International Higher Education in the Age of Trump
by John D. Heyl, PhD
Founder and Editor, IELeaders.net
Posted October 26, 2017
Since the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency about a year ago, various groups have attempted to predict the impact of his election on diverse sectors of higher education.
For example, a group of scientists and librarians huddled over US government websites in January, trying to determine what data can be saved offsite in case the Trump administration decides to delete these data from public view. A team at the Univ. of Pennsylvania, among other things, was downloading data sets from the EPA, NOAA and the Department of Energy, in particular, as the remarks of newly appointed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt implied these data may not be available in the future.1
Social scientists are struggling with a somewhat different scenario. Professional standards in these fields require highly rigorous and technical papers for journals and academic conferences. But reacting and applying one's knowledge to actual political events calls for communication through politically focused think tanks, various topical websites or public forums. One observer notes: "Think tanks and NGOs have a greater ability to weigh in on policy, be less descriptive, and set out recommendations for what to do."2 A public forum in downtown Tucson, Arizona, in October brought together professors in communications and political science and the executive director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse at UA to discuss issues of trust "in our 'post-truth' era of alternative facts and fake news."3
International higher education faces similar but different issues as well in confronting the Trump era. Some initial reactions to Trump's election were alarming, even alarmist.
For example, Madeleine Green, Senior Fellow at the International Initiatives at the American Council on Education, said that Trump's election has "opened the floodgates" to those who would question the value of international education.4 Meanwhile, Philip Altbach and Hans de Wit have written of a "sea-change in the patterns of higher education internationalization" following the Trump election.5
These reactions were certainly no surprise in light of Trump's campaign attacks on "globalizers," Muslim and Mexican immigrants in particular and immigration more broadly and various multilateral agreements, including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Paris Climate Accord and, more recently, the Iran Nuclear Deal and UNESCO.
To be sure, nationalist trends - even nativist/anti-immigrant/isolationist ones - have always been latent in US politics. In the past, they have sometimes (but rarely) held sway even on the national stage. On the other hand, it is possible that faith in the kind of globalization that Thomas Friedman proclaimed in his path-breaking The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999) - along with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union - blinded international educators to the inevitable backlash against globalization, both at home and abroad. For radical Islam is clearly one of the many forms of this backlash. Domestic US attacks on the "globalizers" in Washington, DC, Silicon Valley and outsourcing companies reflects yet another stream of the same animus. And the backlash is now transatlantic. As New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, from his perch in Berlin, recently observed: "An autocratic, nativist, xenophobic, nationalist reaction is now in full swing on both sides of the Atlantic. . . . "6
Truth be told, a good deal of international education in the past two-plus decades, despite real efforts and considerable achievements expanding domestic participation in international activities, IE continues to attract a small percentage on college campuses. Thus IE has in fact gone mainstream on an increasing number of campuses. Faculty engagement is higher than ever. Study abroad participation has doubled in the past 15 years to 313, 415 in 2015-2016. Still, fewer than 10% (dare I say “elite”?) of all US college graduates study abroad, and most of those study in short-term programs of eight weeks or less. The import side of international higher education - international student recruitment and enrollment - continued to broaden and deepen, with record levels in 2015-16 (1, 043, 839). To be sure, questions continued to be raised about the commercialization of this dimension of the internationalization project. And initial responses abroad to Trump’s immigration policies suggests an impending dip in the current trend of international student enrollment.7
Perhaps the greatest irony of all: The period of the greatest expansion of international education - supportive presidential/provostial rhetoric, greater administrative centralization, expanding faculty interest and student participation, organizational professionalization - saw the sharpest decline in public support for higher education nationwide.
Even in what appears to be a negative environment nationally, however, the condition of international education continues to be resilient.
For one thing, the trajectories of campus-based internationalization efforts continue to rise. One symptom: More senior leadership positions in IE – increasingly at the academic unit (college and department) level – are created and appointed.
Second, SIOs, for the most part, combine unique management skills and a passion for their institutional vision, enlarged by extensive global experience. They are skilled fund-raisers, comfortable working with external benefactors, government entities and unit leaders across campus. They realize they need to deploy their networking skills to expand the kind of resources (both human and financial) that can make internationalization happen.
Third, IE leaders are elaborating an internationalization vision that addresses campus and community needs well beyond traditional areas of education abroad/exchange, international student enrollment and faculty and scholar exchange. Even before Trump’s election, Hans de Wit, Director of Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education, reminded international educators that “Internationalization is not a goal in itself but a means to enhance quality across the institution.”8 In the long run, the impact on the curriculum – as well as through extra-curricular experiences, such as service learning – will continue to broaden internationalization’s impact well beyond the “mobile elite” in coming years.
Fourth, for all the current anti-globalization rhetoric, the 21st century reality will very likely see more globalization, not less. As John Hudzik, former president of both NAFSA and AIEA has said: “The forces propelling globalization aren’t going to reverse.”9 Regional trade and political associations may evolve and mutate, but large trade groupings will persist, hopefully helping to suppress internecine violence.
Finally, international educators will continue to need to make their passions and commitments known. This has always been true, even as institutional priorities have shifted over the years, sometimes downgrading the visibility of internationalization. But it is especially true in the face of politically motivated critique – especially in the era of Donald Trump.
Resources:
1 Zoë Schlanger, "Rogue Scientists Race to Save Climate Data from Trump," Wired.com, January 19, 2017.
2 Donald Abelson, quoted in Emma Grey Ellis, “The Topsy Turvy World of Political Science in Trump’s America.” Retrieved October 12, 2017, at Wired.com, March 5, 2017.
3 Retrieved October 10, 2017, at http://sbsdowntown.arizona.edu.
4 “They were at the Beginning, Interview with Madeleine F. Green.” Retrieved October 10, 2017, at www.aiea.org.
5 “Trump and the Coming Revolution in Higher Education Internationalization,” International Higher Education, 2017 (89), 3-4.
6 ”Daydreaming in Germany," New York Times, October 17, 2017. Retrieved October 14, 2017, at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/ 17/opinion/daydreaming-in-Germany;html.
7 Elizabeth Redden, “”International Enrollments: From Flat to Way Down.” Inside Higher Education, September 5, 2017.
8 Sara Custer, “The Future of Global Ed: civic engagement, social responsibility, says AIEA,” PIE News, February 29, 2016. Retrieved October 20, 2017, at https://thepienews.com/news/the-future-of-global-ed-civic-engagement-social-responsibility-says-aiea/
9 Karin Fischer, “International Educators Confront a New Political Reality – and Find a New Resolve.” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 31, 2017, retrieved October 20, 2017, at http://www.chronicle.com/article/International-Educators/240220.
* * *
Presidential Leadership “Churn” and the SIO
By John D. Heyl
IELeaders.net
Posted June 8, 2017
It is a commonplace in the middle management experience and literature that changes at the top have consequences. One is reminded of Jack Van de Water’s now famous cri de coeur: “the arrival of a new president and a new provost . . . should be equated to moving to a new institution. Most all the work done previously to establish credibility with the central administration is ‘out the window.’”1
SIOs are not alone, of course, in being impacted by a change in senior leadership. In effect, all aspects of campus life may well be (re)shaped by a new personality, with a unique set of professional and institutional background and ambitions to be a change agent at the campus level.
This is why Rick Seltzer’s piece in Inside Higher Education (June 7, 2017), caught my eye: “Swift and Silent Exits.” Seltzer notes that, although data is not readily available, it is generally understood that the typical college president’s tenure has become shorter in recent years, likely shorter than the seven years that ACE reported in 2011.
Why is this so?
Each case presents a different (probably unique) set of circumstances, so it is risky to generalize. Seltzer offers several broad factors:
> The more active role of Boards of Directors, especially Board members with business backgrounds, in both choosing new presidents and evaluating sitting presidents.
> The heightened pressures of leading higher education institutions in an era of lower state support and less deference from university Boards, the local public and the media.
> The lack of visionary leadership matched with management skills that campus presidencies now demand. William G. Tierney, professor of higher education at USC, goes so far as to say that the turnover has to do with quality: “It reflects presidents uniquely unqualified in navigating their institutions through turbulent times.”
An additional factor, admittedly somewhat cynical in flavor but still reality based, is the following. Despite the increasing turnover of college presidencies – maybe because of it – presidential salaries, including bonuses for staying for the full term of the initial contract, have continued to increase, dramatically in some cases.
The University of Arizona is surely an outlier in both areas but instructive nonetheless. In the past eleven years (2006-2017), UA has had three presidents and an interim president. (The president immediately prior to that period, Peter Likins, served for nine years.) In that same period, presidential compensation has risen from $570,000 to $988,000, from 22nd nationally to perhaps the top ten of public university presidents.
It seems reasonable that these kinds of astronomical salary packages mean that a relatively short presidential tenure is not without its rewards. One can’t help but think that this fact may account for the recent spate of resignations by relatively young presidents.
For SIOs, the even greater “churn” of Provost turnover poses an even greater challenge. Seltzer notes that the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) reports that Provost changes were at about 33% last year, up from about 25% the year before. And, for most SIOs, the Provost is the boss.
_________________________
1 J. Van de Water (2006), Lessons Learned: Musings on a 30-Year
Career in International Education, International Educator, 15(1), p. 59.
* * *
'IE Generation' Leaders Reflect (III)
AIEA Interviews Highlight 'Arc of Change' in International Education
by John D. Heyl
IELeaders.net
Posted March 10, 2017
Three leading non-US international educators interviewed by AIEA in 2016 - Hans de Wit (Netherlands), Nico Jooste (South Africa) and Sylvain St-Amand (Canada) - bring both new and familiar perspectives to speculations on the future of IE. Indeed, the discussion with de Wit (Center for International Higher Education, Boston College) focuses in part on the persistent diversity of IE and why we call it a "field" and not (yet) a "discipline." View the full interviews here
Internationalization "Models." One theme that emerges from Joan Gore's conversations with these scholars/practitioners is that "models" of IE institutional strategy are self-defeating if slavishly copied from one institution to another. Far more important is the intentionality of the effort, the focus on institutional mission and senior leadership support over time to launch a truly transformational process.
Jooste, Senior Director of International Education at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, points out that many South African universities, emerging
from the international academic boycott because of the country's apartheid policies, were able to develop their own internationalization strategies without
government interference or imposed models. Although Jooste and his IE colleagues learned from "best practices" around the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they ended up building grass roots approaches institution by
institution.
Ethical Questions for SIOs. Each of these IE leaders poses an essentially ethical question for themselves and for the field.
For Nico Jooste, the key question focuses on what kind of graduates an internationally minded university wants to help develop. Can they "straddle the local and the global" as they move into the world of work. More than this, will they act responsibly in the "global commons" we all act in now - that is, in a world where virtually all of our actions have global consequences.
For Hans de Wit, the key issue is the quality of the education an internationalized institution wants to offer its students. This quality will depend on whether the institution is asking such questions as: What is our
relation (as institutions and as international educators) with society? What are the consequences - both intended and unintended - of our actions in an interconnected world? de Wit suggests that the increasing commercialization of IE, in particular, raises these kinds of questions on a daily basis.
Sylvain St-Amand, Director of the Office of International Relations at the University of Quebec in Montreal, poses a somewhat different ethical question for IE: How can the international educator best function as a change agent? By leading a "center of excellence" (in Jim Collins's Good to Great terms) - a centralized office with expertise in all relevant areas of international management - or by helping to "internationalize" additional players (colleges, departments, centers, administrative offices, etc.) across the institution by sharing staff and resources? St-Amand currently pursues the latter path.
St-Amand highlights an ethical (and practical) challenge that Jack Van de Water (Oregon State University) foresaw two decades ago as internationalization began to emerge as an institutional priority. Is the SIO prepared to share some of his/her "turf" and authority in the interest of broader ("comprehensive") participation in the internationalization process?
Perhaps Hans de Wit summarized best why international education as a field continues to attract both theoretical and practitioner focused research and reporting: In IE, he says, "there's never a dull moment."
* * *
On Leaving: Exiting on Good Terms
Posted February 17, 2017
By Allison M. Vaillancourt, Vice President for Business Affairs & Human Resources and Professor Practice, School of Government & Public Policy at the University of Arizona, in Tucson. Reprinted from The Chronicle of Higher Education (February 13, 2017).
[Ed. note: With professional mobility a continuing reality in international higher education (see Leadership Jobs tab on this site), the following article caught our eye. Good advice!]
So you're ready to go. You've accepted a new job with people who seem to think you’re amazing and you’re eager to make a fresh start. First, however, you have to share the big news with people in your current institution, and that prospect has you feeling a little nervous.
There's a lot you have to say and you're wondering how to say it. You feel annoyed that people assumed you'd be around forever and never gave you the attention they offered to more obvious "flight risks." You offered to take on more responsibilities to ward off professional boredom, but you could never garner any interest in granting you a larger or more diverse portfolio. Most troubling, your bosses consistently rewarded the self-promoters, while ignoring solid citizens (such as yourself) who quietly delivered results without a lot of fanfare.
With a job offer in hand, this feels like a good time
to detail the years of disappointment that finally
prompted you to consider a new opportunity.
But is it? As you write your letter of resignation and think about what you’re going to say in passing conversations about your pending departure, should you be completely honest? Or should you bury your bitterness in an effort to be professional and polite?
Here's a tip: Take your laptop or a pad of paper to your favorite coffee shop and write the resignation letter that you would love to send. Outline the various injustices you endured and make a detailed list of improvements that should be implemented to ensure that you are the last person to feel mistreated. Be as detailed as possible as you describe the slights you experienced and how they made you feel. Mention the first time you thought about leaving and explain why you regret delaying your departure. Also, craft a second response — briefer, but similarly themed — that you can offer verbally or in writing when people express surprise about your departure.
Review both drafts, correct punctuation and grammar, and then set them aside to read the next day. When tomorrow comes, read them again, make additional edits, and then place both your letter of resignation and your explanation paragraph in a sealed envelope.
Here's the important part: Tuck the envelope into a drawer at home. Under no circumstances should you share your "venting" documents with anyone at work. Now go and draft something vague and professionally appropriate that you can actually hand out or say in public.
The neutral zone between your old life and your new one can be a treacherous space. When you've got a firm offer to move on, you may feel emboldened to "speak truth to power" and let those who let you down know that actions have consequences. You may also be tempted to punish your former colleagues, perhaps leaving loose ends that will make life especially hard for them after you are gone.
Leaving well is a far better option. Here are some tips for how to go out on a high note.
* * *
'IE Generation' Leaders Reflect (II)
AIEA Interviews Highlight 'Arc of Change' in International Education
by John D. Heyl, PhD
Founder and Editor
IELeaders.net
Posted November 1, 2016
This is the second discussion of recent oral interviews conducted by Dr. Joan Gore on behalf of AIEA (Association of International Education Administrators) with senior leaders in international education. The leaders included in this posting are: JoAnn McCarthy (INTO), Gil Merkx (Duke University), Michael Woolf (CAPA) and Susan Buck Sutton (Bryn Mawr). View the full interviews here.
In addition to their "senior" status among leading international educators, these interviewees have also charted new, often unique, roles in the field following
leadership at one or more institutions.
All four of these leaders came into international education by way of unanticipated developments following their graduate education and early professional work. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the field of international education was still unformed, often practiced by part-time appointees and very much at the periphery of institutional priorities. These four professionals brought to their
appointments, however, a vision of internationalization that would guide long careers with extraordinary impact.
They epitomized the second post World War II generation of international educators who would create a professional field, establish paths for IE careers, dramatically expand participation in international activities and help move international education closer to the core of institutional priorities.
JoAnn McCarthy, for example, was an adjunct professor of French at Illinois State University (Normal, IL) when she was named Executive Director of International Programs at ISU in 1983. She attended her first AIEA meeting in 1987 and saw quickly that both an academic and professional field was emerging. She subsequently led internationali- zation at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA), the University of South Florida and the University of Pennsylvania before joining INTO. Likewise, Michael Woolf, currently Deputy President for Strategic Develop- ment at CAPA, had been working at the BBC in the early 1980s and teaching American literature part-time at (then) Middlesex Polytechnic when CIEE in London hired him because he "knew a bit about a lot of things." In addition to his work at CIEE, Woolf had worked at FIE and Syracuse University before coming to CAPA in 2011.
Levers for Change - The Importance of Senior Leadership Support: McCarthy notes that, when she came to Old Dominion University in the early 1990s, she re-ported directly to President Jim Koch, who was an acknowledged advocate for internationalization. This gave her, in addition to generous budgetary support and a high profile privately funded facility, access to faculty development and the curriculum across the institution. At IUPUI, Sutton had strong Provost support for an ambitious faculty collaboration initiative which had "multiplier" effects throughout the institution. Currently, Sutton reports directly to the President at Bryn Mawr, again assuring her ability to reach across the institution to support IE initiatives.
* * *
'IE Generation' Leaders Reflect (I)
AIEA Interviews Highlight 'Arc
of Change' in International Education
By John D. Heyl, IEL Editor
Posted September 12, 2016
AIEA has sponsored a series of extended interviews led by Dr. Joan Gore (Foundation for International Education) with "senior" Senior International Education Administrators, including those who have served as past president of the Association. At or near retirement from SIO positions, several of the interviewees have also charted new, often unique, roles in the field following leadership at one or more US institutions.
Taken together, these IE veterans truly embody an entire generation of leadership, innovation and change in international education.
The interviews may be found at http://www.aieaworld.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=502:lessons-from-leaders-in-internationalization&catid=20:site-content&Itemid=284.
What follows is a discussion of the main themes from these conversations. Readers are encouraged to view the complete interviews.
Interestingly, the four interviewees discussed here (Stephen Dunnett (Univ. of Buffalo), Arlene Jackson (AASCU), Earl Kellogg (Univ. of Illinois) and Bill Lacy (UC Davis)) came into international education as a professional field from somewhat non-traditional backgrounds. These included agricultural economics, rural sociology, English as a second language, and independent consulting - including Jackson's work with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Kellogg's with Winrock International. Their familiarity with and management of big, ambitious initiatives may well have helped drive their change agendas in international education.
The key elements of the "arc of change" in IE over the past 25 years are familiar by now. The interviewees named the following: Increased senior level coordination/advocacy for international initiatives on campus; increased visibility of international/global priorities in institutional mission/strategic planning; increased professionalization of IE as a field; striking growth in participation in student mobility (though still a very small percentage of US and global student enrollment); the creation of branch campuses abroad; an increased focus on internationalizing the curriculum, including STEM fields of study; broadening of faculty involvement in all aspects of globalization.
But challenges remain. Dunnett speaks of a dark side to the professionalization of the field. He sees a decline in volunteerism that used to provide critical support to international engagement. He also sees an increased commercialization of support services to campus international units and, indeed,
to the potential exploitation of international students as a "cash cow" in an era of declining public support for higher education. Lacy notes the still
limited success on many campuses to adequately prepare for the dramatic influx of international undergraduate students and to create truly integrated
living/learning experiences for all. Kellogg sees the potential for the marginalization of the SIO when the campus president comes to think that he/she
invented "this thing" (campus internationalization) and doesn't need the SIO's experience and guidance for its future development.
From years leading international initiatives at AASCU, Jackson notes that some of the most impressive initiatives in recent years have emanated from
associations committed to the increased internationalization of their members. For example, AASCU institutions' mission to serve as a "steward of place" now means to integrate campus international initiatives with needs of the local community. Moreover, this process has helped institutions both establish
sustainable linkages abroad but also create new exchanges to strengthen one-on-one education among administrators, staff and students.
Lacy reflected that the relatively modest staffing and budgets of IE units requires a focus on innovation and experimentation to match funds and build coalitions across campus and beyond. These too are persistent challenges for SIOs but also a source of great satisfaction - even joy! - when they are overcome and global learning is enhanced.
A final theme that the interviewees spoke to is the need for IE leaders to address "big ideas" well beyond the management of growth in the several
traditional IE domains.
For example, Kellogg takes pride in inviting Amy Chua (Yale law professor and author of "World on Fire" (2003)) to speak to the AIEA annual conference in
2004. Chua offered a challenging interpretation of global relations in the post-9/11 era! encouraging future AIEA conferences to highlight these kinds of
conversations. Likewise, Lacy points out that the Association of Pacific Rim Universities offers 12 diverse US campuses an opportunity to take on global
problems such as climate change, public health and geophysical (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.) issues on an ambitious regional basis with 33 global partners.
Note: A second installment will follow next month highlighting themes from interviews with JoAnn McCarthy, Gil Merkx, Susan Buck Sutton and Michael Woolf.
by John D. Heyl, PhD
Founder and Editor, IELeaders.net
Posted October 26, 2017
Since the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency about a year ago, various groups have attempted to predict the impact of his election on diverse sectors of higher education.
For example, a group of scientists and librarians huddled over US government websites in January, trying to determine what data can be saved offsite in case the Trump administration decides to delete these data from public view. A team at the Univ. of Pennsylvania, among other things, was downloading data sets from the EPA, NOAA and the Department of Energy, in particular, as the remarks of newly appointed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt implied these data may not be available in the future.1
Social scientists are struggling with a somewhat different scenario. Professional standards in these fields require highly rigorous and technical papers for journals and academic conferences. But reacting and applying one's knowledge to actual political events calls for communication through politically focused think tanks, various topical websites or public forums. One observer notes: "Think tanks and NGOs have a greater ability to weigh in on policy, be less descriptive, and set out recommendations for what to do."2 A public forum in downtown Tucson, Arizona, in October brought together professors in communications and political science and the executive director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse at UA to discuss issues of trust "in our 'post-truth' era of alternative facts and fake news."3
International higher education faces similar but different issues as well in confronting the Trump era. Some initial reactions to Trump's election were alarming, even alarmist.
For example, Madeleine Green, Senior Fellow at the International Initiatives at the American Council on Education, said that Trump's election has "opened the floodgates" to those who would question the value of international education.4 Meanwhile, Philip Altbach and Hans de Wit have written of a "sea-change in the patterns of higher education internationalization" following the Trump election.5
These reactions were certainly no surprise in light of Trump's campaign attacks on "globalizers," Muslim and Mexican immigrants in particular and immigration more broadly and various multilateral agreements, including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Paris Climate Accord and, more recently, the Iran Nuclear Deal and UNESCO.
To be sure, nationalist trends - even nativist/anti-immigrant/isolationist ones - have always been latent in US politics. In the past, they have sometimes (but rarely) held sway even on the national stage. On the other hand, it is possible that faith in the kind of globalization that Thomas Friedman proclaimed in his path-breaking The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999) - along with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union - blinded international educators to the inevitable backlash against globalization, both at home and abroad. For radical Islam is clearly one of the many forms of this backlash. Domestic US attacks on the "globalizers" in Washington, DC, Silicon Valley and outsourcing companies reflects yet another stream of the same animus. And the backlash is now transatlantic. As New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, from his perch in Berlin, recently observed: "An autocratic, nativist, xenophobic, nationalist reaction is now in full swing on both sides of the Atlantic. . . . "6
Truth be told, a good deal of international education in the past two-plus decades, despite real efforts and considerable achievements expanding domestic participation in international activities, IE continues to attract a small percentage on college campuses. Thus IE has in fact gone mainstream on an increasing number of campuses. Faculty engagement is higher than ever. Study abroad participation has doubled in the past 15 years to 313, 415 in 2015-2016. Still, fewer than 10% (dare I say “elite”?) of all US college graduates study abroad, and most of those study in short-term programs of eight weeks or less. The import side of international higher education - international student recruitment and enrollment - continued to broaden and deepen, with record levels in 2015-16 (1, 043, 839). To be sure, questions continued to be raised about the commercialization of this dimension of the internationalization project. And initial responses abroad to Trump’s immigration policies suggests an impending dip in the current trend of international student enrollment.7
Perhaps the greatest irony of all: The period of the greatest expansion of international education - supportive presidential/provostial rhetoric, greater administrative centralization, expanding faculty interest and student participation, organizational professionalization - saw the sharpest decline in public support for higher education nationwide.
Even in what appears to be a negative environment nationally, however, the condition of international education continues to be resilient.
For one thing, the trajectories of campus-based internationalization efforts continue to rise. One symptom: More senior leadership positions in IE – increasingly at the academic unit (college and department) level – are created and appointed.
Second, SIOs, for the most part, combine unique management skills and a passion for their institutional vision, enlarged by extensive global experience. They are skilled fund-raisers, comfortable working with external benefactors, government entities and unit leaders across campus. They realize they need to deploy their networking skills to expand the kind of resources (both human and financial) that can make internationalization happen.
Third, IE leaders are elaborating an internationalization vision that addresses campus and community needs well beyond traditional areas of education abroad/exchange, international student enrollment and faculty and scholar exchange. Even before Trump’s election, Hans de Wit, Director of Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education, reminded international educators that “Internationalization is not a goal in itself but a means to enhance quality across the institution.”8 In the long run, the impact on the curriculum – as well as through extra-curricular experiences, such as service learning – will continue to broaden internationalization’s impact well beyond the “mobile elite” in coming years.
Fourth, for all the current anti-globalization rhetoric, the 21st century reality will very likely see more globalization, not less. As John Hudzik, former president of both NAFSA and AIEA has said: “The forces propelling globalization aren’t going to reverse.”9 Regional trade and political associations may evolve and mutate, but large trade groupings will persist, hopefully helping to suppress internecine violence.
Finally, international educators will continue to need to make their passions and commitments known. This has always been true, even as institutional priorities have shifted over the years, sometimes downgrading the visibility of internationalization. But it is especially true in the face of politically motivated critique – especially in the era of Donald Trump.
Resources:
1 Zoë Schlanger, "Rogue Scientists Race to Save Climate Data from Trump," Wired.com, January 19, 2017.
2 Donald Abelson, quoted in Emma Grey Ellis, “The Topsy Turvy World of Political Science in Trump’s America.” Retrieved October 12, 2017, at Wired.com, March 5, 2017.
3 Retrieved October 10, 2017, at http://sbsdowntown.arizona.edu.
4 “They were at the Beginning, Interview with Madeleine F. Green.” Retrieved October 10, 2017, at www.aiea.org.
5 “Trump and the Coming Revolution in Higher Education Internationalization,” International Higher Education, 2017 (89), 3-4.
6 ”Daydreaming in Germany," New York Times, October 17, 2017. Retrieved October 14, 2017, at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/ 17/opinion/daydreaming-in-Germany;html.
7 Elizabeth Redden, “”International Enrollments: From Flat to Way Down.” Inside Higher Education, September 5, 2017.
8 Sara Custer, “The Future of Global Ed: civic engagement, social responsibility, says AIEA,” PIE News, February 29, 2016. Retrieved October 20, 2017, at https://thepienews.com/news/the-future-of-global-ed-civic-engagement-social-responsibility-says-aiea/
9 Karin Fischer, “International Educators Confront a New Political Reality – and Find a New Resolve.” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 31, 2017, retrieved October 20, 2017, at http://www.chronicle.com/article/International-Educators/240220.
* * *
Presidential Leadership “Churn” and the SIO
By John D. Heyl
IELeaders.net
Posted June 8, 2017
It is a commonplace in the middle management experience and literature that changes at the top have consequences. One is reminded of Jack Van de Water’s now famous cri de coeur: “the arrival of a new president and a new provost . . . should be equated to moving to a new institution. Most all the work done previously to establish credibility with the central administration is ‘out the window.’”1
SIOs are not alone, of course, in being impacted by a change in senior leadership. In effect, all aspects of campus life may well be (re)shaped by a new personality, with a unique set of professional and institutional background and ambitions to be a change agent at the campus level.
This is why Rick Seltzer’s piece in Inside Higher Education (June 7, 2017), caught my eye: “Swift and Silent Exits.” Seltzer notes that, although data is not readily available, it is generally understood that the typical college president’s tenure has become shorter in recent years, likely shorter than the seven years that ACE reported in 2011.
Why is this so?
Each case presents a different (probably unique) set of circumstances, so it is risky to generalize. Seltzer offers several broad factors:
> The more active role of Boards of Directors, especially Board members with business backgrounds, in both choosing new presidents and evaluating sitting presidents.
> The heightened pressures of leading higher education institutions in an era of lower state support and less deference from university Boards, the local public and the media.
> The lack of visionary leadership matched with management skills that campus presidencies now demand. William G. Tierney, professor of higher education at USC, goes so far as to say that the turnover has to do with quality: “It reflects presidents uniquely unqualified in navigating their institutions through turbulent times.”
An additional factor, admittedly somewhat cynical in flavor but still reality based, is the following. Despite the increasing turnover of college presidencies – maybe because of it – presidential salaries, including bonuses for staying for the full term of the initial contract, have continued to increase, dramatically in some cases.
The University of Arizona is surely an outlier in both areas but instructive nonetheless. In the past eleven years (2006-2017), UA has had three presidents and an interim president. (The president immediately prior to that period, Peter Likins, served for nine years.) In that same period, presidential compensation has risen from $570,000 to $988,000, from 22nd nationally to perhaps the top ten of public university presidents.
It seems reasonable that these kinds of astronomical salary packages mean that a relatively short presidential tenure is not without its rewards. One can’t help but think that this fact may account for the recent spate of resignations by relatively young presidents.
For SIOs, the even greater “churn” of Provost turnover poses an even greater challenge. Seltzer notes that the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) reports that Provost changes were at about 33% last year, up from about 25% the year before. And, for most SIOs, the Provost is the boss.
_________________________
1 J. Van de Water (2006), Lessons Learned: Musings on a 30-Year
Career in International Education, International Educator, 15(1), p. 59.
* * *
'IE Generation' Leaders Reflect (III)
AIEA Interviews Highlight 'Arc of Change' in International Education
by John D. Heyl
IELeaders.net
Posted March 10, 2017
Three leading non-US international educators interviewed by AIEA in 2016 - Hans de Wit (Netherlands), Nico Jooste (South Africa) and Sylvain St-Amand (Canada) - bring both new and familiar perspectives to speculations on the future of IE. Indeed, the discussion with de Wit (Center for International Higher Education, Boston College) focuses in part on the persistent diversity of IE and why we call it a "field" and not (yet) a "discipline." View the full interviews here
Internationalization "Models." One theme that emerges from Joan Gore's conversations with these scholars/practitioners is that "models" of IE institutional strategy are self-defeating if slavishly copied from one institution to another. Far more important is the intentionality of the effort, the focus on institutional mission and senior leadership support over time to launch a truly transformational process.
Jooste, Senior Director of International Education at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, points out that many South African universities, emerging
from the international academic boycott because of the country's apartheid policies, were able to develop their own internationalization strategies without
government interference or imposed models. Although Jooste and his IE colleagues learned from "best practices" around the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they ended up building grass roots approaches institution by
institution.
Ethical Questions for SIOs. Each of these IE leaders poses an essentially ethical question for themselves and for the field.
For Nico Jooste, the key question focuses on what kind of graduates an internationally minded university wants to help develop. Can they "straddle the local and the global" as they move into the world of work. More than this, will they act responsibly in the "global commons" we all act in now - that is, in a world where virtually all of our actions have global consequences.
For Hans de Wit, the key issue is the quality of the education an internationalized institution wants to offer its students. This quality will depend on whether the institution is asking such questions as: What is our
relation (as institutions and as international educators) with society? What are the consequences - both intended and unintended - of our actions in an interconnected world? de Wit suggests that the increasing commercialization of IE, in particular, raises these kinds of questions on a daily basis.
Sylvain St-Amand, Director of the Office of International Relations at the University of Quebec in Montreal, poses a somewhat different ethical question for IE: How can the international educator best function as a change agent? By leading a "center of excellence" (in Jim Collins's Good to Great terms) - a centralized office with expertise in all relevant areas of international management - or by helping to "internationalize" additional players (colleges, departments, centers, administrative offices, etc.) across the institution by sharing staff and resources? St-Amand currently pursues the latter path.
St-Amand highlights an ethical (and practical) challenge that Jack Van de Water (Oregon State University) foresaw two decades ago as internationalization began to emerge as an institutional priority. Is the SIO prepared to share some of his/her "turf" and authority in the interest of broader ("comprehensive") participation in the internationalization process?
Perhaps Hans de Wit summarized best why international education as a field continues to attract both theoretical and practitioner focused research and reporting: In IE, he says, "there's never a dull moment."
* * *
On Leaving: Exiting on Good Terms
Posted February 17, 2017
By Allison M. Vaillancourt, Vice President for Business Affairs & Human Resources and Professor Practice, School of Government & Public Policy at the University of Arizona, in Tucson. Reprinted from The Chronicle of Higher Education (February 13, 2017).
[Ed. note: With professional mobility a continuing reality in international higher education (see Leadership Jobs tab on this site), the following article caught our eye. Good advice!]
So you're ready to go. You've accepted a new job with people who seem to think you’re amazing and you’re eager to make a fresh start. First, however, you have to share the big news with people in your current institution, and that prospect has you feeling a little nervous.
There's a lot you have to say and you're wondering how to say it. You feel annoyed that people assumed you'd be around forever and never gave you the attention they offered to more obvious "flight risks." You offered to take on more responsibilities to ward off professional boredom, but you could never garner any interest in granting you a larger or more diverse portfolio. Most troubling, your bosses consistently rewarded the self-promoters, while ignoring solid citizens (such as yourself) who quietly delivered results without a lot of fanfare.
With a job offer in hand, this feels like a good time
to detail the years of disappointment that finally
prompted you to consider a new opportunity.
But is it? As you write your letter of resignation and think about what you’re going to say in passing conversations about your pending departure, should you be completely honest? Or should you bury your bitterness in an effort to be professional and polite?
Here's a tip: Take your laptop or a pad of paper to your favorite coffee shop and write the resignation letter that you would love to send. Outline the various injustices you endured and make a detailed list of improvements that should be implemented to ensure that you are the last person to feel mistreated. Be as detailed as possible as you describe the slights you experienced and how they made you feel. Mention the first time you thought about leaving and explain why you regret delaying your departure. Also, craft a second response — briefer, but similarly themed — that you can offer verbally or in writing when people express surprise about your departure.
Review both drafts, correct punctuation and grammar, and then set them aside to read the next day. When tomorrow comes, read them again, make additional edits, and then place both your letter of resignation and your explanation paragraph in a sealed envelope.
Here's the important part: Tuck the envelope into a drawer at home. Under no circumstances should you share your "venting" documents with anyone at work. Now go and draft something vague and professionally appropriate that you can actually hand out or say in public.
The neutral zone between your old life and your new one can be a treacherous space. When you've got a firm offer to move on, you may feel emboldened to "speak truth to power" and let those who let you down know that actions have consequences. You may also be tempted to punish your former colleagues, perhaps leaving loose ends that will make life especially hard for them after you are gone.
Leaving well is a far better option. Here are some tips for how to go out on a high note.
- Before you deliver any news to anyone, make sure your affairs are in order. Make copies of anything you might need (to the degree that is allowable). Make sure you no longer need your soon-to-be-old work email address, and that your Linkedin and iPhone accounts and various subscriptions are linked to your personal email account. Remove anything from your workspace that would cause discomfort or embarrassment were it to be discovered by others.
- Next, offer your resignation in person. At the end of the conversation provide a letter of resignation in writing. Give as much notice as possible, but be open to the possibility that you may be asked to leave sooner than you expected.
- When asked why you are leaving, speak of what drew you to the new opportunity rather than what prompted you to start looking in the first place.
- Finish strong. Wrap up projects, complete assignments, and honor your commitments. If you slack off toward the end, that is how you will be remembered.
- Send thank-you notes to everyone who supported you so they will think well of you after you have gone.
- Leave your affairs in good order. Leave a project list. Make sure your paper and electronic files are accessible and well organized; provide a roadmap so that your content can be accessed later. Delete or throw away content that you probably should have tossed or deleted years ago.
- Clean up your workspace and leave your key and ID card in an obvious space so a departmental staff member doesn't have to chase you down or sift through your books and documents.
- Offer to be a resource as questions arise in the future and honor your word when a former colleague calls you.
- While it may be tempting to leave overly ripe fruit in a desk drawer for others to find weeks after you have gone, resist the urge.
- Once you are gone, be gone. Don't check in. Don't try to stay up-to-date on internal workings. Don't offer advice. Don't comment on your successor’s performance. Yes, you have important insights to share, but the time for sharing is now over
- In your excitement — or relief — about leaving, it may not occur to you that you might want to return one day. By leaving responsibly and quietly, a return invitation might actually be possible, should you want it down the road.
* * *
'IE Generation' Leaders Reflect (II)
AIEA Interviews Highlight 'Arc of Change' in International Education
by John D. Heyl, PhD
Founder and Editor
IELeaders.net
Posted November 1, 2016
This is the second discussion of recent oral interviews conducted by Dr. Joan Gore on behalf of AIEA (Association of International Education Administrators) with senior leaders in international education. The leaders included in this posting are: JoAnn McCarthy (INTO), Gil Merkx (Duke University), Michael Woolf (CAPA) and Susan Buck Sutton (Bryn Mawr). View the full interviews here.
In addition to their "senior" status among leading international educators, these interviewees have also charted new, often unique, roles in the field following
leadership at one or more institutions.
All four of these leaders came into international education by way of unanticipated developments following their graduate education and early professional work. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the field of international education was still unformed, often practiced by part-time appointees and very much at the periphery of institutional priorities. These four professionals brought to their
appointments, however, a vision of internationalization that would guide long careers with extraordinary impact.
They epitomized the second post World War II generation of international educators who would create a professional field, establish paths for IE careers, dramatically expand participation in international activities and help move international education closer to the core of institutional priorities.
JoAnn McCarthy, for example, was an adjunct professor of French at Illinois State University (Normal, IL) when she was named Executive Director of International Programs at ISU in 1983. She attended her first AIEA meeting in 1987 and saw quickly that both an academic and professional field was emerging. She subsequently led internationali- zation at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA), the University of South Florida and the University of Pennsylvania before joining INTO. Likewise, Michael Woolf, currently Deputy President for Strategic Develop- ment at CAPA, had been working at the BBC in the early 1980s and teaching American literature part-time at (then) Middlesex Polytechnic when CIEE in London hired him because he "knew a bit about a lot of things." In addition to his work at CIEE, Woolf had worked at FIE and Syracuse University before coming to CAPA in 2011.
Levers for Change - The Importance of Senior Leadership Support: McCarthy notes that, when she came to Old Dominion University in the early 1990s, she re-ported directly to President Jim Koch, who was an acknowledged advocate for internationalization. This gave her, in addition to generous budgetary support and a high profile privately funded facility, access to faculty development and the curriculum across the institution. At IUPUI, Sutton had strong Provost support for an ambitious faculty collaboration initiative which had "multiplier" effects throughout the institution. Currently, Sutton reports directly to the President at Bryn Mawr, again assuring her ability to reach across the institution to support IE initiatives.
* * *
'IE Generation' Leaders Reflect (I)
AIEA Interviews Highlight 'Arc
of Change' in International Education
By John D. Heyl, IEL Editor
Posted September 12, 2016
AIEA has sponsored a series of extended interviews led by Dr. Joan Gore (Foundation for International Education) with "senior" Senior International Education Administrators, including those who have served as past president of the Association. At or near retirement from SIO positions, several of the interviewees have also charted new, often unique, roles in the field following leadership at one or more US institutions.
Taken together, these IE veterans truly embody an entire generation of leadership, innovation and change in international education.
The interviews may be found at http://www.aieaworld.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=502:lessons-from-leaders-in-internationalization&catid=20:site-content&Itemid=284.
What follows is a discussion of the main themes from these conversations. Readers are encouraged to view the complete interviews.
Interestingly, the four interviewees discussed here (Stephen Dunnett (Univ. of Buffalo), Arlene Jackson (AASCU), Earl Kellogg (Univ. of Illinois) and Bill Lacy (UC Davis)) came into international education as a professional field from somewhat non-traditional backgrounds. These included agricultural economics, rural sociology, English as a second language, and independent consulting - including Jackson's work with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Kellogg's with Winrock International. Their familiarity with and management of big, ambitious initiatives may well have helped drive their change agendas in international education.
The key elements of the "arc of change" in IE over the past 25 years are familiar by now. The interviewees named the following: Increased senior level coordination/advocacy for international initiatives on campus; increased visibility of international/global priorities in institutional mission/strategic planning; increased professionalization of IE as a field; striking growth in participation in student mobility (though still a very small percentage of US and global student enrollment); the creation of branch campuses abroad; an increased focus on internationalizing the curriculum, including STEM fields of study; broadening of faculty involvement in all aspects of globalization.
But challenges remain. Dunnett speaks of a dark side to the professionalization of the field. He sees a decline in volunteerism that used to provide critical support to international engagement. He also sees an increased commercialization of support services to campus international units and, indeed,
to the potential exploitation of international students as a "cash cow" in an era of declining public support for higher education. Lacy notes the still
limited success on many campuses to adequately prepare for the dramatic influx of international undergraduate students and to create truly integrated
living/learning experiences for all. Kellogg sees the potential for the marginalization of the SIO when the campus president comes to think that he/she
invented "this thing" (campus internationalization) and doesn't need the SIO's experience and guidance for its future development.
From years leading international initiatives at AASCU, Jackson notes that some of the most impressive initiatives in recent years have emanated from
associations committed to the increased internationalization of their members. For example, AASCU institutions' mission to serve as a "steward of place" now means to integrate campus international initiatives with needs of the local community. Moreover, this process has helped institutions both establish
sustainable linkages abroad but also create new exchanges to strengthen one-on-one education among administrators, staff and students.
Lacy reflected that the relatively modest staffing and budgets of IE units requires a focus on innovation and experimentation to match funds and build coalitions across campus and beyond. These too are persistent challenges for SIOs but also a source of great satisfaction - even joy! - when they are overcome and global learning is enhanced.
A final theme that the interviewees spoke to is the need for IE leaders to address "big ideas" well beyond the management of growth in the several
traditional IE domains.
For example, Kellogg takes pride in inviting Amy Chua (Yale law professor and author of "World on Fire" (2003)) to speak to the AIEA annual conference in
2004. Chua offered a challenging interpretation of global relations in the post-9/11 era! encouraging future AIEA conferences to highlight these kinds of
conversations. Likewise, Lacy points out that the Association of Pacific Rim Universities offers 12 diverse US campuses an opportunity to take on global
problems such as climate change, public health and geophysical (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.) issues on an ambitious regional basis with 33 global partners.
Note: A second installment will follow next month highlighting themes from interviews with JoAnn McCarthy, Gil Merkx, Susan Buck Sutton and Michael Woolf.
* * *
What Inspires IE Professionals?
by John D. Heyl, IEL Editor
Posted April 2016
International education professionals are inspired by many sources - a shared global vision with campus leaders, hard won insights from experienced IE colleagues, enthusiastic student testimonials from cross-cultural and life-changing experiences, evidence-based research that looks at familiar global themes in surprising new ways, innovative programs that raise an entire institution's global engagement.
But international educators are also inspired by the world of the imagination - works of fiction, poetry, drama, film, photography, art and music. Sometimes this inspiration is a springboard to a new program for students, sometimes a pathway to a career trajectory and perhaps just as often a way to deal with - even cope with - the stresses of day-to-day work in the field.
Cultural and Philosophical Insights
The reading of a classic, as Catherine Holderness, Director of the Univ. of North Carolina Exchange Program, says of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967, Harper & Row, 1970), reveals to the educator - "in a visceral way" - a powerful cultural sensibility, the fatalism common to Latin American cultures.
Latin American literature also played a key role for Kate McCleary, associate researcher at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison's LEAD Center, in shaping a pathway to a career in international development evaluation. Reading the works of Susan Cisneros (The House on Mango Street), Julia Alvarez (In the Time of the Butterflies) and Christina Garcia (Dreaming in Cuban) all prepared her for subsequent project work in the Caribbean and Latin America. "The lives of young women I've worked with over the years," says McCleary, "were at times reminiscent of the heroines from some of these stories. Literature was my first intercultural journey - it was just never framed that way to me."
Less culturally specific, more philosophical, works can help integrate international and leadership education in student experience. Michael Bittinger (Assistant Director in Purdue's study abroad office), cites Daniel Quinn's Ishmael: an adventure of the mind and spirit (Bantam/Turner, 1992), a novel in which Ishmael (a gorilla) helps the narrator discover the perils of man's claim to dominance over the earth and all its creatures. The work was first recommended by a colleague and now is core reading in Purdue's innovative travel program for entering freshmen, this past summer to Peru. "This book," writes Bittinger, "has helped inspire me to blend the basics of intercultural effectiveness education with leadership development training aimed at global issues future leaders must confront."
Landscapes, both Local and Global
Katie Bowler Young, Director of Global Relations at UNC Chapel Hill, a poet and author herself (see katiebowleryoung.com), has sought out poems that offer a uniquely powerful orientation to landscape, locality and the culture that stems from a physical setting. "The perspectives I learned through poetry influence why I find international education a vital way to help students shape their sense of presence in the world as well." Young lists classical Chinese poets (Li Bai and Su Shi), as well as Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, Elizabeth Bishop and Liu Zongyuan as revealing "landscape and surroundings in ways that evoke both a sense of place and a sense of one's relationship to place, and at times, questioning one's relationship to place."
Poems also resonate with Judith vanBever-Green, Executive Director of the Office of International Programs and Services at George Mason University. Recently, in an effort to convey the commonality of shared experience across cultures, she read Robert Frost's famous poem, The Road Not Taken, at an event for a newly arrived group of J-1 scholars. She was not sure Frost's language would connect with these global sojourners, but, indeed, the theme of making life-shaping choices rang true with the visitors while also offering this theme in a language with a distinctively American (perhaps especially enigmatic New Englander) sound and feel. Other poets, such as Sara Teasdale ("Barter" and "Lovely Chance"), have also inspired vanBever-Green. "I think poetry in and of itself can be a metaphor for our work, because by its nature a poem, especially one about an abstract concept, . . . is a symbol in words. . . . This is very much like communicating across cultures."
Joanna Regulska, Vice Provost for Global Affairs at UC Davis, takes novels with her when she travels internationally. She says: ". . . [R]eading about a place when you are there makes the reading experience a very different one. . . . Even if situations might be fictional, you have a stronger sense of belonging, and literature is the bridge connecting you to that place." She recommends: The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, 2010), with its powerful feel for Istanbul; Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (Anchor, 2001) for its treatment of rural China; and An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine (Grove, 2014), for its depiction of Beirut.
Tales of Displacement and Survival
Not surprisingly, international educators frequently cite fictional treatments of the displacement/migration/exile/survival journey as particularly inspiring. Loren Ringer, Director at Skidmore in Paris, still finds value in Cedric Klapisch's well-known film l'Auberge Espagnol (2002). But more contemporary is Jorge Ramirez-Suarez's Guten Tag, Ramon (2013), about the adventure of a young Mexican trying to deal with German culture, which "illustrates beautifully how one's cultural artistic heritage, in this case music and dance, serves as a starting point to intercultural communication."
Stories of displacement, however, are often far grittier. They include: What is the What, Dave Eggers's fictional treatment of the real story of a "lost boy of Sudan," Valentino Achak Deng (McSweeney's, 2006); Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf, 2013); and Family Life by Akhil Sharma (Norton, 2015). Of course, these novels are about much more than becoming uprooted. In the end, these works - and others cited by IE professionals - are intensely human stories of "changing perspectives of life at home and abroad and what it means to live between two worlds," as Gail Bier, Senior Director of International Education and Global Engagement at CUNY Brooklyn College, says of Americanah. "Through my reading," says Bier, " I gain experiences that make me more aware, more empathetic to other's life situations, and by default less judgmental and perhaps more willing to help."
Mixing it Up
Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba, edited by anthropologist Ruth Behar (Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996), is a multi-disciplinary work combining poetry, essays, short fiction, interviews, photography and art by Cubans on the island and in diaspora. For Rebecca Hovey, Dean for International Study at Smith College, this is "go to" reading, a collection that describes "both the challenges and remarkable rewards of living between and across different cultures."
Finally, a mix of artistic elements can convey varieties of global experience. This is the case with a recent exhibition in Albuquerque noted by Diane Burke, Executive Director of Global Education Initiatives at Central New Mexico Community College. "At Home in the World" addresses the theme of "belonging and place, examining how we relate to each other, ourselves and our countries as globalization forces us to rethink issues of nationality, citizenship and migration." The exhibition, which closed April 16, brought together film, art, stories, music and workshops/performances that illustrated the main theme. Jen DePaolo's "Across the Table" was exemplary of the interactive approach of the exhibition as she invited participants to join her at a table "to sample foods that celebrate the diverse cultures and traditions that have shaped her" - and to share stories of other cultures in other "homes."
Speaking of food as a cultural theme, Ogonna Owu, in Notre Dame of Maryland University's Office of International Programs, notes that Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Mistress of Spices (Anchor, 1997, also a 2005 film directed by Paul Mayeda Berges) tells a story of time travel and interracial love through various spices used in Indian cooking. Divakaruni writes: "Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday . . . ."
Local. Global and Personal
International educators clearly have eclectic interests that reach well beyond their professional role but also connect to it. Whether it's a visiting scholar's question about American culture, a student's reflection on an experience abroad or a faculty member's hope to communicate effectively with a foreign partner - IE professionals often draw on literary and artistic works to inform their response to a particular situation. In this way, we not only apply what we learn from other cultures but we also continue the journey to know our own culture - and ourselves. The local, global and personal become one.
* * *
The Internationalization of U.S. Law Schools
By John D. Heyl
IEL Editor
Historically, U.S. law schools have been domestically focused, trying to recruit the best U.S. college graduates and raise additional funding with executive-type LLM programs in everything from mediation to intellectual property law. Since legal frameworks are mostly rooted in national traditions, neither law professors nor international educators saw easy ways to engage law schools in global initiatives.
A Changing Landscape
This is changing, in some cases in dramatic ways, for a number of reasons.
First, the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s opened up many opportunities for legal advising for societies in transition, from Eastern Europe to Central Asia and South Africa.
Second, the forces of globalization in economics, trade and finance have generated an ever higher demand for legal expertise focused on international agreements and their enforcement, requiring familiarity with more than one legal context. The WTO and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), for example, have developed standards of practice that are enforceable in courts of law.
Finally, the sharp decline in applications to U.S. law schools, and to a lesser extent lower enrollments, in the past ten years has forced law schools to look to other potential student populations to keep law school budgets in the black. A recent statement by a former president of the Association of American Law Schools that predicted the closing of perhaps half a dozen U.S. law schools reflects this changing landscape. Moreover, UC Berkeley's current proposal to increase law school tuition through a Supplemental Tuition hike is one example of an attempt to close a budget gap in a traditional - but still controversial - way. This latter move was justified mainly by rising faculty health care and pension costs.
The Arizona Case
A newer approach is to expand enrollment of international students in JD, LLM, dual degree and other law programs. In a sense, this approach mirrors the exploding international (esp. Chinese undergraduate) enrollments across the U.S. At the University of Arizona's Rogers College of Law, for example, an incoming cohort of 33 "international" students - up from only 5 three years ago - now represents 25% of the incoming JD class, the largest percentage in the nation. In this case, "international" means a mix of F-1, Permanent Resident and US citizens who are admitted to the "Advanced JD" program. Of the 16 countries represented in this cohort, the leading ones this year are South Korea, China, India, Mexico and Nigeria. Associate Dean Brent White says that the goal is to enroll about this level of international students annually at a tuition rate ($26,000 per year) pegged between that for Arizona and out-of-state US law students.
With students admitted to UA's Advanced JD program receiving credit for up to one year of law school in their home country, most complete the JD degree in two years at UA. This means an international law student can expect to earn a U.S. JD degree - and access to the bar exam in every state - at a price comparable to a single tear's tuition at some California and other private law schools. Moreover, admitted as the equivalent of transfer students, these enrollees do not have to submit LSAT scores, and thus U.A. can protect its ranking based in part on its selectivity. English fluency is obviously critical to successful legal study in the U.S.; UA requires the international JD students to submit a 100 iBT TOEFL score.
White says the educational goal of the program is "to train lawyers to be fluent - not just linguistically fluent but legally fluent - in two legal cultures" so that they can function effectively in two different legal jurisdictions. This is especially true of the emerging dual degree law programs that Arizona and other law schools are developing with partner law schools around the world. The changing global landscape of legal practice suggests that such programs will become increasingly popular - even necessary - for some areas of law practice. Moreover, the cross-cultural interaction in the classroom increasingly mirrors real-world global law experience.
White's administrative title as Associate Dean includes "Global Initiatives," and he has extensive experience in Japan and elsewhere in Asia and teaches a course on Japanese law and society and international litigation. Meanwhile, his "global" program now includes all or part of 4 staff, including his oversight and a career counselor dedicated to the international cohort.
IEL spoke with White as he was preparing for a trip to China - including Hong Kong if the current protests permit - and Malaysia, where he will be meeting with potential law school and law firm partners. As with other promotions of international enrollment, word of mouth continues to be the main source of new students. In this way, a diverse international cohort has been grown at Arizona in a very short time.
An Undergraduate Innovation
The newest development in US legal education is the Bachelor of Arts in Law, which began this year at UA as the first in the nation. Over 100 students are in this program at UA, including undergraduate international students, some of whom will continue into the JD or LLM programs. White notes that the undergraduate model is still the most common form of legal education around the world. Thus, several pathways open up as foreign legal education and US legal education become more integrated.
Although Arizona appears to be at the forefront of the current internationalization of legal studies, other universities are developing their own programs, including dual degrees with non-U.S. institutions. These include Emory University ("Accelerated JD"), Northwestern University ("Two-year JD for International Lawyers"), Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Hawaii-Manoa and the University of Southern California.
At Washington University in St. Louis, Michael Koby, Associate Dean for International and Graduate Programs and a former Fulbright Scholar in Spain and special counsel for the Helsinki Commission, says the Law School has built a pathway from the LLM program into their JD program. Thirty-four countries are represented in the LLM program, which annually sends international lawyers on to their JD degree. Currently about 10-12% of the JD enrollment is international. Even more innovative is the fully online, synchronous LLM degree program with Monterrey Tech in Mexico.
In sum . . .
Not too many years ago, law schools were in a world of their own, with an occasional professor interested in comparative legal systems, law and development or mediation. But as with other professional schools, globalization has widened the field of practice and encouraged transnational and intercultural teaching and learning. The reasons law schools pursue these initiatives will vary from law school to law school, but the trend is clearly toward yet another important player in campus internationalization
* * *
Visualizing the Challenge of Doubling U.S. Study Abroad
By Jim Ellis, PhD - John D. Heyl, IEL Editor
Posted December 1, 2014
In 2005 the Lincoln Commission proposed “a bold vision for the United States: Send one million students to study abroad annually in a decade.” (1) According to their report they estimated that this figure represents "about 50 percent of the number of undergraduate degrees (associate’s and bachelor’s) awarded annually by accredited American colleges and universities.” The report identifies the importance of the international experience for the participants, for the educational process and to the U.S. economy among others. The commission also clearly stated that “Although impediments of institutional capacity, cost, and diversity of institutions and destinations need to be addressed, the Commission believes that the nation can and should establish a goal of one million students studying abroad annually by 2016–17.” A majority of these issues continue to be unresolved, and the efforts of the commission seem to have fallen into the crevasses of the economic downturn that soon followed.
Fast forward to March 2014 when the Institute of International Education (IIE) announced the launch of "'Generation Study Abroad' a five-year campaign to double the number of American students who study abroad by the end of the decade.” (2) As part of the initiative IIE is calling on “at least 500” (of the approximately 4,599 degree-granting US institutions (3)) “U.S. colleges and universities willing to either double the number of their students studying abroad, or significantly increase the participation rate of students who study abroad at some point during their undergraduate career. Later phases include mobilizing 1,000 high school teachers and engaging 10,000 alumni and students.” This conversation has since evolved more towards less of a focus on the doubling and more towards the involvement of “all levels and stakeholders in the public and private sectors to encourage purposeful, innovative action to get more Americans to undertake an international experience.”(21) Clearly the benefit of all the discussion this has generated has been to increase efforts to better understand the nature of the challenge and the fine points involved. This is exemplified by the Forum on Education Abroad's effort to support the process through the "Education Abroad Capacity Review, a customized QUIP review for Generation Study Abroad Commitment Partners.” (22) It is clear, however, that key to this is the ability of these institutions and future participants to address the most significant elements affecting study abroad participation and the mobilization of the needed resources.
The question at hand, therefore, is: What will it take to make the effort to meet this challenge a success? Both the Lincoln Commission and IIE have focused on one aspect of the drivers of study abroad - finances. Both propose commitment of funds as key to their efforts. But are the funds enough and are such funds truly the key driving element? Having worked at a number of public research universities serving different student communities we and our colleagues did a rough calculation of what it would take to address increasing the number of students studying abroad as identified by student surveys and which identified the lack of funding to be one key concern (funding, need to work, personal/family and safety security issues being other key elements). Following discussions and reviews of students who financed their study abroad we developed an estimate that ranged between $3,000 to $4,000 per student for those interested in study abroad and limited by personal funding. Thus to double our roughly 60 students studying abroad each year the total requisite funding would be approximately $180,000 to $240,000. Of course this was assuming there were no other factors affecting the study abroad numbers, such as the growing reluctance of students and families to increase their debt loads while in college.
Other key questions that also must be answered are: What are the factors affecting a student’s decision to study abroad during their higher education years? and What is happening to study abroad interests in the higher education process that is reflected in part through the National Survey on Student Engagement? For example, for many years now when first-year freshmen were polled about their intention to study abroad, they stated that they plan to do so in relatively large numbers; by the time they are seniors, however, very few have actually done so (2010 & 2012 - 42% and only 14% of seniors respond that they have done so.) (4,5) Frankly, until we address some of the core issues in a systematic way proposals such as the ones being made recently may simply be temporary and lacking in long term sustainability.
To address the above, it would help if we had models to visualize exactly what the factors are affecting study abroad participation with respect to those who wish to study abroad and those who say they will not study abroad. From nearly 25 years of experience in the field with multiple institutions we have come to view the following as helpful in visualizing the dynamics of study abroad.
There are different infographics and interactive statistical maps that are now appearing using census as well as IIE data. Perhaps the one that best maps the “international” U.S. is the “Mapping the Nation” Project by the Asia Society and NAFSA. Taking demographic, economic, language and education data the project provides snapshots in time of the “international” status of the U.S. by state. However this project readily acknowledges that “Education data that measures global competence is incomplete. There are no data-centered assessments measuring student global competency. The lack of data is in many ways an indicator that, up to the present, the true value of global competency has not been recognized.” (6,7) And as such competencies are an expected outcome from study abroad it raises additional questions. This mapping does no more than provide the data in a visual/graphic mode without overlay or other analysis, thus leaving it up to readers to come to their own conclusions. There are of course many other mappings based on different statistics about the U.S. that one could overlay onto these maps and which may not result in a 1:1 correlation but rather offer some strong implications as to possible meanings. (8,9,10)
Due to the many factors affecting study abroad participation, perhaps we need a new model. The figure below is designed to show the study abroad (SA) “iceberg,” visualizing both what we see above the “waterline” and the challenges that exist largely out of sight and below the “waterline.”
What Inspires IE Professionals?
by John D. Heyl, IEL Editor
Posted April 2016
International education professionals are inspired by many sources - a shared global vision with campus leaders, hard won insights from experienced IE colleagues, enthusiastic student testimonials from cross-cultural and life-changing experiences, evidence-based research that looks at familiar global themes in surprising new ways, innovative programs that raise an entire institution's global engagement.
But international educators are also inspired by the world of the imagination - works of fiction, poetry, drama, film, photography, art and music. Sometimes this inspiration is a springboard to a new program for students, sometimes a pathway to a career trajectory and perhaps just as often a way to deal with - even cope with - the stresses of day-to-day work in the field.
Cultural and Philosophical Insights
The reading of a classic, as Catherine Holderness, Director of the Univ. of North Carolina Exchange Program, says of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967, Harper & Row, 1970), reveals to the educator - "in a visceral way" - a powerful cultural sensibility, the fatalism common to Latin American cultures.
Latin American literature also played a key role for Kate McCleary, associate researcher at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison's LEAD Center, in shaping a pathway to a career in international development evaluation. Reading the works of Susan Cisneros (The House on Mango Street), Julia Alvarez (In the Time of the Butterflies) and Christina Garcia (Dreaming in Cuban) all prepared her for subsequent project work in the Caribbean and Latin America. "The lives of young women I've worked with over the years," says McCleary, "were at times reminiscent of the heroines from some of these stories. Literature was my first intercultural journey - it was just never framed that way to me."
Less culturally specific, more philosophical, works can help integrate international and leadership education in student experience. Michael Bittinger (Assistant Director in Purdue's study abroad office), cites Daniel Quinn's Ishmael: an adventure of the mind and spirit (Bantam/Turner, 1992), a novel in which Ishmael (a gorilla) helps the narrator discover the perils of man's claim to dominance over the earth and all its creatures. The work was first recommended by a colleague and now is core reading in Purdue's innovative travel program for entering freshmen, this past summer to Peru. "This book," writes Bittinger, "has helped inspire me to blend the basics of intercultural effectiveness education with leadership development training aimed at global issues future leaders must confront."
Landscapes, both Local and Global
Katie Bowler Young, Director of Global Relations at UNC Chapel Hill, a poet and author herself (see katiebowleryoung.com), has sought out poems that offer a uniquely powerful orientation to landscape, locality and the culture that stems from a physical setting. "The perspectives I learned through poetry influence why I find international education a vital way to help students shape their sense of presence in the world as well." Young lists classical Chinese poets (Li Bai and Su Shi), as well as Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, Elizabeth Bishop and Liu Zongyuan as revealing "landscape and surroundings in ways that evoke both a sense of place and a sense of one's relationship to place, and at times, questioning one's relationship to place."
Poems also resonate with Judith vanBever-Green, Executive Director of the Office of International Programs and Services at George Mason University. Recently, in an effort to convey the commonality of shared experience across cultures, she read Robert Frost's famous poem, The Road Not Taken, at an event for a newly arrived group of J-1 scholars. She was not sure Frost's language would connect with these global sojourners, but, indeed, the theme of making life-shaping choices rang true with the visitors while also offering this theme in a language with a distinctively American (perhaps especially enigmatic New Englander) sound and feel. Other poets, such as Sara Teasdale ("Barter" and "Lovely Chance"), have also inspired vanBever-Green. "I think poetry in and of itself can be a metaphor for our work, because by its nature a poem, especially one about an abstract concept, . . . is a symbol in words. . . . This is very much like communicating across cultures."
Joanna Regulska, Vice Provost for Global Affairs at UC Davis, takes novels with her when she travels internationally. She says: ". . . [R]eading about a place when you are there makes the reading experience a very different one. . . . Even if situations might be fictional, you have a stronger sense of belonging, and literature is the bridge connecting you to that place." She recommends: The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (Vintage, 2010), with its powerful feel for Istanbul; Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (Anchor, 2001) for its treatment of rural China; and An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine (Grove, 2014), for its depiction of Beirut.
Tales of Displacement and Survival
Not surprisingly, international educators frequently cite fictional treatments of the displacement/migration/exile/survival journey as particularly inspiring. Loren Ringer, Director at Skidmore in Paris, still finds value in Cedric Klapisch's well-known film l'Auberge Espagnol (2002). But more contemporary is Jorge Ramirez-Suarez's Guten Tag, Ramon (2013), about the adventure of a young Mexican trying to deal with German culture, which "illustrates beautifully how one's cultural artistic heritage, in this case music and dance, serves as a starting point to intercultural communication."
Stories of displacement, however, are often far grittier. They include: What is the What, Dave Eggers's fictional treatment of the real story of a "lost boy of Sudan," Valentino Achak Deng (McSweeney's, 2006); Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf, 2013); and Family Life by Akhil Sharma (Norton, 2015). Of course, these novels are about much more than becoming uprooted. In the end, these works - and others cited by IE professionals - are intensely human stories of "changing perspectives of life at home and abroad and what it means to live between two worlds," as Gail Bier, Senior Director of International Education and Global Engagement at CUNY Brooklyn College, says of Americanah. "Through my reading," says Bier, " I gain experiences that make me more aware, more empathetic to other's life situations, and by default less judgmental and perhaps more willing to help."
Mixing it Up
Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba, edited by anthropologist Ruth Behar (Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996), is a multi-disciplinary work combining poetry, essays, short fiction, interviews, photography and art by Cubans on the island and in diaspora. For Rebecca Hovey, Dean for International Study at Smith College, this is "go to" reading, a collection that describes "both the challenges and remarkable rewards of living between and across different cultures."
Finally, a mix of artistic elements can convey varieties of global experience. This is the case with a recent exhibition in Albuquerque noted by Diane Burke, Executive Director of Global Education Initiatives at Central New Mexico Community College. "At Home in the World" addresses the theme of "belonging and place, examining how we relate to each other, ourselves and our countries as globalization forces us to rethink issues of nationality, citizenship and migration." The exhibition, which closed April 16, brought together film, art, stories, music and workshops/performances that illustrated the main theme. Jen DePaolo's "Across the Table" was exemplary of the interactive approach of the exhibition as she invited participants to join her at a table "to sample foods that celebrate the diverse cultures and traditions that have shaped her" - and to share stories of other cultures in other "homes."
Speaking of food as a cultural theme, Ogonna Owu, in Notre Dame of Maryland University's Office of International Programs, notes that Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Mistress of Spices (Anchor, 1997, also a 2005 film directed by Paul Mayeda Berges) tells a story of time travel and interracial love through various spices used in Indian cooking. Divakaruni writes: "Each spice has a special day to it. For turmeric it is Sunday . . . ."
Local. Global and Personal
International educators clearly have eclectic interests that reach well beyond their professional role but also connect to it. Whether it's a visiting scholar's question about American culture, a student's reflection on an experience abroad or a faculty member's hope to communicate effectively with a foreign partner - IE professionals often draw on literary and artistic works to inform their response to a particular situation. In this way, we not only apply what we learn from other cultures but we also continue the journey to know our own culture - and ourselves. The local, global and personal become one.
* * *
The Internationalization of U.S. Law Schools
By John D. Heyl
IEL Editor
Historically, U.S. law schools have been domestically focused, trying to recruit the best U.S. college graduates and raise additional funding with executive-type LLM programs in everything from mediation to intellectual property law. Since legal frameworks are mostly rooted in national traditions, neither law professors nor international educators saw easy ways to engage law schools in global initiatives.
A Changing Landscape
This is changing, in some cases in dramatic ways, for a number of reasons.
First, the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s opened up many opportunities for legal advising for societies in transition, from Eastern Europe to Central Asia and South Africa.
Second, the forces of globalization in economics, trade and finance have generated an ever higher demand for legal expertise focused on international agreements and their enforcement, requiring familiarity with more than one legal context. The WTO and WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), for example, have developed standards of practice that are enforceable in courts of law.
Finally, the sharp decline in applications to U.S. law schools, and to a lesser extent lower enrollments, in the past ten years has forced law schools to look to other potential student populations to keep law school budgets in the black. A recent statement by a former president of the Association of American Law Schools that predicted the closing of perhaps half a dozen U.S. law schools reflects this changing landscape. Moreover, UC Berkeley's current proposal to increase law school tuition through a Supplemental Tuition hike is one example of an attempt to close a budget gap in a traditional - but still controversial - way. This latter move was justified mainly by rising faculty health care and pension costs.
The Arizona Case
A newer approach is to expand enrollment of international students in JD, LLM, dual degree and other law programs. In a sense, this approach mirrors the exploding international (esp. Chinese undergraduate) enrollments across the U.S. At the University of Arizona's Rogers College of Law, for example, an incoming cohort of 33 "international" students - up from only 5 three years ago - now represents 25% of the incoming JD class, the largest percentage in the nation. In this case, "international" means a mix of F-1, Permanent Resident and US citizens who are admitted to the "Advanced JD" program. Of the 16 countries represented in this cohort, the leading ones this year are South Korea, China, India, Mexico and Nigeria. Associate Dean Brent White says that the goal is to enroll about this level of international students annually at a tuition rate ($26,000 per year) pegged between that for Arizona and out-of-state US law students.
With students admitted to UA's Advanced JD program receiving credit for up to one year of law school in their home country, most complete the JD degree in two years at UA. This means an international law student can expect to earn a U.S. JD degree - and access to the bar exam in every state - at a price comparable to a single tear's tuition at some California and other private law schools. Moreover, admitted as the equivalent of transfer students, these enrollees do not have to submit LSAT scores, and thus U.A. can protect its ranking based in part on its selectivity. English fluency is obviously critical to successful legal study in the U.S.; UA requires the international JD students to submit a 100 iBT TOEFL score.
White says the educational goal of the program is "to train lawyers to be fluent - not just linguistically fluent but legally fluent - in two legal cultures" so that they can function effectively in two different legal jurisdictions. This is especially true of the emerging dual degree law programs that Arizona and other law schools are developing with partner law schools around the world. The changing global landscape of legal practice suggests that such programs will become increasingly popular - even necessary - for some areas of law practice. Moreover, the cross-cultural interaction in the classroom increasingly mirrors real-world global law experience.
White's administrative title as Associate Dean includes "Global Initiatives," and he has extensive experience in Japan and elsewhere in Asia and teaches a course on Japanese law and society and international litigation. Meanwhile, his "global" program now includes all or part of 4 staff, including his oversight and a career counselor dedicated to the international cohort.
IEL spoke with White as he was preparing for a trip to China - including Hong Kong if the current protests permit - and Malaysia, where he will be meeting with potential law school and law firm partners. As with other promotions of international enrollment, word of mouth continues to be the main source of new students. In this way, a diverse international cohort has been grown at Arizona in a very short time.
An Undergraduate Innovation
The newest development in US legal education is the Bachelor of Arts in Law, which began this year at UA as the first in the nation. Over 100 students are in this program at UA, including undergraduate international students, some of whom will continue into the JD or LLM programs. White notes that the undergraduate model is still the most common form of legal education around the world. Thus, several pathways open up as foreign legal education and US legal education become more integrated.
Although Arizona appears to be at the forefront of the current internationalization of legal studies, other universities are developing their own programs, including dual degrees with non-U.S. institutions. These include Emory University ("Accelerated JD"), Northwestern University ("Two-year JD for International Lawyers"), Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Hawaii-Manoa and the University of Southern California.
At Washington University in St. Louis, Michael Koby, Associate Dean for International and Graduate Programs and a former Fulbright Scholar in Spain and special counsel for the Helsinki Commission, says the Law School has built a pathway from the LLM program into their JD program. Thirty-four countries are represented in the LLM program, which annually sends international lawyers on to their JD degree. Currently about 10-12% of the JD enrollment is international. Even more innovative is the fully online, synchronous LLM degree program with Monterrey Tech in Mexico.
In sum . . .
Not too many years ago, law schools were in a world of their own, with an occasional professor interested in comparative legal systems, law and development or mediation. But as with other professional schools, globalization has widened the field of practice and encouraged transnational and intercultural teaching and learning. The reasons law schools pursue these initiatives will vary from law school to law school, but the trend is clearly toward yet another important player in campus internationalization
* * *
Visualizing the Challenge of Doubling U.S. Study Abroad
By Jim Ellis, PhD - John D. Heyl, IEL Editor
Posted December 1, 2014
In 2005 the Lincoln Commission proposed “a bold vision for the United States: Send one million students to study abroad annually in a decade.” (1) According to their report they estimated that this figure represents "about 50 percent of the number of undergraduate degrees (associate’s and bachelor’s) awarded annually by accredited American colleges and universities.” The report identifies the importance of the international experience for the participants, for the educational process and to the U.S. economy among others. The commission also clearly stated that “Although impediments of institutional capacity, cost, and diversity of institutions and destinations need to be addressed, the Commission believes that the nation can and should establish a goal of one million students studying abroad annually by 2016–17.” A majority of these issues continue to be unresolved, and the efforts of the commission seem to have fallen into the crevasses of the economic downturn that soon followed.
Fast forward to March 2014 when the Institute of International Education (IIE) announced the launch of "'Generation Study Abroad' a five-year campaign to double the number of American students who study abroad by the end of the decade.” (2) As part of the initiative IIE is calling on “at least 500” (of the approximately 4,599 degree-granting US institutions (3)) “U.S. colleges and universities willing to either double the number of their students studying abroad, or significantly increase the participation rate of students who study abroad at some point during their undergraduate career. Later phases include mobilizing 1,000 high school teachers and engaging 10,000 alumni and students.” This conversation has since evolved more towards less of a focus on the doubling and more towards the involvement of “all levels and stakeholders in the public and private sectors to encourage purposeful, innovative action to get more Americans to undertake an international experience.”(21) Clearly the benefit of all the discussion this has generated has been to increase efforts to better understand the nature of the challenge and the fine points involved. This is exemplified by the Forum on Education Abroad's effort to support the process through the "Education Abroad Capacity Review, a customized QUIP review for Generation Study Abroad Commitment Partners.” (22) It is clear, however, that key to this is the ability of these institutions and future participants to address the most significant elements affecting study abroad participation and the mobilization of the needed resources.
The question at hand, therefore, is: What will it take to make the effort to meet this challenge a success? Both the Lincoln Commission and IIE have focused on one aspect of the drivers of study abroad - finances. Both propose commitment of funds as key to their efforts. But are the funds enough and are such funds truly the key driving element? Having worked at a number of public research universities serving different student communities we and our colleagues did a rough calculation of what it would take to address increasing the number of students studying abroad as identified by student surveys and which identified the lack of funding to be one key concern (funding, need to work, personal/family and safety security issues being other key elements). Following discussions and reviews of students who financed their study abroad we developed an estimate that ranged between $3,000 to $4,000 per student for those interested in study abroad and limited by personal funding. Thus to double our roughly 60 students studying abroad each year the total requisite funding would be approximately $180,000 to $240,000. Of course this was assuming there were no other factors affecting the study abroad numbers, such as the growing reluctance of students and families to increase their debt loads while in college.
Other key questions that also must be answered are: What are the factors affecting a student’s decision to study abroad during their higher education years? and What is happening to study abroad interests in the higher education process that is reflected in part through the National Survey on Student Engagement? For example, for many years now when first-year freshmen were polled about their intention to study abroad, they stated that they plan to do so in relatively large numbers; by the time they are seniors, however, very few have actually done so (2010 & 2012 - 42% and only 14% of seniors respond that they have done so.) (4,5) Frankly, until we address some of the core issues in a systematic way proposals such as the ones being made recently may simply be temporary and lacking in long term sustainability.
To address the above, it would help if we had models to visualize exactly what the factors are affecting study abroad participation with respect to those who wish to study abroad and those who say they will not study abroad. From nearly 25 years of experience in the field with multiple institutions we have come to view the following as helpful in visualizing the dynamics of study abroad.
There are different infographics and interactive statistical maps that are now appearing using census as well as IIE data. Perhaps the one that best maps the “international” U.S. is the “Mapping the Nation” Project by the Asia Society and NAFSA. Taking demographic, economic, language and education data the project provides snapshots in time of the “international” status of the U.S. by state. However this project readily acknowledges that “Education data that measures global competence is incomplete. There are no data-centered assessments measuring student global competency. The lack of data is in many ways an indicator that, up to the present, the true value of global competency has not been recognized.” (6,7) And as such competencies are an expected outcome from study abroad it raises additional questions. This mapping does no more than provide the data in a visual/graphic mode without overlay or other analysis, thus leaving it up to readers to come to their own conclusions. There are of course many other mappings based on different statistics about the U.S. that one could overlay onto these maps and which may not result in a 1:1 correlation but rather offer some strong implications as to possible meanings. (8,9,10)
Due to the many factors affecting study abroad participation, perhaps we need a new model. The figure below is designed to show the study abroad (SA) “iceberg,” visualizing both what we see above the “waterline” and the challenges that exist largely out of sight and below the “waterline.”
Row 1 above the (wave) line proposes that many of students who study abroad have the economic means (through family, financial aid, scholarships and grants) to study abroad; the closer to the line we get are those with borderline economic means to support their efforts. Additionally, it is proposed that these students also have the family, home, cultural and academic drivers already as motivational constructs when they come to college. Once in college the institutional drivers work to foster the student(s) to avail themselves of the resources to further their interest in study abroad. The “above water study abroad triangle” is inverted suggesting that the closer one gets to the line the harder it is for these “motivated” students who have increasing challenges in one or more of these drivers the closer they get to the threshold or the “waterline”.
Row 2 the (wave) line itself represents the function of the factors that influence study abroad over time coming in “waves” with peaks and valleys. These “waves” will affect this threshold population of students on both sides of the line. Those students finding themselves at a higher level above the line will be less affected, just as those deeper below the line will be harder to reach.
Finally, Row 3 below the (wave) line includes the target group of students that represent the “doubling target numbers” that must be reached within the broader population who might study abroad or have decided not to study abroad. We would also argue that any such effort to double the SA population needs to address those in the population just above the line to stabilize and regularize that threshold group participation PLUS it needs to address those in the proposed doubling population that could study abroad if the driving factors affecting them can be addressed. Clearly there is a very large population of students who either have "decided" not to study abroad or may be considering study abroad (55% of first year freshmen per 2010 & 2012 NSSE findings). (4,5)
Within this population are not only the traditional student groups who do not currently study abroad but also the millennial generation (born between 1984 and 1996) who recently in a multi country survey of “out of 15 work-life factors ranked by The Millennial Compass survey respondents, international experience was the least important and working in multi-cultural environment was second least important”. (11) The U.S. responders in fact ranked "Working in a multi-cultural environment" #14 and "International experience" #15 out of the 15 factors with the lowest percentage of importance (next to France) across the countries compared. Furthermore the report goes on to conclude that “Even though Millennials travel virtually in and out of their comfort zones all the time, they’re less eager to make a physical move.” (11) If all these factors indeed are in play we believe this population of Generation Study Abroad hopefuls will be much harder to reach until we have a deeper understanding of what the factors are that have led them to these decisions and how to address the changes needed to affect such factors.
The following are some key areas that must be addressed in order to ultimately strengthen and create a permanent study abroad presence in U.S. higher education - and indeed even to double the numbers to meet the GSA challenge.
1. Integrated Global Perspectives across the curriculum. What is the student knowledge of world issues (both across and within disciplines)? How is this then reflected upon graduation? Indeed, do they leave college with a Global Perspective on not only their discipline of choice but the issues of the day? Anecdotally, we believe the answers are reflected in the SA data and the NSSE numbers, similarly through experience with students at both levels. From conversations with students it appears that if students (and parents?) have low levels of global knowledge/awareness the drive to study abroad will be reflected in their lack of intent or at least in their strong hesitation to study abroad.
2. Visible and applied institutional commitments to the international experience. This begins with key senior leadership (president, provost, deans and boards) having position statements and resource commitments to university wide Global Perspectives. Connecting this to the skill sets needed for not only “international” but also local economic and community development. Institutions from universities to community college reflect different priorities for their institutions, and these different priorities are clearly reflected in their programs, students and faculty. Thus, highly variable numbers participating in abroad experiences or global learning curricula would be expected. Interestingly, Pima Community College (Tucson, AZ) has recently announced its first ever international student recruitment effort and its first search for a Vice President for International Programs. Raising an institution's global priorities is a key to spurring study abroad participation.
3. Clearly understanding the impact of solely focusing on the total number of students studying abroad. What does having x number of students studying abroad truly mean? (Indeed, the same question can be posed related to the drive to have y numbers of international students on U.S. campuses). Could resources be better directed towards a more unified model that focuses on a long-term goal that ultimately could result in creating a culture of study abroad across the campus as opposed to the short-term target of doubling numbers today? Such a unidirectional focus on solely increasing the number of study abroad participants may actually limit an institution's internationalization goals and lead to neglect of the importance of building a true global ethos institution-wide.
4. Realization that many students, if not the majority, will NOT be able to take on the traditional study abroad experience while at the same time making the opportunity available to all. Having a limited few numbers of students graduating from U.S. colleges and universities with a global perspective is not beneficial for either local or national interests. Having all students graduating with a fundamental Global Perspective and some with an enhanced perspective strengthened through the SA experience would be an ideal to work towards. Perhaps this is best stated in the proposed “Literacies For Global Stewardship” by By Douglas C. Bennett, Grant H. Cornwell, Haifa Jamal Al-Lail, And Celeste Schenck (18). Continue at top of column at right >
They propose a series of knowledge and skill areas that we would also argue are important if not key for such stewardship, including: “Scientific Understanding, Cultural Understanding, Understanding of Global Issues, Skills For Global Engagement, and Dispositions For Global Engagement.” The question we pose can be framed as they do: “What do our graduates need to know to be able to exercise stewardship?” Heyl (20) proposes an ideal solution, creating a core set of “benchmark courses/seminars in a globally focused curriculum for the 21st century” with students beginning with “Global Education: 101” and moving upwards through the levels until reaching Global Education 404 where they bring their skills to bear on global problems and demonstrate their competencies from knowledge through ethics and understanding to application. Indeed, if a core curriculum such as this were applied across the disciplines we do believe many of these challenges related to this model would be addressed.
5. Address the regional institutional disparities in SA and Global Perspectives. It is clear that study abroad participation varies not only by discipline but also by institution, region and funding resources with each reflecting the character of its region. Can we conclude all the mapping/infographics discussed above and the data sources from which these were developed that they reflect this as well? With the world urban population expected to increase by 72 per cent by 2050 and such being unevenly distributed among cities of different sizes it is clear that there may indeed be key approach differences needed. (12) As larger “global cities” form within the U.S. and becoming increasingly associated with their institutions of higher education the resource and other challenges for regional city centers and their educational institutions will surely become more complex. (13) Partnerships, online education, MOOC’s and related efforts will need to be considered and must include as well as foster the Global Perspective and access to study abroad components.
6. Comprehensive structural changes. As Wendy Williamson states “. . . if we are going to take this ambitious goal seriously, colleges and universities must re-evaluate their policies, procedures, and “politics” with respect to education abroad, and deconstruct the many barriers that they themselves have put into place.” (14) Such system changes will need to include changes in how study abroad is viewed as an important “High-Impact Practice”. NSSE 2010 found that of faculty in four academic disciplines (Business, English, Biology, Psychology) between 38% (Biology) and 58% (English) valued study abroad as an important or very important HI practice. And yet, institutional practices that require study abroad offices to be a "revenue center" and thus discourage collaboration with other off-campus programs and program provider organizations lead to one of the most inefficient student programs - in terms of broadening student participation - in all of U.S. higher education.
7. Changing faculty perceptions and expectations. How our faculty view abroad experiences as part of their teaching, research, disciplinary mobility and even tenure standards is critical to this process as well. Charles and Deardorff (15) lend further support to this view of a need for structural change in their recent article “A Failure to Capitalize on Globalization.” They point out that “It is a long-running myth in higher education that enrolling international students and sending students to study abroad represent significant campus internationalization.” Clearly the focus on numbers without an understanding of the core campus-wide aspects of how globalization is being incorporated across the curriculum for all students, faculty and, yes, campus staff is indeed problematic at best.
8. Creating strong and stable financial resource mechanisms for fostering broader student mobility in ways that not only establishes this as a local but also a national priority - while also helping those most in need without placing them in further financial jeopardy over the long term. National efforts that fund thousands instead of hundreds of students in a significant way will be needed if we are to remain competitive as a nation. In Europe the Erasmus+ Program established this year (2014) is projected to have a budget “of €15 billion for 2014-2020, a 40% increase over the previous period of time” (16) (or 2.5 billion a year!) and is expected to serve over four million students over the same time period (17). Indeed the statistics show that since its inception in 1987 this program has achieved the 3 million mark as of 2013 of students supported for study abroad (having supported the last million between 2008 and 2013!) (16). As it is projected that 10% or more of the higher education students enrolled in Europe have studied abroad as part of their degree or internship/trainee programs, it is clear that significant commitments to structural aspects AND funding of students, faculty and staff (which Erasmus does) can have a major impact on mobility.
Robert Swap, an award-winning educator, NASA scientist and global research team builder, in speaking about international service learning and why there still are so few programs in Africa and other parts of the developing world, summarized the issue nicely. To the question posed by interviewer Parke Muth (former Associate Dean at the University of Virginia) “Do you feel that colleges are putting the resources into making this happen in such a way that more students can participate?” Dr. Swap responds: “There are people who want to support these types of efforts, but they want to do it in a joint fashion – they want to know that there is commitment to a joint venture, not just a one-way proposition. In my estimation, universities still have a long ways to go to provide the types of resources necessary to facilitate an expansion and longevity of this kind of educational experience.” (19)
In closing, it is clear from our experience that ultimately if we want to change the dynamics of study abroad we must first work on the expectations of students (their parents, the faculty, and our institutions). We are not convinced that this is happening uniformly across U.S. higher education. Students need an integrated university wide curriculum that fosters global awareness and understanding that in itself can drive the wider expectation to go abroad.
We then need the resource commitment to make this happen. Much as some institutions are committed to making sure ALL students use their institutional aid to go abroad, we need a similar effort across all institutions. We also concur with Williamson that “If we want students to take an active role in their education, then we should be setting up processes and procedures that enable them to think and move more freely.” (14) The initial steps such as those of the Forum Standards and the Education Abroad Capacity Review will go a long way for those participating in these processes in addressing this need. The challenge, however, remains if we want our graduates, our institutions and our local population centers to be globally competitive and especially so in the global knowledge economy that ALL of our students are entering.
IIE's Generation Study Abroad is on the right path in seeking public/private partnerships at both the college and eventually the high school levels to advance abroad experiences for a far larger proportion of U.S. students. If we wish to achieve this goal on a permanent and expanding basis, however, much work is yet to be done.
References:
1. Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program.(2005) Global Competence & National Needs http://www.nafsa.org/uploadedFiles/NAFSA_Home/Resource_Library_Assets/CCB/lincoln_commission_report(1).pdf?n=6097
2. Institute of International Education. (2014) Press Release Institute of International Education Leads Coalition to Double Number of Students Who Study Abroad by End of Decade. http://www.iie.org/Who-We-Are/News-and-Events/Press-Center/Press-Releases/2014/2014-03-03-Generation-Study-Abroad
3. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2013). Digest of Education Statistics, 2012 http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84
4. National Survey of Student Engagement. (2010). Major differences: Examining student engagement by field of study—annual results 2010.
http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2010_Results/pdf/NSSE_2010_AnnualResults.pdf
5. National Survey of Student Engagement. (2012). Promoting Student Learning and Institutional Improvement: Lessons from NSSE at 13. http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2012_Results/pdf/NSSE_2012_Annual_Results.pdf
6. Asia Society (2013) Mapping the Nation. http://mappingthenation.net/map.html
7. US Dept of Education (2013). Mapping the Nation: Making the Case for Global Competency http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/11/mapping-the-nation-making-the-case-for-global-competency/
8. The Economist. (2011) US interactive guide. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/us_interactive_guide&fsrc=nwl
9. The Economist. (2014) United States map and guide States of the Union
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/01/united-states-map-and-guide
10. The New York Times. (2014) Mapping Poverty in America. http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/01/05/poverty-map/?ref=multimedia
11. MLS Group. (2014) The Millennial Compass: The Millennial Generation In The Workplace.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/211602632/The-Millennial-Compass-The-Millennial-Generation-In-The-Workplace
12. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2012) World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision: Highlights. New York, http://esa.un.org/unup/Documentation/highlights.htm
13. Coursera. (2014) Globalizing Higher Education and Research for the ‘Knowledge Economy’ by Kris Olds, Susan L. Robertson. Week 2: Universities, City-Regions, and New Territorial Configurations. https://www.coursera.org/course/globalhighered
14. Williamson, Wendy. (2014) Generation Study Abroad and the Pink Elephant. http://www.studyabroadscout.com/blog/generation-study-abroad-and-the-pink-elephant
15. Charles, Harvey & Deardorff, Darla K. (2014) A Failure to Capitalize on Globalization. World Wise, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 26, 2014. http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/a-failure-to-capitalize-on-globalization/33965
16. European Commission (2014) Erasmus 2012-13: the figures explained. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-476_en.htm
17. Professionals in International Education (PIE). 2014. Almost 270,000 Erasmus students studied abroad in 2012-13. http://thepienews.com/news/record-270000-erasmus-students-study-abroad-2012-13/
18. Bennett, Douglas C., Cornwell, Grant H., Al-Lail, Haifa Jamal And Schenck, Celeste. (2014) An Education for the Twenty-First Century: Stewardship of the Global Commons. From NAFSA Trends and Insights for Global Leaders. http://www.nafsa.org/EXPLORE_INTERNATIONAL_EDUCATION/TRENDS/TI/AN_EDUCATION_FOR_THE_TWENTY-FIRST_CENTURY__STEWARDSHIP_OF_THE_GLOBAL_COMMONS/
and
Originally published by: AAC&U Liberal Education, Fall 2012, Vol. 98, No. 4 http://www.aacu.org/LIBERALEDUCATION/LE-FA12/BENNETT_CORNWELL_AL-LAIL_SCHENCK.CFM
19. Muth, Parke (2014). Award Winning Professor Shares Insights About Teaching, Learning, and Global Development – Bob Swap. http://onlyconnectparke.blogspot.com/2014/08/award-winning-professor-shares-insights.html
20. Heyl, John D. (2014). Globalization and the U.S. University: Reactions, Trends, and a Teachable Moment, in Sandra Harris and Jason Mixon (Eds.), Building Cultural Community through Global Educational Leadership, pp. 254-266. Ypsilanti, MI: NCPEA Press.
21. IIE (2014) Generation Study Abroad - http://www.iie.org/Programs/Generation-Study-Abroad
22. Forum on Education Abroad (2014) Quality Improvement Program (QUIP) for Generation Study Abroad Commitment Partners Education Abroad Capacity Review http://apps.forumea.org/EducationAbroadCapacityReview.cfm
Jim Ellis is an international education consultant and co-manager of SECUSS-L. He is a former SIO at Auburn University and the University of South Alabama and Assistant Director of Education Abroad at Washington State University and the University of Florida.
John D. Heyl is IEL Editor and former SIO at the University of Missouri-Columbia and Old Dominion University (VA).
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Eclectic Summer Reading: Leadership, Global Learning, Education Reform and Our Digital World
By John D. Heyl
IEL Editor
Posted August 25, 2014
This summer I have been reading in a pretty eclectic way across topics including leadership, global learning and education's response to a changing world. All in all, the mix of views I have collected is not particularly encouraging - especially when one focuses on the U.S. But most of the authors still find cause for optimism as they look ahead.
First on leadership: David Brooks - a favorite columnist of mine because of his insights and thoughtfulness (not for his purely political views) - has written on "leadership revival." (New York Times, Jan.13, 2014). One of the three keys to training for leadership, according to Brooks, is to "take a reality bath." One way to do this? Go abroad. "Go off and become a stranger in a strange land. . . . When you return home, you will look at your own place with foreign eyes. You'll see the contours of your own reality more clearly." We international educators obviously believe in this exercise in the context of study abroad, but meaningful sojourns later in life can be even more important in shaping one's worldview.
Next the perennial debate on the importance of global knowledge vs. intercultural skills. I have often thought how little impact intercultural training (in a global context) may have in the absence of a grounding in the language, history, literature and economy of a society. Of course the reverse is also true, but at least citizens with broad global knowledge can make informed policy preferences even if they lack direct experience with other cultures. Unfortunately, a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey revealed that between 32% and 42% of respondents said they "didn't 't know enough to have [an] opinion" about current global issues ranging from Syria to Iraq to Israel/Hamas. International educators are the first to acknowledge that all of these global confrontations are complex and embedded in long histories. But not to even have an opinion about them?! Depressing indeed. If anything, this is yet further evidence that Internationalization at Home is as important as getting students abroad, maybe more important.
A more hopeful set of views on how college can make a difference in educating the citizenry is offered by four college presidents in An Education for the Twenty-First Century: Stewardship of the Global a Commons (Liberal Education, Fall 2012; republished by NAFSA, June 2014). Is it really possible that, after decades of innovation in international education, we still do not have a common vocabulary to define adequate global learning for U.S. citizens or a broad consensus on how to assess it? One can hope that thoughtful proposals such as these - and from highly respected campus presidents - can lead to breakthrough action in higher education reform.
K-12 education is also in for some shocks in coming years. The growing attack on the Common Core K-12 learning standards is yet another example of the persistent "race to the bottom" that some politicians seem to think will fire up their base in an election year. Does any state really want its kids to be less well educated than the national average - clinging to the knowledge that they are at least stupider on their own terms? Hard to believe. I recommend Amanda Ripley's important book The Smartest Kids in the World (Simon & Schuster, 2013) to find out how Finland, South Korea and Poland do it. Hint: They do it by setting high national standards for the teaching profession, recruiting very talented students into teacher training programs and attaching high prestige to a teaching career. Teacher education in the U.S. clearly needs a lot more work - from all of us.
Finally, how will our digital age continue to change how we all interact, both individually and globally? In the conclusion to The New Digital Age (Knopf, 2013), Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen (both Google execs) write: "The case for optimism lies not in sci-fi gadgets or holograms but in the check that technology and connectivity bring against the abuses, suffering and destruction in our world. . . . We cannot eliminate inequality or abuse of power, but through technological inclusion we can help transfer power into the hands of individual people and trust that they will take it from there. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it." Looking around at recent global developments – and as a digital "immigrant" - I am less optimistic. But certainly intensely interested in where "there" will be.
I hope your summer reading was equally enlightening - and perhaps more uplifting.
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IE Provocateurs
By John D. Heyl
IEL Editor
Posted May 20, 2014
Every field that aspires to status as a discipline must exhibit a range of shared consensus. This includes: What questions are important for us to study? What is our agreed upon terminology? What are our shared standards of measurement? This consensus usually also includes some agreement on what counts as milestones in the development of the discipline itself.
But just as a discipline requires a degree of consensus to tackle problems posed in the field in a coherent fashion, so do disciplines need provocateurs – some would call them contrarians - who look at the field in new ways. Such figures are the heroes of modern science, those who challenged the received consensus and (eventually) set the whole discipline in another direction. In my own field of modern German history, such was the impact of a little book by William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town (1965). This book sent German historians (including myself) into local archives to reveal a different face of the Nazi era than the "totalitarian" label, so widely accepted at the time, suggested.
In international education (IE), like other fields in the social sciences, the lines are not so clear. It is hardly surprising, then, that the term "provocateur " means different things to different people. Some consider those who create something new - a new study abroad consortium, a new set of institutional policies, a new collaboration with a hitherto neglected partner institution abroad - to be provocateurs. These colleagues are certainly innovators. But they are not necessarily provocateurs - although they may be that too. Likewise, some are extraordinarily effective leader/managers who consistently inspire their staffs to achieve great things. These may be the builders of "centers of excellence" on a campus that serve as models for other SIOs. Finally, I realized that “IE provocateur,” for most AIEA members queried, did not include college and university presidents, some of whom have been true provocateurs in our field.
The List
So here are the results of an informal survey of AIEA members on who should be included in this important club.
It will not surprise that two names topped the list. Michael Woolf, Deputy President for Strategic Development at CAPA International Education and coordinator of CAPA’s Occasional Seminars/Papers, was recognized as a colleague who regularly challenges us to rethink the assumptions in our field, especially in study abroad. Hans de Wit, Professor of Internationalization of Higher Education at the University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Director of the Centre for Higher Education Internationalization at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, and longtime editor of the Journal of Studies in International Education, joined Mike at the top of the list.
Both Mike Woolf and Hans de Wit have questioned the very way we talk about our profession. In 2011 Hans (with Uwe Brandenburg, who also appears on this list) wrote that SIOs were losing their innovative edge by clinging to “traditional concepts" that are inadequate to a rapidly changing world. He has repeatedly cautioned international educators against simply re-labeling familiar processes to give them a veneer of freshness and innovation. Mike – a self-described “mischief maker” - has likewise raised basic questions about current practices in study abroad. In an August 2013 piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, he asserted that the “educational tourism” prevalent in U.S. study abroad to non-traditional destinations was “closer to pornography than it is to education.” Needless to say, this observation provoked some heated exchanges in the comments section that followed.
Many others - a total of 27 international educators (see list below) – were mentioned in the survey as provocateurs in our field. Four, however, were mentioned by at least three colleagues and therefore deserve special note. These are Barbara Burn, Joe Mestenhauser, Riall Nolan and Philip Altbach.
Barbara Burn (d. 2002), longtime SIO at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, was recognized as an indefatigable advocate for clarity in the formulation of internationalizations goals and strategies and for more research in the field. Barbara was an expert at probing the weakest point of a presenter’s argument, always seeking a path to valid and more useful new knowledge. She was also the first female president of AIEA (1994) - a kind of provocation in its own right.
Josef Mestenhauser (University of Minnesota) has spent the past sixty years and more teaching, lecturing, consulting, mentoring, researching and writing on international education. The "big idea" he has argued over the years is that universities are knowledge systems and that change - including internationalization - must acknowledge this reality to have any chance of success. “International education is a mega-goal,” he writes, “that should permeate the entire institutional being. . . .”
Riall Nolan, former SIO at Purdue University and widely published developmental anthropologist, may be unique among these other provocateurs in bringing a particularly rich background in project work in developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Recently, he has focused on career issues in the profession of international education, especially the promise and perils of moving into the SIO role from a faculty position. He is currently co-editing (with Gil Merkx) a volume on SIO careers.
Philip Altbach, Director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, has consistently emphasized the unequal playing field in global higher education and the potential for neo-colonialism by international education practitioners in the West/North. Another theme in Altbach’s writings is that higher education as a public good is losing ground to the view that higher education is a private good to be paid for by “consumers.” All of these features of the current scene, Altbach argues, pose important ethical issues.
The President as IE Provocateur
By referring to “colleagues” in my initial survey announcement, I did not realize that, by implication, respondents were likely to exclude other key figures in IE, such as college and university presidents. This is unfortunate because a number of presidents have certainly “provoked” our field through their executive decisions, often with a level of institutional impact that is not available to SIOs. In this group I would certainly include Peter McPherson (Michigan State University), Sanford Ungar (Goucber College), David Maxwell (Drake University), Julio León (Missouri Southern State University) and John Sexton (NYU). The diversity of the kinds of institutions represented by these CEOs suggests that each faced a unique challenge and chose to advance his institution’s internationalization in a unique way.
Just to summarize the provocations that these CEOs have launched: Sanford Ungar made study abroad a requirement for all undergraduates at Goucher. Goucher remains the only institution in the U.S. to embrace such a requirement. David Maxwell’s decision to abolish Drake’s foreign language department drew sharp criticism from the foreign language establishment in the U.S. but turned Drake toward a more flexible program focused on communicative competence rather than seat time and a literature-focused pedagogy. Julio León took a small regional institution in Joplin, Missouri, and transformed its ethos into one that is multicultural and global. Peter McPherson brought huge global cred to his role as MSU president in the 1990s, but his declaration in 1995 that MSU would send 40% of its undergraduates abroad seemed either visionary or fanciful – but certainly provocative. John Sexton – well, what can one say? – has led NYU to espouse a uniquely ambitious model of the “global network university” with branch campuses around the world that offer integrated curricula leading to full degrees. Sexton has also stirred a good deal of backlash to his initiatives; the AIEA member who nominated him confessed “I certainly feel provoked by him.”
What both SIO and university president provocateurs have in common is that they all argue that there is not enough provocation - truly new and disruptive ideas - in higher education in general and international education in particular. Real change will require more than a relatively few provocative voices. Real change will require more collective rethinking of current approaches to global learning, global alignments, global citizenship – and international education leadership.
IE Provocateurs (2014)
In Alphabetical Order
Tony Adams* - Macquarie/RMIT (Australia)
Philip Altbach – Boston College
Uwe Brandenberg - CHE Consult; Humboldt-Univ. Berlin (Germany)
Peter Briggs – Michigan State University
Thomas Buntru – Univ. of Monterrey (Mexico)
Barbara Burn* - Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst
Rosina Chia – East Carolina Univ.
Bill Clabby – St. Edward’s Univ.\ISA\UCSD
Hans de Wit – Univ. of Applied Sciences Amsterdam/ Università Cattolica del
Sacro Cuore (Netherlands/Italy)
Tom Gouttierre – Univ. of Nebraska Omaha
Joan Gore – FIE
Nico Jooste – Nelson Mandela University (South Africa)
Jane Knight – Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (Canada)
Andrew Law – Denison Univ.
James Leck* – Boston University
Mitch Leventhal – SUNY Albany
Simon Marginson – Univ. of London/Univ. of Melbourne (UK/Australia)
Francisco Marmolejo – World Bank/CONAHEC
Gil Merkx - Duke Univ.
Josef Mestenhauser – Univ. of Minnesota
Riall Nolan – Purdue University
Tony Ogden – Univ. of Kentucky
Norm Peterson - Montana State Univ.
Elmer Poe – East Carolina Univ.
Mike Reddin* – London School of Economics (UK)
Ahad Shahbaz - Interlink
Sam Shepherd – Associates in Cultural Exchange
James Skelly - Juniata College
Stephen Straight - Binghamton Univ.
Kay Thomas – Univ. of Minnesota
JoAnn DeArmas Wallace - Juniata College
Michael Woolf – CAPA International Education (USA/UK)
Eric Zimmerman – IDC Herzliya (Israel)
*Deceased
* * *
Senior Leadership Transitions and the SIO
By John D. Heyl
IEL Editor
Posted April 4, 2014
The SIO is never more aware of her/his middle manager role than when the president leaves or retires and a new senior administrator is hired. As Jack Van de Water wrote almost a decade ago: "the arrival of a new president and a new provost . . . should be equated to moving to a new institution. Most all the work done previously to establish credibility with the central administration is ‘out the window.’” (2006, -. 59) It is a time of high stress – and both opportunity and risk.
Senior level transitions can be important opportunities for institutions. They signal new leadership and (sometimes overdue) change. They usually mean new leadership in other key positions, too, such as the provost other vice presidents. This, in turn, means new management approaches and new directions/priorities for the campus. It is an exciting time.
Despite what a search committee or governing board may think they are getting, the reality is any new president must launch new initiatives to justify his/her appointment and prepare the way for his/her next career move. Although incoming presidents always praise the "solid foundation laid by my predecessor" and "rich [i.e., untouchable] traditions" of the institution, a departing president never says: "I am proud to have just done more of what my predecessor did." Or: "I am proud to leave the institution in the same condition I received it." Leading and managing change are priorities for all campus presidents.
The tenure of a university president, according to the American Council on Education (ACE), is currently about seven years. With presidential compensation packages escalating in recent years, the temptation to retire early - or, as they say, "return to my first loves - teaching and research" – has also increased. That early presidential turnover is a leading concern of governing boards is indicated by the prevalence of cash bonuses for new appointees who remain in the position at least five years.
Thus, most SIOs will likely see more than one senior level transition while in the role. In my own case, at the University of Missouri, during a particularly unstable period of senior leadership, I reported to five different provosts or vice provosts in 12 years and served five different chancellors or interim chancellors. Even without the greater disruption of a presidential firing, the reality is that most presidents and provosts have a professional and personal agenda that reaches well beyond their current appointment. They are, after all, part of an itinerant administrative class. SIOs should know something about this status because they too – at least those without tenured faculty appointments – belong to this class as well.
Given that senior level transitions are part of the reality of the SIO role, what is the SIO to do? Here are some suggestions culled from interviews with current and past SIOs.
1. Negotiate a “safety net” before you accept an SIO offer. This can take many forms. It may mean teaching (without tenure) in an academic department for a certain period. It may mean serving in another administrative role performing “duties as assigned.” It may mean a brief “sabbatical” (no longer than six months) with pay while one looks for another job. None of these “parachutes” guarantees permanent employment at the institution, but they are necessary in this era when the SIO position is vulnerable to shifting winds in higher education.
2. Try to get as much insight into the new President as possible - speak with the provost, members of the search committee, etc. Do background research on any international involvement in her/his previous position. The goal is to determine if the new president brings an international agenda to your institution - or whether he/she is looking to you (or others) for an international agenda or is indifferent to the institution’s international profile. Each attitude offers opportunities as well as risks.
3. Invite the new president to visit your office in order to gain a feel for your office spirit and culture - perhaps also to see first-hand your cramped quarters and limited staff. Prepare for any such visit by sending the president a short summary of the role and goals and staffing of the office - highlighting some recent achievements.
4. Keep your staff updated on what you learn about the president and how you plan on presenting the unit’s vision and goals to the new senior leadership.
5. Invite the president to a meeting of the International Advisory Committee to share her/his international vision for the institution.
6. Determine any international travel priorities the new president may have and, if possible, plan joint or overlapping travel to your unit’s priority destinations, especially for alumni development purposes.
7. Propose topics the new president might present at internationally focused meetings of presidential associations such as ACE, AASCU, AAC&U, APLU, etc.
8. Be proactive as the new president shapes her/his vision for his presidency. Volunteer to participate in the visioning and strategic planning process. Share with the new President and other key stakeholders how you see opportunities for new international initiatives that may be part of a broader institutional vision.
9. While working positively and constructively with the new president and his/her team, review your own professional development plan. Update your c.v. Network with colleagues at other institutions on their experiences with senior level transitions.
One of the early appointments the new president makes (at the provost or vice provost level) may be your new boss!
1Jack Van de Water, Lessons Learned: Musings on a 30-Year Career in International Education. International Educator, 15(1), 57-61
2Special thanks to Riall Nolan (Purdue University) and William Lacy (Univ. of California-Davis) for their insights on this topic.
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IE News
A Different Take on the "International Classroom"
Hans de Wit has written a provocative blog on the "international classroom," reprinted at Inside Higher Ed (October 25, 2015). See www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/international-classroom De Wit argues that considerable research indicates that "the teaching staff is key to the success of this [international student] group." Faculty at all levels will need more training to successfully implement the lessons of global cultural diversity in their classrooms. "All this costs money," he writes, "that many universities are not willing, or not able, to invest, despite the [financial!] benefits they receive from enrolling these students."
Future of Chinese Enrollment in the U.S.
Rahul Choudaha (WES) offers a summary of key drivers of Chinese enrollment in the U.S., which has grown dramatically in the past decade, especially at the undergraduate level (up 40% from 2006-2007 to 2013-2014). Recent declines in Chinese applications at the graduate level, however, have raised concerns about the future. Are the concerns justified by the data? See full article at http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150726083844202&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRolvKrPZKXonjHpfsX87u0lWrHr08Yy0EZ5VunJEUWy3IAJT9Q%2FcOedCQkZHblFnV8JTa22SK0NqaQL