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Portland State University

www.pdx.edu

Contents

General Institutional Overview

Overview of Internationalization Efforts

I.     Vision and Goals for Internationalization
II.    Progress
III.  Successful Strategies
IV.   Future Plans

General Institutional Overview

Portland State University (PSU) is Oregon’s urban public university, located on 36 acres in the central business district of downtown Portland. As such, it is positioned in the heart of the state’s economic and cultural center. Founded in 1946 as Vanport Extension Center to provide training for returning members of the armed forces under the GI Bill, PSU today is the largest and most diverse academic institution in Oregon, with 24,000 students. At the beginning of the 2003–04 academic year, the university experienced a third consecutive year of all-time high enrollment.

PSU is rapidly and successfully moving from a predominantly undergraduate teaching institution to a driving force at the highest level of graduate education, academic research, and industrial partnerships. Students and faculty in the humanities, public policy, urban planning, sciences, engineering, and technology are drawn to Portland’s quality of life, easy access to a variety of geographically distinct regions, and proximity to high-technology industries that are fueling the 21st century economy. As Portland evolves into a world-class city, its university is evolving into a major instructional and research institution.

The university comprises the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Urban and Public Affairs, and Engineering and Computer Science; the schools of Business Administration, Fine and Performing Arts, and Extended Studies; and the graduate schools of Education and Social Work. During the 2000–01 academic year, PSU awarded 2,194 bachelor’s degrees, 1,199 master’s degrees, and 38 doctoral degrees. The university offers bachelor’s degrees in 55 fields, certificate programs in 13 areas at the undergraduate level and 16 at the graduate level, master’s degrees in 53 fields, and doctoral degrees in 10 fields. In 2000–01, PSU awarded doctoral degrees in educational leadership, electrical and computer engineering, environmental sciences and resources, mathematics education, social work, public administration and policy, systems science, and urban studies.

PSU is nationally recognized as an innovative institution. The entire undergraduate program has been redesigned and now includes a four-year curriculum that integrates service and community-based learning. This curriculum, which engages students in the application of scholarly theory to the real-world issues of business and community, has been nationally recognized and funded by several prestigious organizations, including the Pew Charitable Trusts and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The PSU motto, "Let Knowledge Serve the City," reflects only one side of the university’s relationship with its local and international partners, as knowledge gained from them also serves teaching, learning, and research at the university.

Overview of Internationalization Efforts

I. Vision and Goals for Internationalization

Portland State University has an ongoing commitment to internationalize the campus. With the turn of the millennium, PSU has been working systematically to implement a comprehensive internationalization plan. Aligned with PSU President Daniel Bernstine’s Internationalization Initiative, which PSU inaugurated in January 2000, the university seeks to broaden the understanding and involvement of the campus and the global community through travel-abroad opportunities, increasing the international presence on campus, and engagement with others throughout the region, state, nation, and around the world.

In 2002, an Internationalization Action Council was formed. The council’s main focus is to revise and refine the 2001 goals and recommendations created by the International Working Group and to draft an internationalization action plan. PSU presented these goals to the Faculty Senate in March 2003.

The basis for the Internationalization Action Council’s work, as of fall 2003, is presented in the following goal statements. Further iteration of each goal can be found at:  http://www.president.pdx.edu/Initiatives/international/intgoal1web.htm.

• Goal #1: Increase opportunities for every PSU student to have meaningful contact with other cultures through (a) our academic curriculum, (b) study-abroad opportunities, (c) distance learning through the use of technology, (d) international students, (e) faculty visiting our campus, (f) all other aspects of the campus environment, and (g) community-based learning opportunities.

• Goal #2: Develop university policies and procedures that encourage leadership and innovation in the creation and delivery of a world-class international education program.

• Goal #3: Increase opportunities for PSU faculty, academic professionals, and staff to incorporate international dimensions into their teaching, scholarship, and professional development.

• Goal #4: Build on Oregon and Northwest Washington’s emerging sense of themselves as places with an international character and critical links with the rest of the world.

PSU’s formulation of these goals represents the university’s effort to devise innovative strategies for meeting its students’ international education needs. Typically, due to their part-time status and financial circumstances, the majority of PSU students cannot participate in the longer semester- or year-abroad programs, notwithstanding the fact that the university presently offers more than 100 study-abroad and internship opportunities. The president’s Internationalization Initiative creates the impetus to look at new ways to develop international experiences for these students, both at home and abroad. The decision to offer and award Internationalization Mini Grants (beginning in winter 2003) is an important new step in this direction, aimed at increasing "opportunities for PSU faculty, academic professionals, and staff to incorporate international dimensions into their teaching, scholarly agendas, programs, and professional development." Two examples of recently approved awards illustrate the direction of the Internationalization Initiative and its focus on short-term international experiences. One of these awards investigates two-week border plunge experiences spearheaded by the PSU Center for Academic Excellence and Center for Science Education, titled "Strengthening International Community-Based Learning at PSU: A Model Course to Build a Model Program" (on the U.S./Mexican border). The second is an investigation by the School of Social Work on the potential for a Summer Overseas Experience Program in Ghana.

In the 2003–04 academic year, the university created categories for incentive grant competition in two other areas, both short term, heritage learning (focused on Vietnamese, Spanish, and Italian, the latter tied to Portland’s new Sister City relationship with Bologna), and expanded study of ethnic minorities in Oregon (e.g., there are 40,000 ethnic Vietnamese residents in Oregon, and Portland’s Somali refugee population will be augmented with a new group of Somali-Bantu immigrants in 2004).

II. Progress

PSU’s commitment to the internationalization process is evident across the campus. In the professional schools, the College of Urban and Public Affairs has hosted sustainability workshops for Chinese officials and worked collaboratively with the School of Extended Studies to host watershed workshops in support of the Greater Anatolia (GAP) Project in Eastern Turkey. The School of Engineering and Computer Science has crafted new partnerships with institutions in Germany, India, China, and Korea. Some partnerships allow undergraduate students to complete a dual 3+1 degree program; others provide accredited courses via distance delivery or send American students overseas to work in internship settings.

In the humanities and social sciences, the Office of International Affairs, the Middle East Studies Center, the Institute for Asian Studies, the undergraduate International Studies Program, and the Internationalization Action Council have initiated, monitored, and supported campus-wide schools and programs that highlight PSU’s connection to the world. These new, innovative programs are supported with a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which has enabled the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures to revamp its Spanish classes by adding an online component. In addition, the grant has supported service-learning capstones with international dimensions for seniors. PSU also has established different partnerships with international philanthropies such as Global Portland, a cooperative service program affiliated with the International Refugee Center of Oregon (IRCO), and the Somali Capstone, a program that also is affiliated with IRCO but focuses exclusively on the needs of recent African refugees. Another Portland-based capstone crafted a handbook for mentors who are assisting incoming international students on campus. Most participants were students who had recently returned from overseas sojourns or international students themselves. Two capstones located outside the United States have taken students to the Caribbean to participate in social service programs and Ghana to participate in a variety of individual projects. Other capstones will likely be added in Gambia and Guatemala in the 2004–05 academic year. Capstones also offer students an opportunity to study the world at home through the Global Portland–Hmong Children program, in which students learn about and assist Hmong children through tutoring that concentrates on their ethnic heritage and English literacy skills.

PSU offers study-abroad programs in 38 countries. In the past two academic years, the number of students participating in these programs has doubled to almost 600. PSU’s American students have participated in not only the traditional overseas sojourns, but also various internship programs throughout the world, in collaboration with the statewide program International Internship Experience (IE3). They also have participated in short-term overseas study programs in the Caribbean (Trinidad, Tobago, and Curacao), Costa Rica, Guatemala, Austria, and Ghana.

One of PSU’s most outstanding programs began as a cooperative venture among Oregon’s public and private universities, the Oregon-Waseda Transnational Program. Now housed at PSU and supported through a nonprofit organization, this program is a model for interinstitutional/international collaboration. Students from Waseda University in Japan join American colleagues at PSU in the fall and take interdisciplinary, theme-based courses in the nationally recognized University Studies program. They then travel to Waseda for winter and spring coursework through the Waseda International Transnational Program (www.wasedaoregon.org/). A new, longer program for Waseda students at PSU commenced in spring 2004.

III. Successful Strategies

The president’s Internationalization Initiative and the formation of the Internationalization Action Council are a driving force in implementing a comprehensive internationalization plan.

Several academic and co-curricular programs contribute to PSU’s effort to internationalize its campus. The university is especially proud of its advances to promote the internationalization of business majors, its International Studies program, the development of international senior capstones, the Summer International Visiting Professor Program, and the international learning opportunities that are available to residents of the Global Village Floor in Epler Hall, PSU’s newest dormitory. These and other selected strategies are discussed in the following paragraphs.

The School of Business houses the master’s of international management (MIM) program. This program provides students with international as well as general business skills, proficiency in a foreign language, and a deep knowledge of political and economic environments in which global business leaders work, knowledge gained while working with a culturally diverse group of students from around the world. The program’s main focus is the Asia-Pacific region. PSU’s MIM program exposes students to the language, customs, and issues, as well as field observation and contacts, thereby helping students launch a successful management career in the Asian marketplace. Additionally, the PSU MIM program strives to create a strong cross-cultural learning community among its diverse student body through a cohort structure and team-building activities, resulting in relationships that endure far beyond graduation.

While opportunities have long existed for business majors to take their general education courses abroad, the school also has crafted short-term overseas study programs in France, Italy, and Mexico that allow business majors at both the graduate and undergraduate levels to study outside the United States while not delaying graduation or conflicting with accrediting body requirements. The three-week program in Marseille, France, for example, attracts around 30 students every year.

Introduced in 1989, PSU’s International Studies’ major and minor focus on global and transnational issues through an interdisciplinary curriculum that provides both a global perspective and a comprehensive view of a selected geographic region of the world. The curriculum is based on existing international, world, or comparative courses, as well as newly developed courses that stress globalization and international perspectives. Students are required to study three years of a foreign language relevant to their regional focus. Much of the major’s success is due to the availability of international, comparative, and transnational courses that exist on campus.

The International Studies program commenced in 1989. At that time, the initial cohort was seven. At present, there are 217 students in the program. This degree affords an excellent foundation for careers that require an understanding of international economic, political, social, and cultural affairs; it also provides a solid foundation for graduate work in international relations or in the professional schools, or to pursue careers in the public sector or at international organizations.

In 1994, Portland State adopted a new general education program, University Studies, which provides students with a coherent and cohesive program of integrated learning experiences. This nationally recognized program offers students a clear opportunity to acquire the foundation for academic and problem solving skills needed to succeed in the 21st century. University Studies offers students a program of connected educational opportunities. The culmination of the University Studies program is the capstone requirement. This 6-credit, community-based learning course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to identify, in a team context, the relationship between challenges facing the metropolitan community and what they have learned in the major and in other University Studies courses. An international component has been added to several of the senior capstones. PSU currently has a Caribbean Studies Capstone that is offered every other winter quarter. A Capstone to Suriname commenced in 2003. In 2004, PSU offers two new capstones: in Ecuador, which requires students to work and teach English in a variety of community service agencies, NGOs, and international development organizations; and a unique program in Nicaragua that focuses on international healthcare and aging. In 2005, PSU anticipates adding a Summer Guatemala program capstone, focusing on the teaching of Spanish to Mayan population groups.

In recognition that urban universities like PSU have many students who cannot easily travel abroad, the university boasts a longstanding effort to bring the world to its campus each summer. The International Visiting Professor Program sponsors professors from different parts of the world to teach in a variety of different disciplines. The program also delivers a set of public lectures titled "Tour the World at Home" in collaboration with the World Affairs Council of Oregon. The program attracts 12 to 15 visitors to the campus every summer.

The newly inaugurated Global Village program is a living and learning initiative that houses American and international undergraduate students with an interest in living in a diverse but close-knit community where they can share cross-cultural experiences and build international friendships. Occupying the entire sixth floor of Epler Hall, a student residence that opened its doors in fall 2003, the Global Village attracts students from all over the world interested in community involvement and leadership. The community provides educational, social, and other activities based on an international, multicultural theme. Students live in studio-style apartments. They may elect to have a roommate or choose a single occupancy room. Rooms with two students typically match an American student with a student from another country. PSU’s Residence Life officials view this experiment as a pilot project that will be replicated in other residence halls in 2005.

International students play a major role in enriching the cross-cultural experience on U.S. campuses. One of the most innovative programs at PSU integrates international students with the broader Portland community through the International Cultural Service Program (ICSP). This community education program provides a significant tuition reduction to roughly 30 students per year who provide 80 hours of community service in the Portland metropolitan area. Typically, their work involves speaking about their home countries and cultures in the K–12 public school system. More broadly, whether ICSP scholarship holders or not, PSU’s international students participate in the annual, U.S. State Department–sponsored International Education Week by collaborating with the World Affairs Council of Oregon, a community partner, to share their expert knowledge of culture with elementary, middle, and high school students.

During the past two years, PSU has strengthened its relationship with Canada. In November 2002, boosted by a grant from the Canadian government, PSU hosted Canada Days, a week of activities that included cooperative events with the Portland City Government, the Oregon Zoo, and the World Affairs Council of Oregon. PSU also is fortunate to have secured a three-year Fulbright grant to bring Canadian scholars to campus every year, beginning in 2003–04.

International Fulbright scholars offer a rich resource to the campus and to the Portland and Oregon community. These visiting academics and professionals teach, conduct research, give guest lectures, and provide a unique international dimension to the campus. Between 1990 and 2002, PSU hosted 15 Fulbright scholars from different parts of the world, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Russia, Israel, Austria, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Korea, Malaysia, Bulgaria, and Morocco. PSU also shares its faculty expertise with the world; in the past 10 years, 25 faculty members have conducted research and taught overseas in 18 countries.

Within the past year, PSU faculty and staff have designed a protocol, based on a comprehensive review of the university’s international commitments in Korea, that now serves as the basis for implementing all new international academic partnerships. The process of international asset mapping also has been initiated, based on the proposition that the university must make carefully calculated, strategic decisions as its professional schools of Business and Engineering and the College of Urban and Public Affairs expand their international programs.

The International Special Programs Office, which is part of the School of Extended Studies, develops training and educational programs in partnership with international universities, organizations, and agencies serving approximately 750 students and visitors a year. These programs are tailor-made to meet the specific needs of each group and draw on the expertise and resources of PSU and the Portland community. Current and past programs include the Intensive English Language Program, short-term American Culture and English Language programs, English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher training, and Cross-Cultural Training and Orientation Programs (www.isp.pdx.edu/).

PSU has developed a number of partnerships with the Portland community, including the World Affairs Council of Oregon; the Multicultural Resource Center; the Japanese, Mexican, and Canadian Consulate Generals; the Oregon Peace Institute; the Oregon International Council; the United Nations Association; Global Portland; the Peace Corps; the Global and Multicultural Resource Center; the Ancient Egypt Studies Association; the Portland Art Museum; Portland Public Schools; the American Research Center in Egypt (Portland chapter); the Northwest Film Center; Mercy Corps; and the Andisheh Center.

IV. Future Plans

Having adopted the Internationalization Action Plan in spring 2003, and having initiated implementation of the plan from the 2003–04 academic year, future steps can be described as follows:

• Prioritizing the university’s international goals—for students, faculty, international policies, and community interaction—in terms of least cost/highest importance.

• Formulating an international theme in University Studies courses, PSU’s general education requirement, based on the premise that one of the most effective ways to increase international understanding for students who are older and part time is through the curriculum.

• Formalizing a speaker series organized and presented by international students, and directed at the student community, linked to the long-standing International Cultural Services Program (a partial tuition remission in return for public service program).

• Creating a set of policies and appointments of international advisers who will augment the Portland State University Foundation Board.

• Obtaining support for increasing numbers of short-term international courses that meet the needs of a PSU student population that, due to its high percentage of part-time students, often cannot participate in semester or year-long programs overseas.

• Supporting increasing numbers of short-term faculty research projects on international themes, both on campus and abroad.

• Expanding distance delivery methodologies for offering PSU courses and degrees overseas.

• Developing a strategic focus on Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America in the terms of course offerings, faculty hires, alumni connections, and grantsmanship.

• Developing a strategic focus, in partnership with the Portland Mayor’s Office, on the academic/community relationship with selected Sister City partners in Korea, Japan, China, Mexico, Russia, and Italy.

Last updated: July 20, 2005