The Council on International Educational Exchange (“CIEE”) has awarded Kayla Keats, a class of 2025 International Relations and Political Economy double major and Spanish minor, with a fully funded trip to attend the CIEE Annual Conference in Paris this November. Kayla won the trip through the CIEE Student Sustainability Competition.
CIEE’s mission is to help people gain understanding, acquire knowledge, and develop skills for living in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world. They aim to do this by working to break down the three principal barriers to international education and exchange: cost, curriculum, and culture. CIEE offers students, teachers, and young professionals millions of dollars annually in financial support and by designing curricula and diverse programming that is built around the needs and interests of all students. Through these efforts, they hope to provide a way in which all students – regardless of socioeconomic background, culture, or major – have access to the highest-quality international exchange experience.
The worldwide competition included a two-part challenge that asked each student to depict their vision of a sustainable and interconnected world. The first portion of the challenge involved submitting a visually captivating digital poster proposal slide deck depicting the theme of enhancing sustainability in study abroad programs and including actionable strategies to achieve this goal. The first round also included a short video interview presenting a proposal addressing why sustainability was personally significant to each candidate and how they hoped study abroad leaders would promote sustainability in international education.
Round two takes place at the conference. Kayla, as well as the four other contest winners, will get to participate in roundtable discussions and present her ideas. A final review committee will judge the presentations and select a grand prize winner. The grand prize winner will have the opportunity to further advance their ideas and discuss them with key CIEE decision-makers after the conference to put their proposal into action.
Kayla is currently exploring Spanish and European Institutions in Madrid with CIEE. She documents her study abroad experience daily on Instagram @kaylastudiesabroad.
“My passion for sustainability began during an international development course at Tulane, which led me to delve more specifically into sustainable tourism. My proposal surrounds creating unique recipe books that encourage cultural cuisine engagement, incorporate pre-established composting infrastructure instructions for cities across the globe, and provide sustainable and locally sourced shopping alternatives to large supermarkets!”
When Kayla is back in New Orleans, she is a member of the
Tulane Rowing Team and second chair cellist in the University Orchestra.
