Introduction

[00:00:00] Steve MacDonald: Welcome everyone to the Global Engagement Insights Podcast. I'm Steve MacDonald, your host, and we're on with a special guest today, Randy Kluver. Now, Randy, you're the Associate Provost and Dean at Oklahoma State University. You've been doing this for a long time. I'll let you expand a little bit on your background here in a minute. But you come from a faculty background, and you are also constantly looking for ways to re-innovate. We're going to talk a lot about that today because a lot of SIOs we know, we have as international engagement leaders. We can be peripheralized. We can be looked at as a program. We can actually even be eliminated. So, we're constantly having to advocate for our role in the university and how important we are, even though we all know how important this is, the function that we provide, and the seminal moments that we provide for students and how it impacts their lives. But we want to talk about today specifically for SIOs. How do you expand your mission for greater success? You've innovated on that. That's where we're going to spend most of the time today. But before we start there, would you mind just giving us a little bit more about your background?

[00:01:20] Randy Kluver: Sure, Steve. Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you today. It's a delight and an honor. I did start as a faculty member and reinvention is probably the theme. I originally went to China back in the 1980s as an English teacher and decided I wanted to continue with that. So, after a year in China, I came back and went to graduate school. I got my PhD at the University of Southern California, basically studying rhetoric with an emphasis on Chinese political discourse. Then, I got a job teaching at Oklahoma City University. Still, even while I was teaching, I was very involved in trying to expand the international components of the university, leading study abroad, working with the university leadership to develop meaningful partnerships, and pushing against that. Always been the theme of my career. After a while, I just got frustrated at the institution. I didn't feel like I was where I needed to be. So, we moved to Singapore. I got a job at the National University of Singapore, but to do so, I had to really shift my whole frame of study. So, I went from studying rhetoric to public communication. This was really the rise of the Internet, the period of its expansion. I went to the National University of Singapore to help create a new academic program focused on new media and was part of that. Then, after a couple of years of helping that program start up, I went to another university in Singapore, where I created a new internet research center focused on the impact of the internet and new media technologies across Asia. I spent 6 years in Singapore again, both doing academics and administrative work, really looking towards global partnerships in that research component. I worked very closely with academics around the world. Then, I returned to the U.S. and went to Texas A&M University for a while, where I was really in the international programs office. It was quite a large office, very vibrant, with lots of international activities and lots of engagement around the world and it was a very exciting place to be. After several years, we had a new provost who came in and had a very different view of international education and didn't want to have a central international programs office and basically dismantled that program. Fortunately, because I had kept my faculty credentials and my research program online, I was able to move to a faculty role again. Now, I'm just a faculty member, but I'm still pushing for international partnerships and growing study abroad programs. Finally, 7 years ago, I got the opportunity to come to Oklahoma State University, I didn't realize at the time that I grew up in Oklahoma and did not attend this university, but I found a university that had an incredible global legacy. But it had gone somewhat dormant. The university was very involved in global activities in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, and then it just went dormant. There was no study abroad office until the late 1990s, for example. Since then, I've had the opportunity to build upon the university's legacy to do really new and interesting things. It's been a very exciting time.

[00:04:25] Steve MacDonald: That's amazing. I didn't get that in our first conversation because you really had to revive a program, let alone expand the mission of the program. I think we should take note, of all of us who are listening right now, that have programs in place. We're ahead of the game of where you were when you started here. What I'd love to do is to have you talk a little bit about specifically in terms of expanding opportunities, and you're talking about expanding opportunities, not only just for the students, for the university but with companies and government offices. Talk a little bit about how you think about that and how you innovated in that area.

[00:05:03] Randy Kluver: Yeah, I think that's one of the key themes. When you become an SIO, you inherit a certain portfolio. There are people that report to you. There are people that don't report to you. There are often political battles over that. For example, enrollment management is one of the contentious issues. Who controls that? Is it the vice president for enrollment management, or is it the international office? It can be a pretty big conflict at some campuses. As an SIO, you inherit certain kinds of things. Your job is to steward those to make them better but then to go back to the theme you were talking about earlier to justify the international engagement of the university, you often have to expand what you're doing and the kinds of things you've done in order to build new allies, build new programming, find new sources of funding and all of these things. You're constantly looking at there and I think every SIO does this because I'm very opportunistic, I often see opportunities, maybe a little bit ahead of everybody else and that really enables you to continue to sell the internationalization of the university throughout the system. At many universities, international engagement is seen as peripheral. Think about studying abroad, for example. It's seen as a privilege. That's the Cadillac version. If you get to go to study abroad, and so on and so forth, only if you can afford it, only if you have the time. We within international education don't believe that, but we're not always good at convincing other people that our perspective is the right one. I'll give you an example from Texas A&M, a program that we were really proud of. Texas A&M is well known as a senior military college in the Corps of Cadets. When I was there, the Corps of Cadets had about 1,800 students, and they had no international engagement at all. The one thing that happened was that every few years, a group of cadets would go to Normandy to commemorate the role of some Texas A&M graduates in the invasion of Normandy. In the first year, we did a baseline study. We found that five cadets had any international experience that year, and it was participating in study abroad programs from the business school or something else. So, it was really minimal. Well, at that time, a new leader came into the Corps of Cadets who became a really good friend. He had been a retired one-star general who truly believed that his cadets needed to have international competencies. So, I worked with that guy, and within about three years, we had 250 to 300 cadets a year going on sponsored programs, some paid by the Corps of Cadets, others paid by the U.S. Department of Defense. So, we were able to grow that by framing the global engagement within the context of leadership. That was an example of creating a strategic ally that allowed us to really grow a program that just didn't exist before, and those programs are still in existence today. Perhaps non-traditional things might give salience to the international office.

[00:08:08] Steve MacDonald: That's one great example of innovating to make something out of something that wasn't there and adding tremendous value. Tell us a little bit about the Afghan program and what you're doing here at Oklahoma State University. You think every university has an opportunity to do that is very different and unique than the typical mission of an international engagement office.

[00:08:33] Randy Kluver: Thanks for asking about the Afghan Family Project. It was a huge effort for us. In August 2021, when Afghanistan fell, you'll remember lots of Afghans coming to the U.S., and resettlement became a huge issue. We heard through the grapevine that our little city of 50,000 people, Stillwater, Oklahoma, would be receiving some. Because I have a real interest in refugees, my family was involved in resettling Vietnamese refugees in the 70s, I reached out to the resettlement agency. So, what do you need from Oklahoma State University? They said we need housing. You might remember we had this thing called COVID which dramatically impacted the number of international students we could have on campus. So, we had some empty housing. I said, let's work to see if we can get those Afghans house on our campus. Sure enough, we were able to create an agreement that we could house the Afghans on campus, and we ultimately brought in 72 Afghans. What we were doing was not unique among universities because we found later a number of universities were doing stuff like this, including every campus, a refuge based at Guilford, Diya Abdo came alongside and said, how can I help you guys? What resources do you need? What was different about our effort was the scale. Nobody had ever done that at the scale at the university. Then, of course, we say we've got these Afghans here. What they need is English. Guess what? We've got an ESL program on campus. Let's re-gear that ESL program, which, by the way, doesn't have many students right now because of COVID, around that need. From there, you begin to find that we need job preparation. We have to get people's driver's licenses. We need to get them basic medical, dental, and vision care. We need to get their children integrated into the schools. The university has resources for all these kinds of things, particularly a big public university. You've got lots of resources because you have lots of international students. You already have an international population. You already have the resources to get kids into the local elementary schools. So, we retooled around that. Some strategic partners came alongside. I've already mentioned the ECAR, the president's alliance, and other organizations that we're working on this to welcome the campus network. They came alongside. They said, here's some resources. How can we help you? But then the state of Oklahoma found out about it and said, wait you're bringing in these refugees. What do you need? We said we needed money to give them English language instruction. We need the money to do these. They said, we're going to write a contract with you, and we're going to pay you to teach them English so they can successfully integrate into the U.S. Because we are a small town, we have never received refugees before. There was no infrastructure. So, there's all these things called wraparound services so all these other issues that I mentioned, workforce development, job training, driver's license, all these kinds of things. The state says, could you do that? Because there's nobody else in your city to do that. Then, we said, we could do that, but we need you to invest in our program. So, they did. They continue to invest in our program and that allowed us to hire some part-time program case managers to really keep that project going. We're very proud of that effort. Several Afghans have moved on to larger cities because of family reunification, or because they wanted to get into a different kind of career than what was possible in Stillwater. The majority of them have stayed here and made this their home, and they know that Oklahoma State brought them in, received them, and really made a difference in their lives. So, we're really proud of that. Where it fits in with this theme is that not only were we serving the Afghans, but we were also fulfilling the public service mission of the university. This was an Identified need. The state of Oklahoma said we need somebody to do this. We need this resettlement effort to happen. You guys have the resources. Can you help us do that? Yes, it was way outside what we typically did or what most universities do. Fortunately, the university's leadership backed me on it and said, yes, this is very much part of our land grant mission. This is part of our public service mission, so we support this, and those efforts are ongoing. I was at the graduation ceremony several weeks ago with our president, and I was up on the platform party as a couple of the Afghan students walked across the stage and I just walked over to the president said, these are some of our Afghans that we brought on campus a couple of years ago and they're graduating now. She was surprised, but she had been very supportive of the whole effort. We were very proud of that effort because not only did it make a very tangible and human need that we saw in front of us, but it also allowed us to really tell that story for our service to the state of Oklahoma.

[00:13:25] Steve MacDonald: So, one of the big takeaways from this whole story is one of the pillars of a land grant mission university is to serve the community. So, whether you're a land grant mission, any university has that in its charter. If you, as the international education office, can be helping the university fulfill that while you're expanding relationships in the government, while you're expanding relationships locally with companies in the community, and at the same time, expanding the relationships internally from the president on down in pulling that program together that everybody can be a part of, that's not something that we talked about when we started. We could be peripheralized; we can be looked at as a program. You got additional funding. I wanted to ask two things that you could maybe frame for the audience here: other SIOs who are listening in. What did you think that did for your position in the university? And then, secondly, what do you think that did for the long-term program? You talked about having to rebuild the program here at Oklahoma State. So, what did it do for your visibility internally and your long-term efforts and ability to stay over time?

[00:14:45] Randy Kluver: Our goal has been to be the one-stop shop for all international issues on campus. Now, there are a lot of people on campus that deal with international issues, including the research office, where it comes to export control and so on. So there are a lot of people who deal with that. My definition of a land grant university, Steve, is one where nobody knows what anybody else is doing because we typically are so decentralized, and we're the same way. We've got multiple study-abroad offices on campus. Each academic college has its own program, so we are decentralized in some ways. In a lot of ways, that makes it hard. But in other ways, it creates new capacity. But, back to your question, what did it do for our role on campus? I think that we had a brand new president when this was happening, and all of a sudden, she was confronted with the reality of the resettlement of these refugees. Outside of the context that a president would normally encounter an international office, usually, a president thinks, I got an international student office. I got a study abroad office. That's all I have to worry about. Guess what? We're bringing all these Afghans to campus and the president wasn't quite ready for that. She stepped up, and she was amazing and supported us in that effort. But all of a sudden, she saw the office as something much bigger than just a few students doing study abroad and so on. So, we could define our mission a little bit more broadly. A couple of years ago, we rebranded. We used to have a long and complicated name that didn't make sense to Oklahoma State Global because we wanted to do that. I'll admit I borrowed that from some of my colleagues at other universities who adopted that name. We had something like that name earlier, but we wanted to have a more far-reaching name that people would kind of sense. All things global go through this office. Now, that's not true. We know that's not true. But in fact, it does allow us to do that. I mentioned earlier that every SIO inherits something, and you've got a portfolio it s one of the things I inherited at the time, and I didn't know what to do with it. Now, it's become one of our strongest elements, and that's because we had an alumnus who was very engaged with the university and who helped the university create a long time ago the Center for International Trade Development, which was designed really to be an extension service to the state in the area of global trade. It had been there for several years, but it had a pretty low profile. Not a lot of people knew what it was about. So, what we were able to do over the years is really to build a set of partnerships across the state of Oklahoma, as you say, with the State Department of Commerce, the governor's office all kinds of state agencies. Businesses across the state around the area of global trade. Now, that allowed me to do two things. As you mentioned earlier, my title is Dean because I actually also have an academic program under me. It's a master's degree in global studies. We're able to not only teach the students about global trade, but we're able to give them internships in the Center for International Trade Development, where they're working with Oklahoma-based businesses and companies who are trying to build trade relationships, or they're doing research related to trade opportunities for the state of Oklahoma. In so many of the things we're able to do, we can leverage the strengths of one unit against another. We were talking about the Afghan process. Our masters and global studies not only teach about trade. It also teaches about refugees. Guess what? On the 2nd floor, we've got graduate students learning about refugees on the 3rd floor. We have a bunch of refugees, so we're able to really give our students real-world opportunities. This is what it means. This is what a refugee is. It's not an abstraction that you're reading about in a textbook. It's those guys upstairs and the chance to interact with them and learn. What was your experience? How did this whole thing work? I think what we've tried to do is identify strategic partnerships and opportunities and then leverage them in every way we can. The state of Oklahoma, like most states, has a sister-state relationship through our National Guard. In the state of Oklahoma, our National Guard partnership is with the country of Azerbaijan. So, we heard about this and said, goodness, if the state's already in partnership with Azerbaijan, how can we, as the Oklahoma State University, partner with that? We went to Azerbaijan, we built relationships, and we participated in the governor's delegation to Azerbaijan. We now have a dual degree with the university in Azerbaijan that reflects that state relationship. Now, it's not been as active as we thought because, as you might know, Azerbaijan has been in a war, and there have been some disruptions to it. But those are the kinds of opportunities we look for where there's something already going on. The university contributes something meaningful to that. So, we come alongside that and participate in it.

[00:19:49] Steve MacDonald: You looked at existing state programs, how we can get involved, the dormant program with trade, and how we can make something out of that. You looked at Afghanistan, the refugee problem and crisis, and how we could support that. These are three great examples of innovating and redefining a global department's mission inside the university, more so than you're saying the study abroad and then bringing students in here. If there was a lesson that was learned from all of this. If you've got SIOs that are saying, all right, I have to innovate. I have to think outside the box, and that will help me advocate internally, improve my relevance internally, and get funding internally. What would you recommend to them based on the lessons you've learned from going through this the pains and all the successes?

[00:20:45] Randy Kluver: Let me say that when I arrived at OSU, not through any malice on anybody's part, but we were severely underfunded. We did not have enough money to run our office. For the first 5 years, I was living off gas fumes. We had some rollover money from years before, but I was saving money everywhere I could. We weren't buying pencils. We weren't buying new computers. We were budget-deprived. Then, a couple of years ago, all of a sudden, and I'll tell you how the provost told me, she said, we're going to give you the money to run the program how you should. They gave us a budget infusion that reflected their recognition of the work we were doing. So, what we were doing was really pretty, sparsely funded in the first couple of years, and this means you work hard. I feel terrible because you're asking people to do two or three jobs at a time. But what happened is the university recognized it and said, okay, that's something we really want to support and we really want to fund. I ensure that the university leadership knows what we're doing. They know the opportunities that are there, so when I come to them with the next outlandish idea, they're like, okay, let's hear that because things in the past have worked out. But we know that if our university president deals with some global business in the city of Tulsa or Oklahoma City, they will mention that they know us. That we did this study for them, or we had this time during this interaction with them. We're on the road a lot. We're trying to interact with people across the state. Oklahoma is not seen as a diplomatic hub, but we do have a number of honorary consuls, and every one of them knows us. The state opened a new Mexican consulate about a year ago. We've had the consul general from that consulate on our campus four times already. We want her to know how important that diplomatic relationship with Mexico is. When we ask her for something, she's there to help us. So, visibility, building relationships, and looking for opportunities that are already there. Whenever the state does something, we want to be there. We want to be a part of that because we're Oklahoma State University. We're there to support it.

[00:23:07] Steve MacDonald: And there are funds inside of the state.

[00:23:12] Randy Kluver: Everyone could always use more funds. Many of these things are the funding for the Afghans that came because we were offering the service had we gone to the State Department of Human Service and said we're thinking about doing something with refugees. Would you fund us? No. But if we say we have 72 Afghans that we're trying to get English lessons, can you help? Okay, you're already there. Part of it is jumping before you see all the funding and that doesn't always pan out. But in our case, it worked out well. We've been able to expand our mission really, and of course, every one of those things contributes to another.

[00:23:51] Steve MacDonald: You gave something very tangible that could be funded. It's very different from going in with stories of students who have traveled abroad, which are very meaningful. But saying look at the impact we're making in their lives. We need more funding. That's very different from what I bought Afghans on-site. We're trying to do this. You innovated, but then you gave people very specific or asked for funding for specific things. I love the leap before you look because you started something that people wanted to be a part of and saw tremendous value in that, which was value for the university and for everyone involved. If there was one thing from everything we've talked about here that you just wanted to leave us with as a single takeaway, what would that be if we didn't remember anything else?

[00:24:43] Randy Kluver: I think it's probably this. Many folks get frustrated with the things they have that don't go according to plan, so they try to shore up all those things and make sure everything is perfect before they take on something new. I'm a little bit different. I'm always looking around the corner. What's the next opportunity? I wish I had everything in place in my study abroad office or my international student. But you know what? Here's an opportunity for us to really make a serious leap forward. When we do that well, people will trust us in those other things. The university is engaged internationally in so many different ways. One of the frustrations I hear from colleagues is that they're not consulted when these issues come up, and fortunately, we're not in that situation. So, our university right now is trying to develop a much more robust export control framework related to research and our international partnerships. The VPR's office came alongside and said, we're responsible for this, but we can't do it without you. So, please help us do this. Help us fill in our gaps and knowledge. It s because they trust us they're allowing us to give input to something that is going to be better for our international students, better for our international faculty, and better for international engagement. The geopolitical context right now is people are pretty worried about international partnerships. They're worried about international students and faculty, but because we've got this strong partnership with our VPR's office, we're able to really give input in a way that strengthens the university's vulnerabilities in this area and ensures that it doesn't encroach upon our international footprint and our outreach.

[00:26:32] Steve MacDonald: I know that there are going to be follow-up questions. Would it be appropriate if we shared this episode and also shared a link to your profile on LinkedIn so people could reach out to you?

[00:26:46] Randy Kluver: Sure, that'd be great. That'd be fantastic.

[00:26:48] Steve MacDonald: Randy, congratulations on everything you've been able to accomplish. You should be very proud of all that. I know you are. I heard you say that for the five years that we didn't have a lot of funding, we weren't even buying additional pencils. So, I know you've gone through bumps in the road to get there, but you should be very proud of that. Now, by sharing these insights and what you've learned with the rest of the world SIOs and global offices, we just really appreciate you coming on and doing that.

[00:27:17] Randy Kluver: Thank you for the opportunity. I really enjoyed it.