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Innovative Campus Strategies

Using International Students and Scholars to Enhance the Curriculum

At Beloit College, the modern languages and literatures and English departments sponsored an international poetry reading featuring poets from several nations. Students were asked to read poetry—either their own work or that of others—in their native country's language. An international poetry reading session is now a staple of Beloit's annual International Education Week.

Located in the Honda International Center, Kapi'olani Community College's International Café is an informal gathering place where local and international students meet for cultural and language exchanges. Many students from KCC's overflowing ESL classes spend time in the International Café practicing their English, learning the local dialect, and learning about American pop culture from local students. International Café participants also are encouraged to prepare cultural presentations for their fellow students.

At Grinnell College, the John R. Heath Visiting Professorship brings to the campus distinguished scholars, political figures, writers, artists, and others who contribute to international understanding in the liberal arts context and who in turn are able to interpret American life when they return to their native lands. Heath professors usually come to campus for one semester and are expected to teach two courses, one 100- or 200-level and one upper-level seminar. Heath professors may teach courses in two departments or may team-teach with Grinnell faculty. They customarily make a public presentation during their stay at Grinnell and participate in the campus community via their host departments.

Through the Office of International Studies in Education, Michigan State University's College of Education contributes to campus internationalization efforts by focusing on "international research to improve education in the United States and other countries, efforts to help U.S. educators become more internationally oriented, and international collaboration to create the educational conditions necessary to sustainable development and well-being throughout the world." The LATTICE (Linking All Types of Teachers in International Cross-cultural Education) program has helped bring hundreds of MSU's international students into area K–12 classrooms, and substantially impacting internationalization of the K–12 curriculum.

Recognizing that urban universities like Portland State University have many students who cannot easily travel abroad, the university conducts a longstanding initiative 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. PSU's international students also participate in the International Cultural Service Program (ICSP), a community education program that provides a significant tuition reduction to roughly 30 students per year who spend 80 hours in the community speaking about their countries and cultures.

A successful approach to promoting internationalization at Kennesaw State University is through classroom presentations made by visiting international students. KSU encourages such presentations through its International Diplomatic Corps, a volunteer service program through which international students can qualify for a nonresident tuition waiver program, allowing students to pay the resident tuition rate. This program results in more than 5,000 hours of campus and community service per year. KSU students gain firsthand exposure to different cultures and world views through such classroom presentations.

Kalamazoo College has addressed the need to socialize visiting faculty to American teaching expectations. Visiting faculty arrive on campus at least four weeks before the start of the term in which they will be teaching so that they can visit other courses being taught in their discipline. The college also assigns them a faculty teaching mentor and includes them in the new faculty teaching workshops.

*Please contact the institution directly if you have questions regarding specific programs.

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This page last updated on: 08/29/2008