Posted on by Ben Levine

W4- International Students and Scholar Mobility

For this week’s reading, there are two subjects I would like to discuss. While the professor suggests that we use outside sources, such as articles or journals, to supplement our perspectives, I don’t think we should overlook word of mouth as a source. Sure, it may not be as formal, but not everyone involved with the topic writes his or her ideas or experiences so they can be read by the public.

The first subject is international students. Students from other countries come here to study, and while they are in school they must remain full-time students, have limited work opportunities, and almost always pay way more than the average student. Some of the information I am about to convey comes directly from an interview I conducted with the DSO (designated school official) for international students at my college of employment. While it is easy to criticize the model for international study because of the strict limitations the students experience, the conversation I had with the DSO gradually veered to something more abstract. The international student office at my college is essentially just this one man (who primarily works in the Registrar’s Office); the total number of international students enrolled doesn’t even exceed one hundred, so the college hasn’t spent much time, energy, or resources into providing a permanent office. That being said, the DSO doesn’t have a strenuous responsibilities for these students, but he has been doing it for a long time and has worked extensively with the demographic. The thing that struck me most during our interview was his perspective on the attitude of international students, which I will discuss briefly in the next paragraph.

From the DSO’s point of view, international students have a lot of adversity to face, not including the restrictions listed above. There seems to be, according to the DSO, an inequality between native and international students that the former don’t realize, but of which the latter are quite aware. Over time, international students may experience a form of alienation; native students complain about financial aid and their jobs, while those from abroad pay an exorbitant amount of money for school and cannot work many hours. While this alienation may not cause them to fail academically, it could potentially create a feeling of disdain towards education, the institution, as well as the American people and country as a whole. This may be an extreme example, but it goes to show that internationalization isn’t always rainbows and lollipops.

Another subject I would like to quickly cover is that of scholar mobility. Again, my source for my developing opinion on this matter is word of mouth. My cousin’s friend is teaching in China for an indefinite amount of time, and so my cousin has decided to go visit her (come on Ben, take a deep breath, be happy for him, wash away the jealousy). After finding this all out, I asked him a bunch of questions about his friend and her experiences, since you know, we’re in an international higher education class. Apparently this is all my cousin could glean from his friend: the college at which she taught asked her to teach abroad, and who could say no to China? Yup, that was it. Based on this brief exchange, I found it all a little sketchy. Why did her college ask her to go? Do colleges ask their best or worst professors to teach abroad? How long do they expect her to be there? Who pays for her expenses? What kind of research opportunities does she have in a different country?

I can totally relate to her friend wanting to go to China. Many people would love to have an opportunity like that. The only traveling I do for my job is walking to the campus cafeteria during my lunch break. In any case, hearing a story like hers just makes me very curious, and this skepticism quickly takes over the envy I feel (not quickly enough though, I’m still pretty jealous).

Posted on by c.graziano

CNN Article: Americans are moving to Europe for free college degrees

Hi All,

I read this article a few days ago on CNN and thought I would share with everyone since it is sort of relevant to the course. It feels like in almost all of my higher ed courses we have discussed the high costs of tuition and fees in the US and how so many of our students are graduating with debts they are unable to pay back. Here is an example of a few American students who decided to save money by getting their degree abroad. I wonder if this trend will get bigger in coming years? And if it does, is Europe able to sustain their system of offering practically free degrees to non-native students?

http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/23/pf/college/free-college-europe/

Christie

Posted on by Victoria Tsang · 4 Comments

W3 – Cross-Border Education & Assessing Policy Effectiveness

Having taken an educational policy course last semester, I learned that implementing a policy and accurately assessing the effectiveness of the policy is a long and time-consuming process, which the reading also touched upon. In regards to internationalization of higher education, the implementation seems to be easier than the follow-up assessment of the outcomes and impacts (and not just on the outputs). But at the same time, there has been concerns that implementation, specifically in regards to branch campuses, can cause chaos and confusion as well. As with different cultures and customs in different countries, it seems each country has different meanings for the various terminology used in a higher education setting.

The confusion caused by not being on the same page for things as simple as what a “joint-degree” means can have great impact on the subsequent effectiveness of the branch campus and the policies in place. It is hard enough to measure the outcomes and impacts (which the reading emphasizes are the two thing that can better determine the effectiveness of a policy), but when the implementation is already causing negative effects, the policy in place won’t be accurately assessed. Therefore, as mentioned in the reading and in the article, it is ever more important for the parties involved to be aware of what the policy and implementation are affecting.

Another issue that came to mind as I was reading through other articles was the impact of branch campuses and transnational education on the local institutions. The article mentions how the branch campuses often are able to hire better faculty because they can offer better pay than local public institutions, which takes away from the local institutions. And there is concern that graduates from the branch campuses will be more attractive in the eyes of potential employers. While it is great and understandable why a country would want to engage in more internationalization, it is increasingly important that policies are created and implemented with an all encompassing picture of the entire higher education landscape in mind (both local and international).

The reading also touches upon how there is little focus on helping students returning from abroad transition back, which undermines the effectiveness of the internationalization initiative. I remember when I returned from studying abroad, even something as simple as being able to speak with others who were returning helped with the transition and also with how to better promote the skills learned from the experience to future employers. If one of the motivations to internationalization is to better the economy and society, then it is definitely important to help those who return learn how to effectively use the experiences they gained.

Posted on by c.graziano · 7 Comments

W3 – Internationalization at Home

I found the portion of internationalization at home (IaH) particularly interesting. European Education in the World singled this out as one of the three key institutional priorities of higher education in Europe and I think it should also be a priority of higher education in the United States. For me, I believe this task starts with addressing the “curricular issues” – colleges and universities must work with faculty to infuse global content and viewpoints into their everyday curriculum, no matter which academic subject they teach. In order for this to happen, specific training programs for faculty need to be implemented as well, so they can be prepared to educate our students from a global perspective. While the example in the United States provided in the article, addresses the Department of Educations initiative to set up foreign language centers throughout the US, there is way more we can be doing to internationalize our college campuses in particular. As mentioned in this 2013 Institute of International Education http://www.iie.org/Blog/2013/April/What-Is-The-Next-Big-Thing-in-International-Education, one program IIE funded from 2011-2015 was through a partnership with Hilton HHonors called the Teacher Treks Program, where they sent primary and secondary level teachers abroad for 2-3 weeks to experience the culture and the subject they teach first hand. These teachers than come back with a global perspective they can then instill in their young students. I think a program like this can be adapted to fit the higher education realm. In addition, as partnerships between foreign universities grow, professors teaching abroad and increases in mobility of both students and faculty through partnerships and educational exchange programs would ideally grow as well. I enjoyed reading about Germany’s internationalization policies, specifically where they outline that “staff at all levels speak ‘at least’ English, participate in intercultural training courses, and become acquainted with the practices of higher education institutions around the world.” (p.44).

With support from the government agencies, like the European Commission’s Europe 2020 strategy, it seems education has taken a priority in their strategy. Canada, Finland, Malaysia and the United Kingdom have launched International Education Strategies as well. Support like this, is hopefully going to push these policies and programs forward at a faster rate and hopefully interest will not wane, due to these publicly supported initiatives.

Posted on by d.grant1 · 3 Comments

W3 Cross-border Education & Internationalization

Building from the last reading, this week’s topic covered “Cross-border education”, this type of education is geared towards “establishing partnerships among institutions on national, regional and international levels, creating educational hubs, encouraging domestic institutions to create campuses and programs abroad, and regulating cross-border educational activities”. Cross-border education seems to be a vital aspect of internationalization. It uses online and hybrid courses also with other programs and research projects that are spread globally which furthers the rate and accessibility of higher education on a global scale (P38-39), this improves the quality of education on the home front as well. Remembering that internationalization pushes for peaceful times, it is refreshing to learn that the United States wants to start cross-border initiatives with the Middle East, this more than likely will not be met with open arms from the general population, but it is a step in the right direction.

As the world changes and advances many countries are growing to become “interdependent”, leading the University of the Philippines (UP) system to look to internationalization. UP takes aspects of academic culture and pedagogy (ethos and value systems) from different universities to mold their own. This allows for the strengthening of resources, but the institution is able to keep its sense of self. The 2008 Charter of the University of the Philippines mandated the national university to “serve as a regional and global university in cooperation with international and scientific unions, network universities, scholarly and professional associations in the Asia Pacific region and around the world”. This system has internationalization written right into their mandate, something that may become the norm for many other institutions in the not so distant future.

Although America feels as though it is the educational capitol of the world, it is important that our students are well-versed in most if not all matters of the world and can relate to others outside of our country, to achieve this, schools have been implementing internationalization initiatives in K-12 as a way to implement culture, linguistics and other foreign matters under policies geared toward internationalization. It can be hypothesized that having students like this who ultimately go on to furthering their education or pursuing careers in different job markets, has many benefits. One such benefit would be if any of these students become educators, they already have the tools of internationalization, or some kind of base understanding, these educators reach out to 100s if not 1,000s of students while perfecting their craft, and these students can go on to do the same, sort of like the domino effect.

 

References

Azanza, R. (2014, February 21). “Symbiosis”/”Mutualism” and the University of the Philippines’ Enhanced and Strategic Internationalization Agenda. Retrieved February, 2016, from http://www.up.edu.ph/symbiosismutualism-and-the-university-of-the-philippines-enhanced-and-strategic-internationalization-agenda/