students on study-abroad programs.

The objectives would be to expand the students' global competency, to give them
more and better choices, and to strengthen their capacity to make more informed
decisions concerning their future, their community, and their world.

• Body
o Introduction
o Principal Investigators’ Profiles
o Current Situation -- Literature Review
o Explanation of existing problem
 Lack of knowledge
 lack of interest
 lack of opportunity
o Action Plan
 Preliminary Steps
• gauge CU's stated and actual interest in or support for the
concept
• examine principal national entities in the field (student
programs, government, businesses, etc.)
• interview subject matter experts
• travel to potential sites -- Canada for example, to meet with
counterparts

 Principal Steps
• determine which counties/communities/schools to target
• design way to contact appropriate authorities (schools,
churches, families, civic organization, etc.)
 •obtain authorization from appropriate personnel, along with
necessary funding
• develop public campaign for those groups
• collaborate with correct experts in the field to construct
campaign likely to be successful
• set a timeline for execution
• implement all listed steps, and include flexibility and
transparency measures
• conduct post-hoc evaluation of the campaign
o Budget and Other Necessities
o Timeline

• Conclusion
• Recommendations
• Works Cited
• Bibliography
• Glossary
• Appendices