Collaborative Faculty-Led Programs:
Rethinking How Faculty-Led Programs Are Built
Even well-designed faculty-led study abroad programs can struggle to reach the enrollment numbers needed to move forward. The challenge is particularly relevant for smaller institutions, specialized academic subjects, and less traditional study abroad destinations.
But what if universities didn’t have to recruit an entire group on their own? Collaborative faculty-led programs offer an alternative: bringing two or more universities together around shared academic interests, combining student demand and resources while allowing each institution to maintain its own policies and responsibilities.
This approach was the focus of Campus b’s recent webinar, Better Together: Designing Collaborative Faculty-Led Programs, featuring Pascale Parker, Director of Study Abroad at Texas A&M University, Bethany Kuwitzky, Assistant Director of Study Abroad at Texas Tech University, and members of the Campus b team.
Drawing on a collaborative program in Brazil, the discussion explored how institutions can make faculty-led programs more viable, expand academic opportunities, and maintain institutional autonomy.
The Enrollment Challenge:
Why Good Programs Don't Always Happen
A faculty-led program can have strong academic objectives, an experienced professor, and a carefully designed itinerary, yet still struggle to attract enough students to operate at a reasonable cost. During the webinar, Daniel Amgarten, founder of Campus b, shared figures from the company’s experience with approved program proposals:
- More than one-third are eventually canceled because enrollment minimums are not reached.
- Approximately 25% operate at or slightly below their minimum enrollment requirements, sometimes requiring adjustments.
- Around 40% reach a more comfortable enrollment level.
Taken together, these figures suggest that approximately
60%* of approved programs face some degree of enrollment challenges, either resulting in cancellation or requiring adjustments to operate near minimum enrollment levels.
*These are Campus b’s internal figures, rather than industry-wide statistics.
Nevertheless, they illustrate a challenge familiar to many education abroad professionals: institutional approval does not guarantee that enough students will enroll.
The issue is not always a lack of academic interest. Sometimes, the number of students interested in a particular subject is simply too small within a single institution. A highly specialized program in animal science, for example, may appeal to a relatively limited group of students at one university, but the same subject could attract students and faculty from several institutions with complementary academic interests.
A Network Builder Tool
What Is a Collaborative Faculty-Led Program?
A collaborative faculty-led program brings together students and professors from two or more universities around a shared international academic experience.
Rather than developing entirely independent programs, participating institutions can combine student demand, share selected resources and fixed costs, and coordinate common academic activities. The model allows universities to benefit from a larger cohort without requiring each institution to recruit enough students to sustain a full program independently.
For example, several universities might participate in the same international itinerary, visit the same organizations, attend joint lectures, and engage in shared fieldwork. At the same time, each institution can maintain its own enrollment procedures, academic credit arrangements, assignments, and administrative requirements.
The objective is not to merge different universities into one program administration, but to identify the components that can be shared while preserving what makes each institution distinct.
real case study: RUMINANT PRODUCTION IN BRAZIL
In 2026, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, Auburn University, and Berry College participated in a collaborative ruminant production study abroad program in Brazil, developed around an established academic initiative led by Professor Luis Tedeschi of Texas A&M.
The experience demonstrated how an existing faculty-led program could expand through institutional collaboration, creating opportunities for universities that might otherwise struggle to organize comparable experiences independently.
Sharing Resources Without Sharing Every Responsibility
“(...) Coordinating the program involved close communication among education abroad, academic, business, and international offices, particularly around enrollment, financial arrangements, liability, and student participation.”
Pascale Parker
Director of Study Abroad, Texas A&M University
The key was establishing a shared structure while maintaining clear institutional responsibilities. In the Brazil program, Campus b managed separate contracts and invoicing processes for each university. Institutions also worked with different internal deadlines and maintained individual administrative requirements. Even the official names of the programs varied between participating universities, although the central itinerary was shared.
In practical terms, the model works best when institutions agree early on about shared academic objectives, leadership, essential deadlines, communication channels, and responsibilities. It also requires enough flexibility to accommodate differences that do not affect the collective experience.
Bethany Kuwitzky noted that although the program introduced an additional level of coordination, she did not feel it added more work overall. Having an established framework helped Texas Tech navigate processes that were already familiar from other faculty-led programs. For education abroad offices considering this model, the lesson is that successful collaboration depends less on making every institution operate in the same way and more on creating a structure that can accommodate their differences.
The Role of Faculty: Academic Alignment Comes First
“Shared academic interests should be the starting point, ideally building on existing research collaborations or professional connections between faculty members.”
Bethany Kuwitzky
Assistant Director of Study Abroad at Texas Tech University
Financial viability may encourage universities to collaborate, but academic compatibility is what makes the partnership meaningful. Combining programs with different academic priorities simply to increase enrollment can create challenges around content, field visits, and learning objectives.
The model can also support first-time faculty leaders. Bethany highlighted the experience of Dr. Whitney Crossland from Texas Tech, who benefited from joining an established program with support from Campus b and Texas A&M. This gave her a clearer structure for recruitment and preparation, easing challenges commonly faced by professors developing their first international program.
Successful collaboration begins with academic alignment, supported by clear leadership and a structure that allows faculty from different institutions to work toward shared learning objectives.
Beyond Affordability:
A Different Kind of Academic Experience
According to the Open Doors 2025 report, published by the Institute of International Education, 298,180 U.S. students studied abroad for academic credit during the 2023/24 academic year, a 6% increase from the previous year.
The report also shows that Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and France accounted for 45% of U.S. study abroad participation. These figures highlight both the scale of international education and its concentration in established destinations. For programs focused on less frequently selected destinations or specialized fields, combining institutional demand may create opportunities that are more difficult to sustain independently.
In a collaborative program, students also interact with peers from different universities, regions, and academic backgrounds within their own country. During the Brazil program, animal science students from different institutions were able to compare their knowledge of agricultural production in the United States while exploring Brazilian production systems. The result was an additional layer of comparative learning. Participants were not only studying the differences between Brazil and the United States, but also discovering differences among their own academic environments and regional experiences.
Pascale Parker highlighted how this structure encouraged students to build relationships and exchange perspectives across institutional boundaries. Bethany Kuwitzky expanded on this idea during the webinar, pointing out that even students studying the same subject may approach it differently depending on their home region, local industries, and previous educational experiences.
How to Start a Collaborative Faculty-Led Program
Collaborative programs don’t necessarily need to start from scratch. Universities can build on existing faculty-led programs, bringing together professors with shared academic interests and students from different institutions. Programs that have struggled with enrollment may also find new opportunities through this approach.
The first step is identifying a strong academic foundation and potential partners. Faculty members with existing research collaborations or professional connections are often well positioned to initiate these partnerships. However, education abroad offices and program providers can also help identify opportunities, connect institutions, and explore how existing programs might accommodate additional participants.
Once the academic partnership is established, successful implementation requires clear coordination. Different contracts, payment procedures, enrollment timelines, faculty expectations, and risk management requirements must be accommodated within a shared international experience.
This is where an experienced in-country partner plays a critical role. In the Brazil program, Campus b coordinated the shared itinerary and local operations while working individually with each university to accommodate its institutional requirements, including separate contracts, invoicing, and administrative processes.
Ultimately, building a successful collaborative program requires the right academic connections, clearly defined responsibilities, and a partner capable of turning multiple institutional requirements into one cohesive experience. With these elements in place, universities of different sizes can collaborate to expand opportunities without compromising their individual needs or academic identities.
Conclusion:
Better Together, Without Becoming the Same
Collaborative faculty-led programs challenge an assumption that has shaped many international education initiatives: that each university must independently recruit, develop, and sustain its own international experience.
The model offers another possibility: by combining student demand, sharing selected resources, and coordinating common academic activities, institutions can improve the viability of specialized programs while expanding opportunities for student learning and faculty collaboration.
At Campus b, we see collaboration as an opportunity to build stronger, more sustainable international programs while preserving the academic purpose that makes each experience unique. The question for universities is no longer only what they can offer their own students, but what they might be able to create together.
Interested in exploring a collaborative faculty-led program in Latin America?
Whether you're looking to expand an existing program or develop a new multi-university partnership, Campus b can help you explore the possibilities and build a program around your academic objectives.
Written by:
Fernando Oliveira
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