I can say for sure that the depth of internationalization is a lot more than I imagined. From the first week of defining the term, to understanding Cross Border Internationalization compared to Internationalization at home, to National Policy and Marketization of Internationalization, Internationalization is a complex term.

This week’s understanding on partnerships and the difference between a dual degree and a joint degree, it is clear Internationalization is broad, deep, layered and has a wingspan with an infinite range of global partnerships and possibilities. With the vast vision of Internationalization, comes much to be considered outside of the direct benefit to students and schools. This week’s reading from the American Council on Higher Education, International Higher Education Partnerships: A Global Review of Standards and Practices goes through a slew of information that needs to be considered from Language, Accountability, Transparency, Assessments, Cultural Awareness and the importance of Faculty. Without the input and drive of the faculty, internationalization is only a dream. The faculty need to be active in decision making across the board, especially in academic matters. Faculty, from both countries need to have an understanding of each other’s culture, as well as an understanding of each other’s university. Without this respect and understanding, opportunities could be lost.

Because of the depth of this term and program, International Partnership Directors are a new position that is on the rise. If schools wish to compete and build their international programs, the position of an International Partnership Director is needed. Future directors of International Partnerships will need to “wear many hats” as stated in ACE’s study Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campuses. The Director needs to be versed in “teaching, research, outreach, financial and legal matters” as well as be connected internally to their own institution’s staff to get the job done well.

The readings for this week addressed key concerns higher education institutions are currently facing without the addition of internationalization. It was mentioned that transparency would be beneficial, especially in regards to providing information on tuition, fees, and other expenses for foreign students. However, current citizens already struggle with lack of transparency in higher education. Although institutions place the cost of tuition and fees on their admissions page each year, it doesn’t allow the student to determine how much out of pocket expenses they will actually have to pay. For example, I have a veteran acquaintance that was accepted to Columbia University for a Bachelor’s program. He didn’t have orientation until the week before classes started. It was then he was able to register for courses (many of the required courses were already taken for his major) and determine how much how much student loan he would need to borrow, after the deduction from the military supplement. If our own home students are left in the dark, how can we expect to offer transparency for international students? I think it would be really neat if we had a FAFSA mechanism established earlier. A student should have an ongoing FAFSA application as a freshman in high school and be able to change information as necessary. When applying to schools, each institution should have a tuition indicator page that will allow a student to plug in their ongoing FAFSA info and the system will generate the cost of tuition for that individual student, without scholarships of course, similar to how HR Block does tax refunds online. I think this would be more transparent and international students would be able to utilize this tool as well within their home country.
The reading also touched on dual degree programs. I understand that there needs to have solid structure in place to prevent overlapping competencies, but I am concerned about the lengthy process it takes to implement a dual degree program. There is a pre-proposal, pre-proposal assessment, and then a full proposal assessment. Wouldn’t it be easier to require a full proposal with an abstract page? More time and energy should be spent on fleshing out the proposal and strengthening its positive attributes for the institution. Or running a pilot program. I remember a Floridian high school student earned her high school and college diploma within the same week. I am sure the schools that collaborated spent less time on proposals, but more time on developing a structured curriculum and offering necessary resources. I believe this is one of the major issues with internationalization. I have mentioned this in previous blogs, but the readings expounded on this concept further. Faculty and staff have to be more culturally and linguistically diverse in order to provide assistance to foreign students and the schools need to offer more student services. It will be difficult for commuter institutions to help a student acclimate on campus due to the lack of student housing, co-curricular activities (although events are offered, commuter students tend not to attend), and providing flexible student services. However, if top administrators fully support and exhibit the overall plan, it will trickle down to faculty and staff.

International Higher education partnerships report discusses some identifying themes that address strategies for program administration. The main ones include transparency and accountability, faculty and staff engagement, and quality assurance. Cultural and contextual issues also come into play with program administration. Which include cultural awareness as well as ethical dilemmas.

Identifying the issues is only half of the struggle. Considering international higher education is a focus of current growth a report by Rice University discusses the availability of dual and joint degrees. A Dual degree is when a student receives two different diploma’s one from each institution. A joint degree on the other hand  is when a student receives a single diploma from completing coursework in 2 separate institutions. Of course, this type of program is difficult to implement and keep. Starting with the implementation this type of  program would need to have majority of consensus on different strategies to be able to have the student receive this diploma since institutions across seas function differently in terms of language and curriculum.

Personally cultural awareness that includes language considerations and learning outcomes seems to be on the top of the list to make partnerships work. According to Global Higher Education, Such collaborative degrees have the potential to alter relationships with worldwide universities as well as their missions. Which the IHE report also touches on. Many universities do not include internationalization as a part of their mission statements and that becomes a very highly needed type of strategy to be able to help internationalization grow as well as help programs such as dual degrees become more spread and much more thoroughly defined as time goes by.

With a higher  focus on quality assurance, it would be much more telling of how the programs, as well as certain policies, are doing in terms of numbers. This would help tweak any problem areas that arise and help give a much better visual on what is working or not on international level programs. Bearing in mind cultural and ethical differences that may present along the way.

Internationalization in many colleges as well as countries is lagging due to nonuniform type of strategies in terms of  curriculum. Even colleges within the same country are not able to come to a consensus on identifying classes as the same which creates more issues for the students.  Connection on a international level would also need to be able to work on some curriculum problems within the country first to be able to move to an international level with more colleges dealing with dual and joint degrees.