It goes without saying that the last few years have upended international education. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, internationalization leaders learned new lessons, tried, failed, hung on, experimented, prevailed, and kept learning. Some of us lost teammates to the pandemic. Colleagues left the profession. What now? For most international offices, there is no returning to the status quo ante.

If you listen in to the conversations of international education leaders today, as I’ve had the opportunity to do in recent months, you may hear a swelling chorus of those committed to rebuilding, restructuring, and repositioning the international office to be stronger than before. Here, I identify strategies pursued by internationalization leaders in efforts to rebuild the international office as the upheaval of the pandemic subsides in ways that strengthen international education and position our teams to meet the future head-on.