Institute for Leading Internationalization Participants Broaden the Boundaries of Global Learning
June 19, 2017

ACE on June 14 released its signature Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campuses report, which found that internationalization is continuing to gain traction among U.S. colleges and universities. Amid this release, a group of provosts, senior international officers, deans and other administrators with a critical role in advancing internationalization met in Washington for the ACE Institute for Leading Internationalization, where they discussed strategies for globalizing learning and the challenges they face, as well as how their campuses are seeing Mapping’s findings come to life.

A three-day professional development experience hosted by ACE’s Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement (CIGE), the Institute provided practical examples, case studies and effective practices to address internationalization issues. A team of seasoned international education experts served as faculty, guiding participants through a series of sessions on international strategy, working with senior leadership, managing international partnerships and fundraising.

To kick off and provide a framework for the entire Institute, Barbara Hill, CIGE’s senior associate for internationalization, and Vice President Brad Farnsworth introduced the participants to the CIGE Model for Comprehensive Internationalization. Comprehensive internationalization is a strategic, coordinated process that seeks to align and integrate policies, programs and initiatives to position colleges and universities as more globally oriented and internationally connected institutions.

The SIO Role

Hill led Monday morning’s discussion of strategic plans, which began with a review of two case studies from previous ACE Internationalization Lab members and concluded with an in-depth conversation on how Institute participants could develop a comprehensive internationalization strategy.

The group touched on the importance of the senior international officer (SIO), including the function of the position and the qualifications for the role. Noting that an SIO can have vastly different tasks, Hill said, “Who fills this role says less about the individual’s capacity for the job and more about an institution’s ambitions.” One participant remarked that sometimes an SIO’s job is to show the president what is possible in terms of internationalization.

Student Identity

Defining the SIO’s role led to a discussion on the challenges of serving a broad variety of students. Wendy Haynes, interim dean of the College of Graduate Studies at Bridgewater State University (MA), remarked that many of her students are first-generation: “A lot of them don’t conceive of themselves as world travelers . . . How does everyone deal with this?” Others offered solutions that would engage more students on their campuses, such as virtual exchange (also known as the COIL model), ensuring that students can use financial aid on study abroad, and reinforcing the value of global competence from day one of freshman year.

To support a broad definition of student identity, participants from Connecticut College described how their campus is currently examining the intersection between multiculturalism and internationalization. John F. McKnight, Jr., dean of institutional equity and inclusion and the affirmative action officer, said, “I’m really interested in pushing people to think of who’s not in the community and making sure all students and faculty have the tools to engage.” Amy Dooling, associate dean of global initiatives, added, “Historically, we’d had a narrow paradigm of diversity that emphasized numbers.” She described the recent shift from this thinking to a more comprehensive approach and how it is impacting how they view internationalization.

Broadening the Definition of Success

Fernando P. Delgado, Institute faculty member and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Minnesota Duluth, led the Monday afternoon session on integrating international and institutional goals.

After Delgado’s presentation, the Institute broke off into small groups based on institution type. Each had to come up with a common internationalization goal attainable for every member in the group. Some groups focused on engaging faculty, while others worked on demonstrating the value of international learning in the job market for their graduates.

In a group composed of public universities from different regions of the country, the conversation eventually turned to envisioning less costly global experiences. Hayes asked, “Are there enclaves of different cultures in-state that can expose our students to cross-cultures?” Yimin Wang, associate director of the Office of International Studies and Programs at Illinois State University, posed the question of how to challenge the boundaries of internationalization: “How [can we] broaden the definition of institutional success?”

Next Steps

Cheryl Matherly, vice president and vice provost for international affairs at Lehigh University (PA), and Gilles Bousquet, senior advisor to the UW-System president for international economic development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, each led sessions on Tuesday on identifying international partnerships and fundraising and external relations, respectively. Among her points on elements for successful partnerships, Matherly emphasized building on previous faculty connections between partner institutions. Bouquet stressed cultivating relationships as essential to fundraising strategies for internationalization efforts.

Following the Institute, participants will complete an ACE-supervised project, applying lessons from the Institute to a particular challenge or opportunity on their campuses.