Stay or Go?

If these are the best ideas against internationalization then that says something. Keep your head down, stick to your own knitting and be dependent on government.
How inward, and isolationist is that? Right, that is faculty’s job. Internationalization is admin’s.
Now just because some people travel abroad on a fact finding, tour sign letters of intent which do not lead to anything substantional or accept unqualified foreign students under the guise of internationalization undermines it.

Sorry, elsieboy, although replies to posts are not a good forum for setting out the research, I can’t let your comment that “experiential” learning is both non-rigorous and a waste of time, go by without response. A number of recent research reports have suggested that experiential learning, study abroad in particular, is a highly significant form of student learning. Why is it that a student who has spent 6 years trying to learn Spanish comes back from a semester in Chile with a never-before achieved level of language proficiency? Your problem is conflating what happens in classrooms abroad (often not as much as in US classroom) with where learning happens. Most learning in those circumstances is precisely “experiential,” and therefore highly significant (meaning that students take ownership over it). Whether this kind of learning happens abroad or elsewhere is a somewhat different issue, but don’t trash experiential learning.

We sign many agreements with international universities, but these are mainly just paper to make us look like we are doing something.  I feel sorry for our students that we do not properly educate them about the world because we are not willing to make the real effort. 

Surely a far ‘stronger’ argument against internationalisation is that it would require us to change.

I thought this was a joke but after seeing your other post…oh, boy. And, BTW, subject-specific knowledge is not the point of most higher education at the undergraduate level in this country. You need to distinguish between a “learning” or “growth” experience and a “rigorous” academic experience. Both are needed for 18-21 year olds and when done correctly they can both be accomplished at once. I don’t think you have a good grasp on what the mission of higher education is. It is very, very shortsighted to say that learning is not useful if it is for “the sake of learning.” Come again? I studied abroad and it was not tourism disguised as study, it was rigorous and I learned subject content and much, much more. It really helped me become “more worldly and whatnot.” The point is, you don’t know what knowledge or experience is going to be formative and crucial to a person’s future life and career. You think just knowing random facts is going to get you through this world? The world is full of people and understanding how to interact with them is helpful, you never know what knowledge will open up a new door or will be useful at some point in future. Your perspective is very limited and your example of the British parliament proving anything about the worth of foreign study is juvenile. I take it you never studied or lived abroad, call it a wild hunch.

First, learn to use paragraphs. Reading what you wrote is very hard.

> And, BTW, subject-specific knowledge is not the point of most higher education at the undergraduate level in this country.

And I would agree that that is one of the main problems with undergraduate education in this country. But I also mentioned the development of critical-thinking skills. Why didn’t you mention that bit?

> It is very, very shortsighted to say that learning is not useful if it is for “the sake of learning.” Come again?

You put that phrase in quotes but I didn’t write that. In fact I said nothing like that.

> Your perspective is very limited and your example of the British parliament proving anything about the worth of foreign study is juvenile. I take it you never studied or lived abroad, call it a wild hunch.

First, that parliament example is not mine. I actually heard it from a recently returned study abroad tourist who was droning on about how much she had learnt.

Second, you should never make assumptions about people just because they disagree with you. I’ve lived in three countries (yes, actually lived, not ‘studied abroad’) and I’ve been in the country where I now live for five years. I won’t call it a wild hunch, I’ll call it ‘arrogant, defensive nonsense’. But nice try.

“I’ve been in the country where I now live for five years.”

Then you should know better.

1. paragraphs: Don’t see how mine are any different than most others in these blogs but something to think about

2. use of quotes: “for the sake of learning” is somewhat of a cliche so I used quotes, was not saying you wrote it, though it doesn’t differ much from what you would likely critique.

3. that example is still irrelevant and I know what a tourist is and I know what study abroad is, not sure what you mean by combining them. Well, I do, but no sense going further.

4. Well I have studied abroad and lived abroad as well, 2 years in Europe and 5 years in Japan, not sure what that proves.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the easy-to-read format.

The Case Against Internationalization
1) Diversity seldom works.  We enjoy the company of those with whom we have something in common–fellow countrymen.
2) A night out with host faculty is fun, but at the end of the evening everyone will return to their country specific clicks.
3) What is learned is boring to most others who have not been there or done that.
4)  After years of employment at a MNC, a student *may* be promoted to manage an international office.  The corporation will teach that employee what they need to know and it will not include drinking beer with fellow college students 20 +/- years ago.
5) Memorandums of understanding look nice on the web page, but seldom result in any real enrollment numbers.

The best case scenario is that the student will have a wonderful time and maybe learn a few things.  Some learning will be valuable and long lasting.  Most learning will be useless  experiences that will not impress any MNC.

The worst case scenario is the now countless bar brawls,  incarceration, torture, and death.The case is decidedly against internationalization.

The following is an incomplete and infinitesimally small list of fatalities resulting from the push for internationalization.  If the life of  your students is worth making your president look good, by all means send your students to any war zone you wish.  I assure you almost every country  in the world including the U.S. is involved in one level of war or another.

“Some of the deadliest mass shootings around world
By The Associated Press
 
Some of world’s worst mass shootings:
— April 30, 2009: Farda Gadyrov, 29, enters the prestigious Azerbaijan State Oil Academy in the capital, Baku, armed with an automatic pistol and clips. He kills 12 people before killing himself as police close in.
— Sept. 23, 2008: Matti Saari, 22, walks into a vocational college in Kauhajoki, Finland, and opens fire, killing 10 people and burning their bodies with firebombs before shooting himself fatally in the head.
— Nov. 7, 2007: After revealing plans for his attack in YouTube postings, 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen fires kills eight people at his high school in Tuusula, Finland.
— April 16, 2007: Seung-Hui Cho, 23, kills 32 people and himself on Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va.
— April 26, 2002: Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, who had been expelled from school in Erfurt, Germany, kills 13 teachers, two former classmates and policeman, before committing suicide.
— April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school’s library.
— March 13, 1996: Thomas Hamilton, 43, kills 16 kindergarten children and their teacher in elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and then kills himself.
— Dec. 6, 1989: Marc Lepine, 25, bursts into Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique college, shooting at women he encounters, killing nine and then himself.
— July 12, 1976: Edward Charles Allaway, a custodian in the library of California State University, Fullerton, fatally shot seven fellow employees and wounded two others.
—    Aug. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman opened fire from the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, killing 16 people and wounding 31.”

**I deleted those listing which did not involve students or faculty.

Has anyone discussed how internationalization could eat up tenure-track job openings, graduate student slots, etc…?

I really don’t know if/how these are issues.  I don’t know how many US citizens, for example, gain positions oversees.  But if fewer US citizens gain positions oversees than oversees citizens gain positions in the US, that means extra selective pressure on US citizens seeking higher credentials and job experience.

Ultimately this could lead to fewer highly capable US citizens (due to fewer opportunities to gain those capabilities). It could also lead to a tiered class system (both in the US and abroad***) – the equivalent of what went on in medieval to early modern Europe, warring states China, Mongol Empire, etc… when foreign sovereigns and nobles who took title in a new nation would import retainers from their native countries – retainers who would have power over the less fortunate natives. (I can mention the Aryan invasion of the Indus valley and consequent varna system that grew out of that too, but that’s quite a bit more extreme than would likely happen with HE internationalization.)

*** – If the rich and upper middle class scions come to the US for an education, this diminishes their incentive to develop high quality tertiary and professional educational systems in their nations. I’m sure most readers can imagine some potential consequences to a society of this (hell, we can see it now in some of those states, and as has happened historically).

Thanks for the reply.  I’ve an interest in the educational systems of other nations (we could do with some of that diversity here – I’d love an English 3-year alternative to the 4 year gen. ed. structure at most US schools, for example).

I hadn’t even thought of the potential pressure of undergraduate internationalization on faculty/admin hires and job duties.

At the school I’m currently attending quite a few professor have accents, the department chair of my major is of foreign origin, as is the Dean (I know the Dean is naturalized, but don’t know to what extent anyone else is).  I appreciate this diversity, and am in favor of open borders, so philosophically have no objection, but the potential this has to create class stratification and denial of opportunity is a thorny issue I think needs to be discussed.

At least in my department about half of the grad students are foreign (maybe more than half). Which might well be a reason very few adjuncts are used to teach this department’s courses.

“You would have thought that at least the food would improve but no it did not.”

One of the nice things about the number of Indians in this locale is the abundance of Indian food. I love it.

One other point touched upon by 609zr above:

There are a finite number of electives students can take.  At my school a “world cultures” course is required.  Granted, this is only one course, but even one course represents an opportunity cost.

So it’s possible to see how internationalization is valued over other subjects such as fitness & health (neither of which are required electives, and in this era of expanding waist lines, sedentary jobs, and high health care costs I’ve commented on that), intimate relations (here I’m talking more about the involvement Freud and Jung had with their patients and each other, and mentor/mentee*** relationships than anything sexual), etc….

A ten-year background in psychological type theory says to me that this sort of prioritization is indicative of more general institution-wide psychological blindspots and hyperfocuses.  Unfortunately this is the water in which much of the staff and faculty swim, thus they don’t realize the extent to which they devalue these other realms of life, and the personal and educational repercussions of such a devaluing.

*** – The number of undergraduate and post-graduate dropouts is a major indictment of the training and aptitude in mentor/mentee relationships of the general U.S. HE faculty.

kesupriya holds a doctorate in communication with particular focus on intercultural/international/global communication.

Ha! Yes.. good one.

Internationalization is easy in Europe. Just take the train almost anywhere. Or go shopping.