Comprehensive Internationalization Efforts to Enhance Student Mobility Efforts:

Making Study Abroad and International Student Programs Integrated Into Campus International Learning Strategies

Gary Rhodes
Associate Dean, International Education & Senior International Officer,
College of Extended & International Education
Director, Center for Global Education
California State University at Dominguez Hills

At the end of last year and at the beginning of this year, I focused Terra Dotta Newsletter articles on issues related to “Thinking About Increasing Participation: Open Doors 2014” , “What are the Critical Issues and Challenges Faced by International Students on Your Campus?”, and “Revisiting the Mission of Internationalization on Campus”.

Looking at your institutional mission and how study abroad and international students fit into that are important. Since the beginning of 2015, these issues have been raised in the internationalization conferences that I’ve participated in, including: Terra Dotta User Conference, the Association of International Education Administrators, the Forum on Education Abroad, Diversity Abroad, and the California Study Abroad Town Hall Meeting. Although most of the sessions in all these conferences focused on practical issues, it is important to put your student mobility efforts within a structural framework that supports student mobility as an integrated campus effort.

As I begin my role as the new Associate Dean of International Education and Senior International Officer at California State University at Dominguez Hills, I have been given a road map to enhancing internationalization at the university. Prior to my arrival, work has already been done to include internationalization is in the new campus Strategic Plan and there has been cross-campus involvement in developing a broader plan to support internationalization efforts across campus. A question to ask yourself at your institution is whether you are working within a designed strategic framework showing how study abroad and international student support programs fit within a clear strategic design, or operate in some ways, in isolation.

Researchers and practitioners have been presenting and publishing information about looking at student mobility from the perspective of “Comprehensive Internationalization”. As the 2014/15 academic year winds down, budget negotiations are taking place. Summer 2015 will provide additional opportunities to look at the mission statements of internationalization, study abroad, and international student initiatives. The NAFSA Conference later in May will provide opportunities to attend sessions and network with colleagues about these issues as well. I would suggest that looking at your administrative structures and programmatic support through the “Comprehensive Internationalization” lens can help design enhanced programmatic methods and enhance connections to resources and high level administrative and faculty leaders to obtain additional resources to make study abroad and international student programs a central part of broad-ranging campus internationalization and international learning efforts. In terms of framing my UCLA graduate seminar course this quarter: EDUC 259: Administration of International Programs in Higher Education, I have had Master’s and Doctoral students think about international program administration within the framework of “Comprehensive Internationalization” as well.

Comprehensive Internationalization

For both study abroad and international student areas of focus on a college or university campus to make a significant difference across a campus, they should not be isolated efforts, but a central part of the comprehensive internationalization efforts across a campus. According to Hudzik and McCarthy in “NAFSA’s Leading Comprehensive Internationalization: Strategy and Tactics for Action” (2012):

Comprehensive internationalization is a commitment, confirmed through action, to infuse international and comparative perspectives throughout the teaching, research, and service missions of higher education. It shapes institutional ethos and values and touches the entire higher education enterprise. It is essential that it be embraced by institutional leadership, governance, faculty, students, and all academic service and support units. It is an institutional imperative, not just a desirable possibility.

Comprehensive internationalization not only impacts all of campus life but the institution’s external frames of reference, partnerships, and relations. The global reconfiguration of economies, systems of trade, research, and communication, and the impact of global forces on local life, dramatically expand the need for comprehensive internationalization and the motivations and purposes driving it.

In their publication: “Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campuses: 2012 Edition”, The American Council on Education Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement provides a model for Comprehensive Internationalization. It defines Comprehensive Internationalization as:

a strategic, coordinated process that seeks to align and integrate international policies, programs, and initiatives, and positions colleges and universities as more globally oriented and internationally connected...

And highlights the responsibility of higher education institutions to provide international learning on campus:

One of the fundamental duties of U.S. higher education is to prepare students for productive and responsible citizenship. In the early 21st century, this means preparing students to live and work in a society that increasingly operates across international borders. Graduates must possess intercultural skills and competencies to be successful in this globalized world, and higher education institutions must commit to helping students achieve these outcomes.

Internationalization refers to the efforts of institutions to meet this imperative by incorporating global perspectives into teaching, learning, and research; building international and intercultural competence among students, faculty, and staff; and establishing relationships and collaborations with people and institutions abroad.

In “Leading Comprehensive Internationalization: Strategy and Tactics for Action” (NAFSA, 2012), John Hudzik and JoAnn McCarthy provide additional guidance on the movement from looking at the broad nature of comprehensive internationalization support and the role of campus high level and administration and faculty to issues of on-the-ground implementation:

“While it is axiomatic that faculty and academic units control the very heart of the university—the curriculum and the research agenda—learning that occurs in the classroom can be substantially reinforced or undone by what happens in administrative offices, residence halls, student support services, and in co-curricular activities. Internationalization can be advanced or impeded by the actions of the admissions office, the library, student health services, or the registrar. The building, nurturing, and engagement of a campuswide network of academic and service units is an ongoing process and fundamental to building and maintaining CIZN as an institutional priority...

...if one looks at the institutions most successful in education abroad, there is a pervasive culture on those campuses that identifies the institutional image with wide-spread participation and substantial support and recognition for education abroad.

The motivations for individual projects or activities can also shape the nature of the climate needed to support them. For example, the enrollment management and admissions staff could drive increasing international enrollments as a project without widespread institutional engagement if it is motivated solely by income generation. However, when institutional motivation to increase international enrollments is driven by the added value that international students bring to the entire academic community, then project activities will need to focus on enhancing every aspect of the international student experience—from point of first contact, to appropriate academic and social support throughout their studies, and on to graduation, placement, and alumni services. The second approach requires a substantive change in how the institution sees itself, its obligation to all of its students, and its role in creating globally proficient graduates; and it requires widespread and coordinated engagement throughout the institution.”

The American Council on Education publication includes the following interconnected target areas for initiatives, policies, and programs:

Articulated Institutional Commitment
Administrative, Leadership, Structure, and Staffing
Curriculum, Co-Curriculum, and Learning Outcomes
Faculty Policies and Practice
Student Mobility
Collaboration and Partnerships

The section in the publication under “Student Mobility” provides data that has shown both growth of study abroad and international students on U.S. colleges and universities, which can also been seen in the Institute of International Education “Open Doors” data. It also reinforces the importance that institutions look as whether these are isolated programs on a campus or are really part of a campus plan to internationalize the campus:

While it is encouraging to see increases in the percentage of institutions funding student mobility and related activities, it is important that the goals of sending more students abroad and recruiting more international students to U.S. colleges and universities are seen as a means to achieving the broader learning-focused goals of internationalization, rather than as ends in themselves. This is particularly crucial considering the relatively small number of students who have the opportunity to participate in exchange experiences. Institutions should think carefully about how students’ education abroad experiences are incorporated into the curriculum, about whether there are appropriate support structures in place to help international students transition to and succeed on U.S. campuses, and about the types of opportunities the institution offers for domestic and international students to interact in meaningful ways.

By creating strategic programs and policies that focus on what students are learning from their international experiences and interactions with peers from other countries, institutions can maximize the impact of the resources they are devoting to student mobility and ensure that student learning, rather than such benchmarks as the quantity of international experiences, remains the focus of such activities.

As you think about increasing numbers of both international students and study abroad opportunities, to ensure that they are not just part of a “number counting” or “fund raising” initiative, it is important to take the time to frame those programs within a larger international learning and internationalization context on your campus. While negotiating budgets and looking for more resources to support study abroad and international students, this framework can also help in reinforcing the idea that to maximize the impact of international students and study abroad opportunities as “high impact initiatives” that support international learning, retention and success, and career through internationalization at home and abroad, framing them within the larger context of “Comprehensive Internationalization” can be helpful.

As you wind down your academic year, negotiate your budget, and plan the sessions you will attend and your focus for the upcoming NAFSA Conference, thinking about how your work is part of the larger context of “Comprehensive Internationalization” can be helpful. It is a framework that can help reinforce the importance of how study abroad and international students can be a critical part of the student learning outcomes on your campus and support the need to provide additional resources to provide support services and enhance program design to maximize the potential impact for faculty, staff, and students across campus.