The most collaborative forum for global experiential learning and student success.
Visit Page
Atlanta, GA • November 4–6, 2026
Abu Dhabi, UAE • Postponed
Global learning doesn’t only belong to international educators.
It belongs to career services advisors who helps students articulate what they learned while interning in another country. It belongs to student affairs professionals supporting the international student who’s navigating campus life far from home. It belongs to enrollment management teams trying to understand why first-generation students aren’t accessing study abroad at the same rates. It belongs to faculty designing experiential learning — virtual and in-person — that crosses cultural and disciplinary lines.
Global learning sits at the intersection of nearly every functional area on campus, but we still talk about it in silos.
For global learning, a high-impact practice, to live up to its true potential, that needs to change.
The traditional conference model in higher education makes sense. International educators need dedicated spaces to go deep on international student compliance, health and safety protocols, and education abroad advising best practices. Student affairs professionals need to focus on holistic student development. Career services teams are working hard to help students connect experiences to employment outcomes. There’s only so much content you can cover, and it’s valuable to be in the room with colleagues who do the same work you do.
But the students we all support don’t experience their education in silos. A student studying abroad or an international student isn’t just having a global experience, they’re also developing professionally, exploring identity, managing wellness, building intercultural competency, and navigating a significant moment in their broader student journey. Too often— and normally due to organizational structure — the teams supporting such students aren’t intentionally collaborating with each other. This creates a fragmented support structure which jeopardizes full access to the academic, interpersonal, and career impact afforded through global experiences.
The same fragmentation we see on campus tends to follow us into our professional gatherings. And while that’s understandable, if it takes a proverbial village for a student — and the institution — to fully benefit from global learning, then that village needs a place to meet, strategize, innovate, and collaborate. That place is Global Impact.
When DA Global developed the Global Learning & Student Success Ecosystem framework, the intent was to make something visible that’s always been true: global learning is not a standalone activity. It connects directly to student success, access and opportunity, student affairs, enrollment management, experiential learning, and career development. These aren’t adjacent functions. They’re interconnected pillars.
That diagram represents an aspiration as much as a reality. For it to take hold on any given campus, professionals across those areas have to be talking, planning, and learning together.
That’s exactly what the Global Impact Conference is designed to do.
Global Impact is intentionally built to align with our organization’s tagline, Where Global Engagement and Student Success Meet. It’s a cross-functional professional development experience built for international educators, including education abroad advisors, international student services professionals, global education administrators, but it doesn’t stop there. It’s a space for career services professionals helping students translate global competencies that employers value. A convening for first-generation and student success who know their students benefit from global programs but aren’t always sure of their role supporting them. And it’s a space for professionals working in access and inclusion who strive to ensure all students benefit from available high-impact opportunities like global learning. It’s for anyone on campus whose work touches the global learning ecosystem.
The programming isn’t about abandoning depth. It’s about widening the conversation, improving cross-functional communication, and deepening collaboration to advance access and the impact of global learning. When an education abroad advisor sits in a session with a career services director and a first-generation student success coordinator, the conversation changes. Someone reframes a problem that someone else has been sitting with for months. A partnership that should have, and could have, existed before finally gets started. A director who works with first-generation students from one institution connects with a peer from another institution and compares notes and strategies. In this cross-functional professional development environment, new connections get made, assumptions get challenged, and strategies get sharper. This type of learning doesn’t happen by chance. It’s designed with intention. This collaborative approach to professional development — centering global engagement and student success — is what makes Global Impact a unique and needed forum.
The pressure on higher education right now is real and it’s coming from various stakeholders: students, families, employers, and policymakers. Institutions are being asked to demonstrate the value of what they offer. International education is being asked to show not just that global programs exist, or the number of students sent abroad or international students enrolled, but the role global engagement plays in driving measurable outcomes for all students and the institution.
That case is more difficult to make when international education professionals are working in isolation or campus leadership can’t clearly see how global learning intertwines with other units and divisions that more clearly align with campus priorities. It becomes far more compelling when global learning, student affairs, career development, and enrollment management are working from the same framework. That framework should be oriented around what global learning can do to support student achievement and career readiness, a shared goal across the institution. Centering the impact of global learning on student success creates champions for these experiences — not just among international educators but importantly among campus partners whose support is critical to realizing the potential of global learning on student and institutional success.
That alignment starts with being in the same room. It starts with professional development spaces that reflect how those whose work touches global learning can and should connect. The kind of space that transcends who an org chart says can and should learn together.
Global Impact 2026 – North America takes place in Atlanta, November 4-6. The call for proposals for is open. If you’re doing work at the intersection of global learning and student success, whether you sit in an education abroad office or a career center or a first-gen support program, we want to hear from you. Submit a proposal. Bring your perspective to the table.
If you work with colleagues outside of international education, consider reaching out about co-presenting. A session led by professionals from across institutional units doesn’t just describe cross-functional collaboration, it demonstrates it.
And if you’re ready to be in that room, plan to attend (registration open May 2026) as a cross-functional team. Global Impact is where the conversation deepens, the collaboration gets real, and global learning is positioned where it belongs: at the center of student success.
Visit impact.daglobal.org/north-america to learn more and submit a proposal.
Andrew Gordon is an award-winning social impact entrepreneur and leading voice in global education, edtech, inclusive student success and workforce development. As founder of DA Global Access Network, an educational consortium and strategic partner advancing access to global opportunities, he has spent nearly two decades helping higher education institutions strengthen academic achievement, career readiness and institutional impact through access to global education.