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Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania

http://www.lhup.edu/

Contents

General Institutional Overview

1. Vision and Goals for Internationalization
2. Progress
3. Successful Strategies
4. Future Plans

General Institutional Overview

Founded as the Central State Normal School in 1870, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania (LHUP) is a comprehensive public university that is part of Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education. Current enrollment is approximately 4,000 students (approximately 3,800 students at the main campus and 200 at a branch campus in Clearfield, Pennsylvania). LHUP offers more than 70 academic programs through the College of Arts and Science and the College of Education and Human Services. The university's programs in education, health science, and the biological sciences have attracted national acclaim. LHUP also offers master's programs in education (curriculum and instruction), health science (physician assistance in rural primary care), and liberal arts.

Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania's commitment to providing an international dimension to a student's university experience stems, in part, from the 1974 granting of a special mission in international and multicultural education. In fulfillment of this mission, LHUP began to systematically develop a set of international exchange initiatives that, over the next quarter-century, would attract partner universities from 22 countries.

Overview of Internationalization Efforts

I. Vision and Goals for Internationalization

Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania promotes the value of providing students with opportunities to develop an international perspective on important shared issues in the world today. The institution clearly demonstrates this commitment in the opening sentence of its recently adopted mission statement:

Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, a rural public institution with an international dimension, serves the community through excellence in the arts, sciences, professional disciplines, education, and human services.

President Craig Dean Willis's vision statement, submitted in preparation for the Middle States Ten-year Review in 2000, reinforces the above statement. As part of his call for the need to impart "a value-oriented liberal education which helps students become broadminded individuals," President Willis wrote,

Courses in each discipline should have an international component, and participation by students and faculty in study abroad programs would greatly increase if we can implement a new policy which encourages all full-time students without family commitments to spend a semester or summer abroad. . . . At the same time, it should be possible to increase the number of international students and faculty on our campus. Their presence would enhance teaching on the main campus, especially in foreign languages, and contribute to participation in local conferences, symposia, and cultural events.

II. Progress

The granting of a special mission to spearhead international programming implies a tremendous responsibility for ensuring that the campus will provide its constituents with overseas opportunities that are academically serious, experientially rewarding and affordable. During the past 25 years, LHUP has diligently sought international partners interested in cultivating close bilateral relationships that facilitate the reciprocal exchange of students and faculty. By working directly with an international partner university rather than sending students abroad through a broker program, LHUP has provided overseas learning opportunities to students for approximately the same cost—in terms of overall tuition, fees, room and board—that students would pay if they were to stay on the LHUP campus.

LHUP, through its Institute for International Studies (IIS), maintains active linkages with 26 university partners in 22 countries (http://www.LHUP.edu/international/index.html).

In October 1999, LHUP marked its silver jubilee with a three-day conference that brought representatives from 22 international partner universities to campus. Under the banner "An International Dimension to Liberal Learning: Challenges and Opportunities as We Enter a New Millennium," conference participants reflected on past successes and current challenges to encouraging international educational exchange. Participants also considered new dimensions to international education programming as we enter the third millennium. Discussion of new collaboration areas aimed at enhancing the traditional exchange paradigm included internships and service-learning opportunities, the elaboration of models for university/community development, and the use of technology to "bring the world closer" to students and faculty.

III. Successful Strategies

An overview of successful strategies for internationalizing the LHUP campus reveals several important developments during the past five years.

Creation of financial and curricular incentives to study abroad. To encourage as many students as possible to incorporate an international experience into their education, LHUP has developed both financial and curricular incentives. LHUP administrators approved a policy in early 1998 that provides for up to $500 in international air travel assistance to every student accepted to an LHUP-sponsored study-abroad program.

Several new curricular initiatives have been approved, including a minor in international studies (introduced in 1998). Students can meet most requirements for this minor through successfully completing an LHUP-sponsored semester abroad. LHUP also has adopted a multicultural requirement as part of its general education program: All students must take two three-semester-hour courses designated 'MC' (Multicultural). The College of Education and Human Services (CEHS) has gone even further in its efforts to instill an appreciation for other cultures: all education majors must complete at least 40 hours of field experience in a cultural, social, or ethnic environment that differs from their own. Each student must then submit a detailed written summary of the experience; this includes thorough reflections on the value of this field experience to the student's academic and personal growth.

Students can meet both the multicultural and external experience requirements through participating in an LHUP-sponsored international exchange program.

External funding. In August 2001, the Institute for International Studies (IIC) received a three-year $120,000 U.S. Department of State grant aimed at fostering private-sector development in Tunisia. The grant will allow LHUP to work with its Tunisian partner university, the University of Sfax for the South, to foment private-sector development by establishing a cooperation model that will meet the needs of the Tunisian university sector, private industry, and local and regional government. It will focus on developing applied consulting skills that can foster private-sector development in Tunisia, enhanceing conversation and writing skills in the English language, and implementing distance learning technology as a tool to extend the role of the university inside and outside of Tunisia. During the next three years, three delegations of officials from Sfax will participate in seminars provided by LHUP business/leadership faculty, the Small Business Development Center, and the Center for Distance Education. These delegations will conduct site visits to local and regional industries and will immerse themselves in an intensive business English program.

The university is keenly aware of the growing list of opportunities for training and supporting academic specialists in international education, and it will be pursuing these areas diligently. Within the past year, a LHUP faculty member was designated the Fulbright-Hayes coordinator for promoting faculty and student scholarship and exchange. The IIS will work with the university's grants acquisition coordinator to identify ways to tap into the nearly $87 million in U.S. government grant funding earmarked for international education in the fiscal year 2002 budget.

Annual International Visiting Lecturer Series. Mindful that the opportunity to develop an international perspective should not be limited to overseas study alone, the IIS has made a concerted effort to provide on-campus opportunities that allow students and faculty to exchange international viewpoints on shared issues of concern throughout the world. LHUP's highest profile activity has been the creation, in 1997, of an annual International Visiting Lecturer Series. Revolving around a general theme of international interest selected to run concurrently throughout the year, the Lecturer Series invites to campus six international faculty from LHUP's overseas partner universities to share their insights and expertise. Now in its sixth year, the Lecturer Series has been instrumental in providing the LHUP learning community with a global perspective. A summary of each year's general themes is as follows:

Development of an ESL program for LHUP. The IIS helped develop an English as a Second Language (ESL) program for the campus community, in keeping with the institution's goal to increase the international profile of the student body in order to expose the native population to different value systems and assumptions about life. In fall 1997, a cooperative relationship was established between the LHUP Foundation and FLS International, a private company headquartered in Pasadena, California, that specializes in providing intensive ESL programs to international students. The non-credit-bearing program is intensive—25 hours of instruction per week—and emphasizes the "preparatory" focus of its program design. The ESL program offers seven levels of instruction, from beginner (one month) to advanced TOEFL preparation (nine months), and includes a strong cross-cultural component in the curriculum. Since November 1997, more than 700 international participants have participated in the program.

International travel grants for LHUP faculty. In December 2000, the IIS announced the creation of a yearly International Travel Grants competition that will encourage faculty to take advantage of LHUP's links with international partner universities. In 2001–02, the IIS provided four awards aimed at supporting LHUP faculty interested in short-term travel to guest lecture or to conduct research at one of LHUP's partner universities or to present a professional paper at an international conference. The awards emphasize short-term travel (up to two weeks) to encourage faculty who would find it difficult to get away for a semester or a year to consider incorporating an international dimension into their professional lives.

IV. Future Plans

LHUP has tremendous potential for program development and expansion. Largely because of the ESL program, the number of international students on campus is the highest in the history of LHUP's international programs. LHUP has enhanced its international profile of on-campus curricular and extracurricular activities by creating the International Visiting Lecturer Series, approving the international studies minor, and developing multicultural and external experience requirements. LHUP also has expanded the activities of its Alpha Omega chapter of Phi Beta Delta, the International Studies Honor Society, to include joint sponsorship of the International Visiting Lecturer Series.

The following projects, all of which LHUP has initiated during the past year, are indicative of the university's commitment to international programming:

Development of a master of arts (M.A.) in Intercultural and International Communications. The national and cultural boundaries that once defined countries and societies are quickly disappearing, creating a need for practitioners and scholars with international and multidisciplinary perspectives. The defining element of the emerging new world may well be communications, as evidenced by the rapid development and diffusion of innovations in communications technologies; the global expansion of communications industries; and the economic, political, and cultural changes that people are experiencing as the contemporary world is transformed through multicultural and international influences.

The proposed M.A. in Intercultural and International Communications will meet this need. The program will provide concentrated study in four modules: Performance Competency; Technology; Culture and Communication; and Public Policy. It will enlist the participation of a select group of LHUP's international partner universities in its delivery. Graduate students will be expected to complete at least one semester of study abroad. Capitalizing on its strong international network, LHUP will provide its graduate students with a truly international dimension to their studies. The program also will allow international students to complete the program's core requirements as exchange students on the LHUP campus. LHUP also will strongly encourage faculty exchange.

Development of a new tenure-track faculty orientation program to be held at a different LHUP international partner site each year. In January 2002, LHUP will implement a pilot project aimed at widening the circle of faculty involvement in internationalization while engaging faculty in workshops that focus on key areas deemed important for their personal and professional development. The first program will take place on the campus of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Zacatecas campus, Mexico. During three full working days, LHUP senior administrators and tenured faculty will lead new tenure-track faculty in discussion and reflection exercises that will focus on student learning outcomes and performance-based assessment, the development and transformation of curricula to meet the need of changing societies, and LHUP incentives for faculty development. Overriding these discussions will be the important role of internationalization in higher education today.

LHUP intends to repeat this pilot project each year at a different LHUP international partner university site. Assuming that LHUP will hire approximately 15 tenure-track faculty each year, it is estimated that within eight to 10 years, most of LHUP's faculty will have had some international experience. Enthusiasm for the value of this experience will be reflected in the classroom and beyond as faculty members are enlisted—or enlist themselves—to transform the curriculum and the general structure of education on the LHUP campus. In short, such an initiative will introduce new tenure track faculty to a campus that not only appreciates this dimension but also demonstrably embraces it as a catalyst for intellectual and personal growth.

The Center for Global Studies at Lock Haven University. University officials are considering the creation of a Center for Global Studies that will serve as a symbol of excellence in international programming. In fall 2001, at the request of the president, the provost appointed a task force to consider the value of such a center, the organizational prospects for its creation, and a potential location. The task force forwarded its recommendation to the president in November 2001. The center would house under one roof each of the university's international components: specifically, the IIS, the honors program, modern languages, the Office of Human and Cultural Diversity, and the ESL program. The creation of a Center for Global Studies will showcase LHUP's commitment to preparing students for leadership and stewardship roles in a global society.

LHUP recognizes it cannot be all things to all people. Yet it can concentrate its energy and resources in order to set itself apart in a number of key areas deemed to be of vital importance to higher education today. One of these areas is international programming. As we enter a new millennium, LHUP stands poised to continue to be a major player in enabling students to expand their horizons, quite literally, through the international program activities it sponsors.

Last updated: April 27, 2005