The past three readings have mainly addressed the importance of moving towards internationalization policies and programs that replicate a global equity, quality, and accountability. However, this week’s reading focused on the United States of America developing a comprehensive internationalization policy that entails the interconnectedness of faculty development, mobility, research collaborations, internationalization at home, institutional partnerships, and other aspects. Currently, the state government, federal government, non-governmental agencies, accrediting agencies, and institutions have various programs in force to attain cultural understanding and awareness. However, there are a lot of overlapping ideals, approaches, and funding amongst them. According to the reading, there have be decreases in financing in all areas and this should encourage more interagency coordination and pooling their resources together. I respect the reading stating internationalization within in Higher Education should consider a holistic approach. In the Student Services course, we also discussed a need for higher education institutions following a holistic approach and develop interdepartmental relationships to make the experience more valuable for students, faculty, and staff.
During the reading I was a bit confused about one particular situation. There is a ‘global’ program inforce that only considers foreign students in Asian countries. When I think about the word global, it means encompassing everyone. However, this program is limited in its outreach. Supposedly, there is low mobility in American students partaking in study abroad adventure, and to remedy the problem, the USA brings in more foreign students from Asian countries. However, we don’t have the resources to provide a stable support system for the increase of these Asian students. Our internationalization at home programs mainly consists of teaching students Spanish and French as a foreign language. If most of the students are learning either Spanish or French, how will they be able to communicate with international students from Asian countries? Are the faculty and staff able to effectively communicate with these students as well? If we are spending more resources on educating students on proficiently speaking Spanish and/or French, wouldn’t it be a better idea to recruit international students from Latin American or certain European countries? I understand that the Obama Administration have been developing a policy that will increase study abroad amongst European and Latin American countries, but honestly, that should be a priority. Last week I read an article about Germany offering a free education to its citizens, as well as foreign students from America, China, and Britain. Courses that are offered in English allow Germans to communicate with native speakers and the foreign students are able to learn a new language as well. Germany is also one of the countries re-working its visa to make it easier for foreign students to go to school and work. America really needs to decide if the goal is to keep international students short term or long term.
Another issue that stood out to me had to deal with academic freedom. America wants scholars to have complete academic freedom when studying abroad. I understand that our institutions take pride in faculty having academic freedom, but isn’t the reason behind internationalization is to understand cultural differences? How can we demand American values to be upheld in other country that operates differently than our own? That’s insensitive.

Adia