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Internationalization Collaborative
Community Colleges
Northern Virginia Community College
Northern Virginia Community
College (NVCC) is an open-access, comprehensive institution offering
two-year associate degrees, one-year certificates, career studies
certificates, and continuing education and community services programs.
One of 23 public community colleges in the Virginia state system (VCCS),
the college was established in 1965 by the Virginia General Assembly to
serve the Eighth Planning District (comprising the counties of
Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William, and the cities of
Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park). With
six campuses located across the Northern Virginia region, it is the
largest higher education institution in the state and the second-largest
community college in the nation with nearly 63,000 credit (25,000 full
time) and 20,000 noncredit students.
The college’s mission
is "to respond to the educational needs of its dynamic and diverse
constituencies through an array of comprehensive programs and services
that facilitate learning and workforce development in an environment of
open access and through lifelong educational opportunities." This
statement, however, dates from an earlier administration and may soon
undergo revision. The present administration, under the leadership of
Robert Templin, the institution’s fourth president, has recently
developed "Strategic Vision 2015: Gateway to the American Dream," with
goals in the areas of student success, access, teaching and learning,
excellence, leadership, partnerships, and resources. Under "excellence,"
international education is specifically identified with the stated
objective "to leverage NOVA’s strength in serving students from
around the world to create learning experiences that build greater
global awareness across the college."
This objective derives from
the recognition that from its beginning, NVCC has been international
more by virtue of location than from conscious intention. Proximity to
the nation’s capital alone has brought students from all over the
world. In fall 2003, well over 9,000 students from more than 150
countries attended the college: 570 from Vietnam, 564 from South Korea,
540 from Ethiopia, 440 from India, 300 from the Iran, 140 from the
Republic of China, nearly 2,000 from Central and South America, and so
forth. Similarly, the presence of so many students from other countries
has influenced the college’s character, motivating the development
of a comprehensive, multitiered ESL program, the creation of an
international area studies degree program (with specializations in South
America, China, and Japan), intercultural celebrations, presentations on
international topics, and a wide range of study abroad offerings. Nearly
all these activities, however, are unconnected from campus to campus and
even department to department; they are for the most part isolated
efforts initiated by individual faculty and staff that taken separately
reflect a widespread interest in embracing the institution’s
international nature, but which together do not make a comprehensive and
intentional institutional direction.
Alongside NVCC’s
international character is another, no less important, factor of
location: The communities that the campuses serve have seen steady
increases in immigrant populations, particularly on the three largest
campuses. NVCC wishes to turn this demographic into a strength. It is
our belief that an internationalization effort that ignores our
resident, New American population will not reach and benefit the
majority of students. Whatever steps the college takes will factor in
the need to interconnect the concerns stemming from the college’s
multicultural nature with its international endeavors.
Overview of Internationalization Efforts
I. Vision and Goals for
Internationalization
The college’s goal,
"to leverage NOVA’s strength in serving students from around the
world to create learning experiences that build greater global awareness
across the college," announces its intention to realize its potential as
one of the premier international community colleges. Given the
advantages of its location near Washington, DC, already significantly
international student population, multicultural communities, and
internationally oriented faculty, this goal is realistic. For many
years, the college’s campuses have to varying degrees created
opportunities, usually through independent faculty and staff interests,
to engage in international events and expand students’ global
awareness. In light of this, the process of internationalization the
college now undertakes should be less one of discovery of purpose than
of organization and coordination of concerted institutional
activities. The international goal, therefore, directs the college
toward a social responsibility, to understand its role in the global
community and to convene and educate students to address issues more
globally and inclusively.
The goal’s emphasis on
"learning experiences that build greater global awareness," serves as
the college’s core vision for internationalization. Such
experiences will benefit all associated with the
institution—students, faculty, and a community that will be both
at home and overseas. While the college’s history with
internationalism has been entirely dependent on individual interests at
the separate campuses, the emphasis now will be on intentional and
concentrated action. The goal’s explicit focus on learning will
drive other initiatives. Opportunities for learning outside the
classroom will be available to more members of the learning community,
and thus a range of options for study abroad, faculty development, and
exchanges will be the underpinnings of the international
curriculum—stimulating a greater appreciation of the growing
interconnectedness of the world. Study abroad experiences will have
clearly identified learning outcomes. Similarly, faculty professional
development opportunities should expose instructors and administrators
to cultures and issues across the globe and help them broaden the
discourse of instruction. Though many such opportunities are available,
our faculty have availed themselves of a relative few. With this new
direction, the college can use the gains made through international
recruitment (bringing students to the college) to invest in its research
and development (bringing the college staff and students to the world),
and thus build a more robust and self-sustaining international education
program.
II.
Progress
Even though the college has
not yet highlighted "global awareness" among its general education goals
nor aligned it with assessment measures that verify its accomplishment,
it has made some strides in internationalization through initiatives at
particular campuses. Because students from all over the world have found
the college and its location an attractive opportunity, they have had a
natural influence over time on the curriculum and extracurricular
activities. The most obvious of these developments is the large ESL
program, serving both credit and noncredit students. This program serves
international (F1 Visa) students as well as immigrant and new American
populations, and students at upper levels take credit classes in other
disciplines. Because of the many students from abroad, numerous
international student clubs have been developed at all campuses, such as
the South American and Latino Student Association (SALSA), the Turkish
Student Association, the Vietnamese Student Association, and the China
Corner. These and many more such organizations have been staples of
student affairs for many years. In addition, the college, taking
advantage of its proximity to the nation’s capital, has developed
relationships with a number of embassies, including the United Arab
Emirates, Kuwait, and the Saudi Cultural Mission.
International studies has
been a specialization within the liberal arts degree program for many
years, and four years ago the Alexandria Campus launched area studies within this, offering Career Studies Certificates in Chinese,
Japanese, Latin American, and African-American studies. A fifth area of
study, in Middle Eastern studies, is under development. Each of these
areas includes a literature, history, and language requirement (each
certificate requires 21 to 25 credit hours). These were formed for the
most part from existing courses—for example, international
business, international relations, international economics,
intercultural communications—to draw students’ attention to
opportunities with the wide range of courses that would supplement their
curricular or career goals with an international perspective.
The World Language program offers nine modern and two classical
languages—Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Ancient Greek, Italian,
Japanese, Latin, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Korean will soon be
offered at the Annandale Campus. More than most disciplines, these are
supported with extensive instructional technology.
Study abroad opportunities
have been a feature of NVCC’s international profile for many
years, and several of the faculty members involved in the International
Studies program have been responsible for arranging the overseas study
tours. While some of the tours have been primarily for language studies
(for example, Spanish in Mexico) others have combined courses such as
literature and history. The countries visited under credit programs have
included China (2002 and 1988), Cuba (2000), Scandinavia (1998), Greece
and Turkey (1990), and Russia (1989); future plans aim at Brazil (2006)
and Japan (2007). In addition, for the past five years, the Alexandria
Campus has held the London Summer School with the University of London. And under noncredit auspices,
many other study tours have taken place.
While the college has had
only a few ad hoc faculty exchanges, the mainstay of
international faculty exchange has been a statewide program called the
Virginia Consortium for International Exchange (VaCIE), which for the
past 15 years has provided coordination for VCCS colleges to exchange
selected faculty with counterparts in the United Kingdom, Republic of
Ireland, and Belgium. Some 50 NVCC faculty and administrators have
benefited over the years. And this year (2004–05) the college
successfully completed its first H1-B visa application to hire a faculty
member, a native of the People’s Republic of China.
Participation in overseas
recruiting fairs sponsored by the American Association of Community
Colleges began in fall 2004. This compelled the institution to
streamline its policies and procedures for accepting international
students, principally to present a single college identity, rather than
separate campus identities, through a new international student web page and through its catalogue. In addition, as part of
reorganization efforts within Student Development, a central Office of
International Student Services has been proposed to ensure each campus
has the capacity to provide direct support to its international student
recruitment and to maintain high-quality services.
Another facet of the
college’s recent progress toward internationalization is its
active participation in national organizations. Individual memberships
in NAFSA have expanded significantly in support of international
recruiting efforts and plans to expand study abroad programs. NVCC also
has benefited from the twice-yearly meetings of the American Council for
International and Intercultural Education, and participation in
international activities of its parent organization, the American
Association of Community Colleges. For example, a college representative
attended the China-U.S. Conference on Community Colleges in summer
2004.
III. Successful
Strategies
Among the most successful
strategies was the one used to rectify the inconsistencies in policies
and procedures for international student recruitment. Principally a
problem of moving from a five-campus approach for F1 students living
within the United States to an institutional approach that welcomed
students from overseas who do not yet have visas, the shift required
careful reconciliation of all five campuses’ practices and
fundamental changes to college policy, to be reflected in its catalogue.
Also, as the audience is now the world, these changes demanded the
development of an international student web site, now accessible through
the college’s home page.
Set in motion by the strategic goal "to build greater global awareness,"
the college formed a college-wide task force to work through these
inconsistencies that then helped develop the web site. The result is
much greater coherence and clarity for students, a more inviting and
truer image of the college, and clearer guidelines for personnel working
with prospective and current students.
Another strategy was
establishing international area studies, which, as mentioned earlier,
draws direct attention to the importance of global learning by centering
on specific cultures, which to date include Chinese, Japanese, South
American, and African-American. These programs cluster existing courses
to create relationships across disciplines (typically language,
literature, and history), and thus did not require completely new
curricula. Admittedly, however, these are a half step. Area studies
formed this way are expedient but at the same time short-circuit the
fuller discussions that should take place among faculty about the
preferred composition, direction, and outcomes for international
studies. The college intends to take this full step participating in the
ACE Internationalization Laboratory.
Finally, one of President
Templin’s strategies, in this time of constrained funding, has
been to allocate funds to those entrepreneurial plans that promise to
develop the institution’s resources and strengthen it for the
future. The internationalization plan, set in motion in fall 2003, was
one such entrepreneurial venture. The actions that have
resulted—recruitment overseas, creating a web site, partnering
with organizations involved in international education—have helped
recreate the disparate activities that have characterized us to date
into well-focused institutional initiatives.
IV. Future
Plans
As one of the colleges
selected for participation in the ACE Internationalization Laboratory in
2005–06, NVCC intends to undertake a comprehensive review of its
curricula and ensure, with ACE leverage, that its strategic initiative,
"to create learning experiences that build greater global awareness
across the college," is attained well before 2015. The college will
break down its international goal into specific objectives, define the
elements of global awareness appropriate for the disciplines, and
identify learning outcomes and assessment measures.
This will serve as a
foundation for greater access to professional development opportunities
that expose more faculty and staff to international experiences. While
VaCIE has served us well, it is limited to European countries;
therefore, steps are being taken to explore the possibility of
recreating the VaCIE model with India, and perhaps later with other
countries. Similarly, the Laboratory review will help foster a more
complete and college-wide approach to study abroad offerings. Finally,
an important by-product, if not objective, of the Internationalization
Laboratory will be to suggest an organizational model for overseeing
international affairs at the college. Presently no central office unites
responsibility for international education and student support, though
one for the latter has been proposed as mentioned earlier.
The college also is
exploring the feasibility of establishing an overseas satellite program,
possibly in China. While this is only in the concept stage, the
principal focus is on providing English-language study coupled with
business studies. After a year of English and business studies, students
may then spend a semester or year at NVCC before returning to their
country to complete their program. In connection with this effort, the
college also will review several selected programs of study for overseas
delivery, e.g., in international business, travel, and tourism. The
college knows that if it is to succeed in the international arena and
successfully attract international credit students and workforce
clients, it needs an objective examination of its present degree and
certificate programs.
Last, like other
international initiatives over the years, grant initiatives have come
from individuals rather than through concerted institutional efforts.
Bringing to bear the college’s resources on well-targeted projects
that deepen its international understanding and experience, NVCC is
confident it can secure a sequence of supportive funding from a variety
of federal and private sources to move the college closer to
comprehensive internationalization.
*Please contact the institution directly if you have
questions about their institutional programs.
Please direct questions about this page to:
beth_burris@ace.nche.edu |
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This page last updated on:
6/16/2006
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