LaGuardia Community College
General Institutional Overview
LaGuardia
Community College is known as "The World's Community College"
because it serves a hugely diverse student population. Our students
represent over 150 countries and speak 110 languages, making our
community college a natural place to "think globally and act
locally."
In many ways, LaGuardia Community College is the prototypical urban
community college—founded in 1971 in Western Queens as an open
admissions institution, part of the City University of New York,
attracting over 13,500 credit students and 30,000 non-credit students,
and located in an industrial zone in converted factory buildings. But,
in many other ways, LaGuardia is an uncommon place. First, there is the
history of innovative educational practices sustained over long periods
of time. Since its founding, LaGuardia has required its students to
engage in cooperative education and has played a leading role in the
cooperative education movement. LaGuardia was an early pioneer in the
development of learning communities, successfully merging credit-bearing
academic content and non-credit remediation. More recently, LaGuardia
has incorporated the construction of student ePortfolios into the
rhythms of academic life and has created a dynamic Center for Teaching
and Learning and faculty development programs that have merited a
TIAA-CREF Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence in 2004. LaGuardia's
innovations are chronicled in the literature on community colleges and
have garnered many honors and accolades.
Second, LaGuardia is an uncommon place because of the student
population that the College serves. A College Task Force on
Internationalization recently wrote: "We have the world not only
knocking at our door, but already sitting in our classrooms." LaGuardia
terms itself "The World's Community College," with students born in over
150 countries and speaking more than 100 native languages. LaGuardia's
diverse student population includes 42% Hispanic, 20% Asian, 20% Black,
and 17% White. Sixty percent are first-generation college students;
two-thirds of entering students report a family income of $25,000 or
less. More than two-thirds of our students were born outside the U. S.;
indeed, half of our incoming students have lived in the United States
for less than five years. In short, LaGuardia is one of the premier
gateways for today's immigrant population.
I. Vision and Goals for
Internationalization
As a multicultural institution by nature, LaGuardia faces a unique
challenge in defining internationalization and determining how best to
utilize the strengths of its student body and the local community in our
efforts. Obviously, internationalization must mean more than having an
international student body and must center upon cultivating "habits of
mind" among our students and staff. These habits should include:
- A curiosity about and openness to difference among peoples and
cultures;
- An ability to "step outside" of oneself to see that one's beliefs,
attitudes, opinions, and morals have been shaped by a particular culture
and environment;
- An ability to communicate and interact with people from different
cultures and an understanding of the "interconnectedness" of economic
and social systems in today's global environment.
Through the continued support of the administration,
internationalization and diversity is part of LaGuardia's strategic
plan. While at many other campuses across the country
internationalization may be seen as coming only from the administration
down, the demographics at LaGuardia means that internationalization has
always been a more organic process that simmers from the bottom up with
a great deal of support from the administration.
II. Progress
President Mellow initiated a campus-wide conversation on
internationalization by commissioning a white paper on the state of
internationalization at the college. She called for volunteers to serve
on a Presidential Task Force on Internationalizing LaGuardia and
forty-nine faculty, staff, and administrators came forward to explore
present and past internationalization efforts and recommend future
directions. Their report, "Internationalizing LaGuardia: The Next
Phase," was widely discussed by the faculty, staff and students.
In response, a new goal, "Advance Diversity and Internationalizing"
was added to the College's Strategic Plan. Current objectives in support
of this goal include:
- Advancing faculty capacity to internationalize the curriculum;
- Internationalizing programs through curricular and co-curricular
changes, support services and professional development;
- Creating global economic development partnerships and provide
programming that reflects the demographics of the College and the
community.
A group of faculty and staff members from across the College was
charged with preparing a progress report to the College leaders. Their
report provided direction for the College's current initiatives.
Institutional support for all of these activities is continually
reinforced through the College's strategic planning process. All
Divisions and Departments were required to address internationalizing in
their strategic plan proposals and to ensure that work plans of
individual departments are linked to this goal.
Over the past decades, LaGuardia has partnered with several foreign
institutions on a number of student-faculty exchange programs with
foreign institutions. However, because the institution wishes to enhance
and expand its international efforts, the Academic Affairs Division has
established the Office for International Connection to coordinate all
international initiatives.
During the first year (2007–08) of the new initiative, "Advance
Diversity and Internationalization," two faculty coordinated the effort.
The coordinators convened a small advisory group consisting of
representatives from the departments. This group is in the process of
surveying faculty and students on their preference on the type of
international experiences, length of programs, possible obstacles to
participating in international experiences, most convenient time of the
year for the experiences, identify the preference(s) of the regions of
the world to offer international experience and how these experiences
impact on pedagogy.
III. Successful
Strategies
Among the most successful strategies was the one used to create the
Advisory Board, consisting of representatives from each academic
department. The members of the Advisory Board participated in a
visioning session to create the Office for International Connections
mission statement. The draft mission statement was vetted by the
departments. The departments' recommendations were incorporated in the
revised mission statement. Having participation during the creation of
the mission statement resulted in greater faculty interest and
involvement in the Office for International Connections endeavors. Both
top down and bottom-up support for internationalization produced a
spirited milieu with faculty collaborating on different projects.
Another strategy was assessing faculty and students' interests
regarding the College's internationalization activities. The advisory
board developed and disseminated faculty and student surveys on proposed
internationalization activities. The response rates for the surveys were
high because the department liaisons were responsible for collecting the
data. The findings will be used to determine the future direction of the
Office.
Finally, some departments are working on internationalization of the
core curriculum and co-curricular activities. One department is
exploring the use of themes to internationalize the curriculum. Some
faculty members suggested that the curricular and co-curricular
activities will explore the cultural nuances of a global world. In all
of the international efforts of the College, care will continue to be
taken to strengthen the existing internationalization activities and
create new partnerships.
IV. Future Plans
As LaGuardia's strategic plan for Internationalization and Diversity
advances, there are several initiatives that will take place. These
include:
- Developing a mission statement for diversity and
internationalization;
- Creating web resources on scholarships, grants, and international
organizations;
- Initiating outreach to other CUNY community colleges to form a
"Troika partnership;"
- Working with the Grants office to identify funding for faculty to
attend conferences in foreign country; Organizing at least one
internationally focused symposium or forum for the following year, and
exploring the feasibility of inviting scholars or diplomats from the UN
to the event.
One of the most salient goals for the Office for International
Connections is to internationalize the curriculum including a
diversification of teaching materials and perspectives within the canon
of each discipline. The Office will be working with the Accounting and
Managerial department faculty to internationalize the business courses.
In February 2008, the Office will be convening a JAM session,
asynchronous online discussion, on internationalizing business programs.
The information from the discussion will be used to move this initiative
forward.
In the second year of the initiative, the Office for International
Connections will work with other disciplines/programs to
internationalize their curricula. In addition, the sub-group will
identify opportunities for US and foreign faculty to collaborate on
projects that would benefit the students. One of the projects could be
to study teaching and learning in math and science because data from the
Education Department suggest that high schools and colleges tell a
similar story: students' lack of math and science proficiency has a
major effect on academic achievement. There is evidence to support the
argument that many students in the US school system are falling behind
in Math and Science. Conversely, many students outside of the US are
proficient in math and science.
The coordinator/s will create a mechanism for faculty and students to
share their international experiences with the college community. The
coordinator/s will develop relationships with other institutions with
Model UN programs. One of the outcomes from the relationships is to link
electronically LaGuardia Model UN program to other institutions'
programs. The coordinator/s will also work with the LaGuardia's Director
of International students to organize forums that promote college-wide
participation for international students.
*Please contact the institution directly if you have questions
regarding specific institutional programs.
Please direct questions about this page to:
jill_wisniewski@ace.nche.edu
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This page last updated on: 03/25/2008
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