By Karin Fischer

Like many colleges, Boise State University has been wrestling with how to do more with less. One of its problems is meeting the growing demand for international services, like study abroad and foreign-student advising, despite budgetary restraints.

However, the Idaho institution's solution is unusual. Campus officials decided to abolish the central office of international programs and eliminate the university's top international administrative position.

The move flies in the face of the longer-term trend toward centralizing colleges' international activities and appointing increasingly high-level administrators to coordinate such efforts.

Over the past decade, the ranks of senior international officers, often with the title of vice provost or dean, have swelled. Last fall Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York, named Mitch Leventhal vice chancellor for global affairs, a new senior position, in a signal of the high priority placed on internationalization at the 64-campus system.

But Sona K. Andrews, Boise State's provost and vice president for academic affairs, says the university decided to change its longstanding management structure precisely because officials there believe in the importance of making the campus a more global place. Given limited funds, "we could stay stagnant," she says, "or we could change the infrastructure."

What's more, she argues, dispersing international activities throughout departments and offices means that more people across the institution will feel ownership of such work.

"I know this isn't a popular model among international-program office directors, because they worry that eliminating the position means international efforts will be without a champion," Ms. Andrews says. "But too often, if one person serves as a champion, everyone else feels that they don't have responsibility."

The international-office restructuring at Boise State happened as part of a broader effort to streamline administrative functions to save money and serve a growing student body. (For example, the university outsourced its mail delivery to the state, cutting positions but increasing frequency of service.)

Last year Ms. Andrews assembled a group of faculty and staff members, including those in the international office, to examine the university's global activities, to assess what it was doing well and where efficiencies could be found, and to make recommendations for reconfiguring the administrative structure.

In the end, the committee proposed dissolving the central office and reassigning its functions. Study and research abroad would be handled as part of academic advising through the provost's office, international-student services through the Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion, overseas recruitment in the admissions office, and intensive English instruction by the English department.

The director's position was done away with, and its salary put into international activities, says Ms. Andrews, who points out that international programming was one of the few divisions at Boise State to not take a budget cut in the current fiscal year. (The other seven positions in the international office were retained.) The university also saved money through reducing duplicative work, such as certain business functions.

Opportunity Costs?

But Sabine C. Klahr, a former director of international programs at Boise State, worries that there are "opportunity costs" to decoupling international activities from one another, although she avoids specific criticism of the changes at Boise State. Without a central coordinator, she says, it could be more difficult to make connections between faculty research and administrative priorities, to spot potential overseas partnerships and take advantage of outside grants and programs, and to drive change.

"I'm always astounded by the fact that universities hire professionals in finance, but we don't always hire professionals in international who have comprehensive experience and a global view," says Ms. Klahr, who is now assistant vice president for international affairs at Chatham University, in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Leventhal, of the State University of New York, says it's more critical than ever that international efforts have the attention of university leaders, as American colleges seek to send more students overseas, to compete for top foreign students in an increasingly heated global market, and to strengthen international academic and institutional connections.

"You can't just pass down decision-making to middle managers and expect paradigmic shifts to happen," he says.

But Ms. Andrews thinks Boise State's reorganization will help the university meet its goals of attracting more foreign students and expanding study abroad. For example, all students who visit the advising center now are exposed to information about overseas study, even if they are there for an unrelated reason. Previously, most students would have sought out such materials at the international office.

And international students are now able to get a broader array of services by being better integrated with other student centers, she argues.

Two years from now, Boise State plans to conduct an outside review of the changes, which went into effect over the summer.

"I've gotten e-mails that chide us for diminishing the emphasis on internationalization, when we've done exactly the opposite," Ms. Andrews says. "But that's why we did this, because we're incredibly committed."