The ACE
Internationalization Laboratory’s 2018-2020 cohort held its closing meeting
before the winter holidays to tie together a year-and-a-half of work.
Meanwhile, the 2020-2022 cohort began accepting applications this month.
The closing meeting began with an opportunity for attendees
to reflect on the Lab process. In small groups, they identified challenges they
faced and how they overcame them. For example, a number of participating
institutions were undergoing leadership transitions at the same time as their
internationalization strategizing. While this fact could leave them feeling
uncertain of where their project stood with their institutional leadership, Lab
advisor Gil Latz reminded them that this could also be “an opportunity to
position yourself for change.” The participants then workshopped some of their
remaining questions in a large group discussion with input from Lab advisors
and program alumni.
Before the meeting, participants were polled on their key
interests in policy issues affecting international education. After lunch,
Sarah Spreitzer and Steven Bloom of ACE’s Government Relations division
provided an update on the top two topics of the poll: congressional concerns
regarding foreign influence and interference on campus and trends in
international student enrollment. The session was so popular that it ran
overtime as participants asked questions such as how best to communicate with
their members of Congress on important issues and provided anecdotes about how
policies such as visa delays were affecting their institutions.
Kielo Savilaasko, associate director of community engagement
at ACE, showed participants where they could find additional resources on
policy and other issues using ACE Engage®,
ACE’s peer-to-peer community and online learning platform. She also
demonstrated how Lab participants could use the site to share documents and
communicate with ACE and each other, as well as to share the Fundamentals
of Comprehensive Internationalization Microcourse with their campus
leadership to help make the case for the benefits of internationalization.
As participants looked ahead to ending up their Lab process
and implementing their knowledge gained, Robin Helms, deputy chief innovation
officer and principal internationalization strategist at ACE, assured them that
this was not good-bye. “I have yet to let go of an institution,” she said,
“Participating in the Internationalization Lab is the beginning of a years-long
relationship with ACE.” There are plenty of ways for institutions to stay
involved with ACE, whether by continuing to work with the Lab as alumni or
advisors, or through other ACE programming such as the upcoming ACE/AIEA
Internationalization Collaborative or the new Learner
Success Lab.
Institutions interested in developing their
internationalization strategy are encouraged to apply for the 18th cohort of
the Internationalization Lab, whose work will take place from August of this
year through 2022. For more information, visit the Internationalization Lab
webpage or contact Kara Godwin at KGodwin@acenet.edu.