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The Internationalization Forum of Chief Academic Officers

Funded by The Henry Luce Foundation, this three-year (2005-2008) invitational Forum engaged 50 Chief Academic Officers (CAOs) from different sectors to participate in a national dialogue on broadening and deepening internationalization on their campuses. This initiative was one of several ACE programs to help member institutions promote international learning on their campuses and to help leaders think creatively and strategically about the internationalization process.

Forum Members

A list of forum members is available.

Project Goals

• To identify key leadership challenges of internationalization within and across sectors, and explore them in-depth through the formation of a network of CAOs.
• To enable project participants to share promising practices in addressing the leadership challenges of internationalization.
• To identify and disseminate the learning achieved through the Forum to a wider audience through a web site and web-based publication.
• To foster innovation through leveraging strategies that will advance comprehensive internationalization on the campuses of selected participating CAOs through a mini-grants program.

Project Activities

Forum Meetings—The Forum convened three times to discuss key leadership challenges in internationalization and to provide opportunities for participants to learn from one another and from ACE about how they can address those challenges.

• The first meeting, held in December 2005, identified leadership challenges and the role of the CAO at each particular type of institution.
• The second meeting, held in July 2006, addressed the central themes identified in the first meeting and focused on implementation strategies.
• The third meeting, held November 30–December 1, 2007, focused on leadership issues, strategies for comprehensive internationalization, and lessons learned from the Innovation Fund (see below).

Funding—In the final year of the Internationalization Forum, ACE created two new funds to help Forum institutions advance strategies for comprehensive internationalization. Funds were provided to support two activities: 1) invited peer consultations, and 2) learning travel visits to another Forum institution.

In 2006, The Henry Luce Foundation established an innovation fund of $80,000 awarded on a competitive basis to Forum members. The fund provided eight awards of up to $10,000 to help CAOs leverage strategic internationalization on their campuses. Awardees are California State University, Sacramento; Connecticut College; Grinnell College (IA); Knox College (IL); Lewis and Clark College (OR); Manhattanville College (NY); Northern Virginia Community College; and, Oakland Community College (MI).

Web Site—ACE has developed a web site that highlights resources and best institutional practices that arise out of the Forum, as well as other documents and resources on internationalization useful to a wide audience of institutional leaders.

Publication—The Forum meetings formed the basis for a series of publications on major leadership issues and strategies for internationalization.

Innovation Fund

The Innovation Fund of the Internationalization Forum of Chief Academic Officers (CAOs) was a seed grant program designed to foster innovation through leveraging strategies that advance comprehensive internationalization on the campuses of selected participating CAOs. Eight grants of up to $10,000, requiring an equal institutional match, were awarded on March 15, 2006, after a review by an external panel of three recently retired college presidents. Each grant, lasting approximately 15 months, tested the impact of specific, though limited, resources for accelerating or augmenting a strategic approach to internationalization on campus.

Innovation Fund Awardees

California State University, Sacramento
CAO: Ric Brown
The International Curriculum and Pedagogy Project will provide training to faculty on how to use technology to internationalize their course curriculum and pedagogy.

Connecticut College
CAO: Frances Hoffman
This project will support for a campus-wide planning entity, an Internationalization Caucus, to produce a project document detailing the residential, co-curricular, academic, administrative and technological components of an International Cultural Commons, a multi-function facility centralizing all international components of an undergraduate education.

Grinnell College
CAO: Jim Swartz
The project will study data from student surveys to determine the impact and the educational value of the presence of international students on the campus in substantial numbers and how to maximize that value and impact.

Knox College
CAO: Larry Breiteborde
The project will incorporate existing widespread and uncoordinated international activities into a focused strategic agenda organized around three issues: international curricular directions, enhancing international civic engagement through experiential learning, and integration of curricular with co-curricular international learning.

Lewis and Clark College
CAO: Jane Monnig Atkinson
The project will develop a Web-based International Education Resource Center as a means for students, faculty, and staff to develop and share valuable knowledge and opportunities in the area of international education across three schools—the undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, the Law School, and the Graduate School of Education and Counseling.

Manhattanville College
CAO: Michael Sperling
The project will assess the current Portfolio System as it applies to global learning and assist the college in operationalizing global competencies and developing reliable measures of associated learning outcomes.

Northern Virginia Community College
CAO: John Dever
This project at Northern Virginia Community College (six autonomous campuses under one institution) will assist the internationalization of its curriculum through a one-and-a-half-day retreat for 35 faculty from across the college and the disciplines with the goal of determining a core set of learning outcomes aimed at creating a "globally competent" graduate, providing examples of how lessons and materials can incorporate international content and approaches, and, most importantly, showing how the intended knowledge, skills and attitudes can be effectively measured.

Oakland Community College (MI)
CAO: George Keith
Oakland Community College proposes to create a cyber-community among OCC and the educational institutions in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, with whom OCC has an Accord of Cooperation, to expand significantly the number of students, faculty, and staff at OCC and in Oaxaca who can and will participate in building educational learning opportunities and exchange experiences for students, faculty, and administrators.

Please direct questions about this page to:
Barbara Hill, Senior Associate: barbara_hill@ace.nche.edu
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This page last updated on 11/07/2008