The Future of Higher-Education Internationalization

August 30, 2011, 11:12 am

Across the world, higher education has experienced dramatic changes in recent years. There is no doubt that it should be viewed in the global context and not solely from a domestic point of view. Internationalization of higher education is no longer just about the mobility of students and signing of international memoranda of understanding. Issues now include the internationalization of curriculum, “brain drain” versus “brain circulation,” the internationalization of research, offering of dual degrees with foreign partners, establishing of branch campuses abroad, involvement of international alumni, creation of international quality assurance frameworks, proliferation of international rankings, increased competition for international students, and the role of recruiting agents. There are just a few of the many changes that higher education is experiencing in a globally interconnected world.

While most practitioners see internationalization as something good for individuals and institutions, specific initiatives can have wide-ranging effects on the parties involved, some positive and some negative. Even the traditional scope of action–mobility of students–and the way internationalization of higher education used to be defined, no longer seem sufficient to address a much more complex and changing reality. What is true is that while internationalization of higher education is here to stay, there is considerable variation in the way it unfolds over time on the regional, institutional, and individual level. Because it is an evolving phenomenon, its meaning can be difficult to pin down.

This explains why well respected scholars like Hans de Wit and Uwe Brandenburg, Jocelyne Gacel-Avila, John Hudzik, and many more, have raised legitimate questions about the need to revisit the traditional concept and definition of internationalization of higher education.

As a way to address such concerns, the Paris-based International Association of Universities (IAU) just announced the creation of an ad-hoc international experts group that, according to Eva Egron-Polak, secretary general of IAU, intends “to bring together perspectives from all parts of the world inter alia to: assess the extent to which internationalization activities fit the current conceptual umbrella, to critically examine the causes that are leading to some questioning and even criticism of the concept, and to investigate the ways to address these concerns.”

The IAU group will engage in a broader discussion and analysis of trends and different approaches, and it is expected to suggest a revised understanding of internationalization of higher education.

As expressed by de Wit and Brandenburg in the provocative paper entitled “The End of Internationalization,” it is imperative to “move away from dogmatic and idealistic concepts of internationalization and globalization,” and to understand them “in their pure meaning–not as goals in themselves but rather as means to an end.”

At this point some might wonder if internationalization of higher education is really dead. The answer is evident: it is most definitely not. It is more vibrant than ever. Nevertheless, it has changed and will continue to do so. Paraphrasing Paul Valéry, I may say that what makes us worried about internationalization of higher education is that it is no longer what it used to be. Are we prepared for such a change?

This entry was posted in International. Bookmark the permalink.

E-mail

http://twitter.com/ZachOlson ZachOlson

Most college programs have a negative financial impact. Universities aren’t businesses, and when we treat them as such everyone suffers. Athletics are important to colleges in the same way that the arts are, they enhance the experience for those who participate directly and those who are able to enjoy the work of their fellow students.

However, how do colleges justify things like football programs that cost more than enough to fund the rest of the athletics programs on campus and keep them from title IX compliance with their enormous rosters? How do we justify those programs when things like math, history, and English are being cut?

Plenty of private colleges get by without enormous athletics programs, probably because they offer an amazing education. We need to lose our fixation on expensive sports that drain budgets and emphasize things like track and field, soccer, and swimming, that still offer students the athletic opportunities they crave.
http://www.evjart.com madeinhawaii

If your college or university doesn’t stand out for excellence in any one or more particular fields, then wouldn’t intercollegiate sports be one of the most cost effective ways to get your school’s name out?

Furthermore, if you go down your list of donors to the institution, how many of them are fans of the one or more of the athletic programs? Of these donor fans, if they were fans elsewhere, would your institution reap the same donation from these people?
czander

Among the 120 schools with top Division I
football teams, only 19 had athletic departments that generated a profit in
2006 (Winick, 2008) and in 2009 that number was down to 14
609zr

AMIDEAST gave scholarships to several Gaza students to study at universities in the United States. Hamas, for the moment, has denied their travel to and study in America. Internationalization has always been a “means to an end.” It is the means by which a few ensure their positions, raise their salaries and dupe Federal governments out of more money.
evaegronpolak

Thanks first to Francisco Marmolejo for getting the news out about the new IAU Ad hoc Expert Group which is already engaged in a dynamic debate. I would go one step further than the question posed by Francisco ‘are we prepared for the changes in internationalization? I would add several others, such as; given the fact that internationalization is becoming so pervasive, how do we prepare the future of this process? If it is an means to an end, how do we ensure that it serves to reach the ends we want it to reach? Can we reach an agreement, at the international level, on what these ends should be since the goals pursued are multiple?
I will be reading the comments to this blog entry with interest and thanks to all who contribute.
http://twitter.com/ftherin Francois Therin

Could you tell us more ? What are you suggesting to enhance/change the current practices ?
http://twitter.com/MeritocracyMan Meritocracy Man

I am a huge proponent of internationalizing curricula with dual degrees from branch campuses across the globe. The Haas School of Business in Berkeley, California and Columbia University in New York City already offer one of the most prestigious joint-MBA programs in the U.S. I foresee similar cooperation in the future between institutions of higher-education on a global scale. It will add significantly more value to study abroad programs worldwide. To many American students, a semester abroad is an extended vacation. But if we change the expectations of such a shared experience, demanding more from our students than a few months of pass-fail grades, then everyone involved will gain more from the experience. Rather than being a student of the University of Texas who spent a semester abroad at the University College London, why not be a dual student of both universities, spending nearly equal time on both campuses, immersed in both cultures?

In the first paragraph above, you mention “brain drain” versus “brain circulation.” Will you please elaborate on this comparison?
11152886

Excellent translations are hard to come by.
11144703

I think translation into Spanish is the right move, especially for Latina/Latino parents. However, many parents of the huge number of Chinese Americans (and non-American Chinese) speak Mandarin as their first language. Same for Korean Americans, Bangladesh Americans, etc. Hopefully colleges end their marginalization and sometimes erasure of the culture of Asian Americans (despite Asians’ tremendous academic sucess) and start translating their pages into various Asian languages.
california

About 25% of kindergarteners this year in the US are Hispanic, as were births, so this college is barking up the right tree. Hpwever, many of their parents do not learn English. This is well-documented, as is the fact that the Hispanic population in general has not achieved as quickly in the US as other groups, such as Asians. Asians, to their credit, generally will assimilate quickly into the academic world, and the 1st language of the parents does not seem to slow them down. We cater to the lack of assimilation of Hispanics in this country, ie dial 1 for Spanish, not Mandarin, Korean, etc. Between the unwillingness to assimilate per language, the lack of emphasis on education, and the poorer groups coming into this country, it is not surprising that the general level of acheivement in schools is plummeting. I realize there are many exceptions, but the low graduation rates of some immigrant groups is appalling, unless one is not bothered by increasing rates of crime, poverty and welfare.
ketoril

Comment from Finland,

It is interesting to follow discussion of the international activities. It is important that students meet new cultures during their studies. It means that they must also studu othet languages than English to be able understand other cultures. Is small countries like in Finland it is a must to study many foreign languages. And for US students and professors it is very important to go abroad not teach their own culture but to leran other cultures top be able to understand the world. When double degrees are planned there is a possibilty to take new components to the curriculum. That is real international cooperation. One element of learning other cultures is to live among normal people not live in separate campus area where you meet only academic groups.
mxb22

Besides recruiting them, will LVC prefer to admit Spanish-speaking students over academically comparable English-speaking students? Unless you expand enrollment, achieving ”diversity” will have to come out of somebody’s hide. What did native-born, white, English-speaking students do to deserve their new exclusion? Some of the Spanish-speaking students are likely to be illegal immigrants or the children of illegal immigrants. What did they do to deserve their preferred treatment? Convince us that achieving “diversity” is not simply practicing politically-correct discrimination against this country’s mainstream population.
greatcollegeadvice

Here’s an idea: translate the site into Chinese, too. Chinese parents are very leery of colleges that they cannot learn about independently. I often cannot get families to look beyond the US News rankings. If colleges are serious about attracting kids from around the world, then by all means, translate your websites–or big chunks of them–into the languages that parents speak. Of course it’s important that kids read the English…but the parents pay the bills.
11144703

Good advice, but add Korean, Japanese, Hindi / Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bangla, Malayalam, Telugu, etc. No need to include too many languages–just the major ones.
jlbarcelona

I’m a translator and editor. Although I track and debate how language changes every day, I also adhere to style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style or the el País Libro de estilo and consult a range of dictionaries before I accept a given word in either language. If universities lower the writing standards for their website content (or any other “official” text) in any language as a tip of the hat to the families of prospective students, higher education is in big trouble.
pesor33

Higher education is alive and well. I went to a residency for my doctoral program. I was amazed how many people are in doctoral programs. It is definitely changing. Technology has aided in that area. I am receiving my entire program online. That has been a wonderful change. I would never have been able to go forward with my education if I could not have taken online classes.
11302531

When I first saw this article, I was puzzled. Then it made me recall a discussion about another field some 20 years ago. Among organization development practitioners, there was the same question asked. Do you study org development for its own sake, or in the context of creating more effective change processes for other purposes, like improving R&D, or doing better implementation of IT systems. I think the answer is ‘both’. And, it asks those of us committed to internationalization of higher education to consider the educational purposes: cross-cultural competence? developing global thinkers? “simply” developing critical thinkers? empathy? equipping everyone and anyone to live a rich life in a world that is inextricably and wonderfully tightly connected? Or, assuring that our engineers and physicians can appreciate and function in culturally different settings, effectively? So if a college or university pursues an internationalization strategy, then that institution should have some sense of the purposes the strategy is designed to serve. Otherwise, how else to select sensibly from among the many program options those which is makes most sense support, grow and fund, at one particular institution?
hodgefam

This blog post on higher-education internationalization motivated me to do some further reading on the Web. Interestingly, I came across the 2003 IAU Survey Report on the internationalization of higher education (http://www.unesco.org/iau/internationalization/pdf/Internationalisation-en.pdf). I noted that among the IAU members who responded (176 IAU member HEIs out of 621), the top six reasons for internalization focused on academics: student mobility, teaching and research collaboration, improvement of academic quality, curriculum development, etc. Reasons for internationalization that focused on political, economic, and social/cultural issues were in the bottom six. As mentioned in the report, I suspect that if national leaders were surveyed they would consider the political, economic, and social benefits of internationalization to be more important.
“Brain drain” was the most frequently mentioned downside of internationalization in the IAU survey. To combat brain drain, are there countries that fund the international education of their citizens in exchange for a commitment to return home for a certain number of years?
jcmarsh106

A good way for the United States higher education system to prepare for “internationalization” is to have a better world view of the importance of education especially at the college and university levels. Every country is not as fortunate to have in place an educational system that is available in the United States. Higher education should never be taken for granted.
pgteach

The internationalization of higher education should not be focused only on the academic factors of educating international students, but on the financial stability and income components. The influx of international students is nothing new and has been part of the United States educational system for as long as our founding fathers were building our nation. International students are rich sources for money, ideas, bridging cultural differences, and exposure to other cultures. Before we begin to develop an international curriculum, should we not first develop a national curriculum for students?
11144703

Asian parents work hard too. Why is there no movement to translate into various Asian languages? Why do Asians continue to be marginalized?
jones41

“collect contacts like Beanie Babies”–very funny!