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W3, Blog 3: Melissa Parsowith (Article Response)

The assigned reading for this week was a thoughtful continuation of “Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide: National Policies and Programs.” The second part of this work discusses additional types of policy types, including: Cross-border Education, IaH (Internationalization at Home) and Comprehensive Internationalization Strategies. Ultimately, the piece closes by revisiting the notion of policy assessment and effectiveness, and then draws final conclusions about the current and future promise of the Internationalization of Higher Education.

The third type of policy, Cross-border education, is introduced as “the movement of people, programs, providers, curricula, projects, research and services across national or regional jurisdictional borders” (p.38). Although cross-border education is sometimes referred to as a offshore, transnational or borderless education, the author stresses that cross-border education is the preferred term because it pays homage to the importance of jurisdictional boundaries regarding policy. The reading also mentions that cross-border education may be motivated by cultivating one’s “soft power”. I wasn’t exactly sure what this meant, but with a little digging, I found out that soft power refers to a persuasive approach to international relations, typically involving the use of economic or cultural influence. Instead of “hard power” which is usually attraction through coercion, soft power refers to the ability to shape others preferences through appeal. Of these efforts, initiatives of cross-border education includes creating educational hubs, fostering cooperation for development, encouraging campuses & programs abroad, and regulating educational activity abroad. I found it very interesting that the U.S has awarded grants to fund institutions with partnering universities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Personally, the Middle East is the last place I would consider to expand U.S education, considering all of the current world tensions!

The fourth type of policy was IaH, or internationalization at home. While we spend a lot of time reading about implementing internationalization abroad, I found it very interesting to turn the tables and consider IaH for once. The reading mentions that this type remains “a much less deeply or systematically developed aspect of internationalization in many higher education contexts around the world” (p.43). As a student of the United States, I can completely understand this. As we discussed in class, the amount of students we send abroad are in the single digit percentiles. Conversely, the U.S is a huge hub for international learners, specifically in New York City.

The last policy type discussed was comprehensive internationalization strategies. The reading explains these strategies try to consider a more holistic orientation toward internationalization, and determine 2 sub-categories: global strategies and specific geographic strategies. These strategies in general seem to overlap several of the themes we previously read about, including student mobility and strategic partnerships. I liked that in the examples, they included the United Kingdom as an example both of a global and a specific strategy. As the reader, this really helped me identify the differences of these policies and how they can affect the same region differently.

In conclusion, the author reaffirms many things that we learned about the internationalization of Higher education. The piece mentions the central role of government, the importance of mobility, the difficulties of assessment, the importance of influencers, and the dynamic nature of globalization efforts. While effectiveness is namely determined by quantitative factors, something I am most interested in hearing about would be reports where internationalization of higher education is viewed through a qualitative scope. I think it would be very interesting to see research about students who are or have studied abroad, and what they feel the experience has given them that cannot be counted on paper.

 

Posted on by J.Gulston · 1 Comment

W3- ACE Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide

The 3rd Week’s reading was the 2nd half of “Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide”. As with the 1st half of the reading it continued to provide detailed insights into the policies and programs that are currently in place in relation to the internationalizing of higher education. The 2nd half of the reading included the final three policy typologies, a discussion on assessing the effectiveness of policies and the author’s final thoughts on the topic.

The 3rd policy type in the reading was cross-border education. Cross-Border education is defined as “the movement of people, programmes, providers, curricula, projects, research and services across national or regional jurisdictional borders.” One of the forms of cross-border education is branch campuses. An example of a branch campus that I brought up in our class discussion was, New York University (NYU). The link I have embedded is to an article about NYU’s “Global Ambitions”. The former President of NYU John Sexton, has referred to NYU as a Global Network University. He viewed the three campuses and study away sites as an “organic circulatory system.” The article discusses the current branch campuses as well as opposition from faculty and students about the expansion program. NYU’s cross-border education would perhaps fall under two of the initiatives that the authors discusses in the section: one, create educational “hubs” and two, encourage domestic institutions to establish campuses and programs abroad.

The 4th policy type was Internationalization at Home, the author gives examples of how the United States is trying to implement the internationalization of curriculum. The Department of Education is focusing on foreign language and area studies education. These are the most obvious choices but if you look at the description of curricular issues that are offered in the section, it seems that the Dept. of Education and higher education institutions should include all subject areas in order to internationalize their curriculum. Faculty cooperation would be very important when trying to change the curriculum to include “…global focused content and perspectives…”.

The final policy type was Comprehensive Internationalization Strategies. This section dealt with policies and programs that are in place by an entire country. An example in this section are the plans in place by the European Union and Canada. Eventhough the authors give few examples for each program or policy, I thought it was interesting to note that the United States doesn’t have a comprehensive higher education internationalization plan/policy in place. The lack of policy/plan can be connected to the fact that our country doesn’t have a comprehensive education plan or policy for primary and secondary education. This connection maybe small but if you look at other countries who do have comprehensive internationalization strategies in place you will see that these countries have learning goals/outcomes that have been established for many years. They may change over the years but the changes are perhaps not based on which political group is in charge.

To conclude the report, the authors offered summaries and final thoughts about the internationalization of higher education. It is interesting that their final recommendations include the need to shift the focus to non-mobile students. These students have to benefit from the internationalization of higher education. As we discussed in class and gathered from the readings the biggest way higher education has been internationalized is by the mobility of students; students travelling abroad to take credit bearing courses. Studying abroad can be too costly for students so looking to include ways to bring an international education to the non-mobile student is important.

Some questions that I still have after the reading include how are higher education institutions -colleges and universities directly involved in implementing the programs mentioned? Also Africa isn’t used a direct example of any policy or plan related to the internationalization of higher education. Is that because the programs don’t exist or are very limited? Africa is mentioned in relation to Germany and China. These two countries have programs in place to work with colleges and universities in African countries.

Overall the reading gave a great introduction to the policies and programs geared toward the internationalizing of higher education.

 

Sources

American Council on Education, Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement. (2014)             Internationalizing higher education worldwide: national policies and programs.      Washington, DC: Brajkovic, Laura; Helms, Robin; Mihut, Georgiana; Rumbley, Laura

 

Redden, Elizabeth. (March 11th, 2013) Global Ambitions. Inside Higher Ed.                www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/11/nyu-establishes-campuses-and-sites-aroundglobe

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W2-Scholar Mobility over Student Mobility

One of the more interesting topics I found from this week’s reading was the section on scholar mobility and what types of policies and program are in place for matured academics and researchers to travel abroad. As mentioned in our class discussion, a lot of policies and practices of international higher education are based on the assumption that all higher education students are the traditional undergraduate college aged students. However, I believe that changing the direction and focusing more attentions on graduate students, doctoral candidates and faculty members would be of great value for internationalizing higher education.

In order to meet the demand of higher education in the country there must be enough researchers, lecturers and professors to have a robust faculty at an institution. As noted in the report, having scholar mobility is a way to building higher education capacity in a nation. International higher education policies should definitely do more to expand this population’s access to opportunities abroad for doctoral degrees and for research. Researchers and other doctoral students can diversify the types of programs and expertise they bring with them to the institution. By attracting professors and researcher to their campuses, it can, in turn, attract other students to come to the university. Countries that want to build their capacity in research in and in professors should take on a more active role to pursue these candidates and to bring them to their country. Russia was spotlighted in the Chronicle of Higher Education in November about creating a program that aims to increase the number of scholars and researchers to the country. According to the article, the Russian government has been taking a very active role in recruiting foreign researchers because the government believes that this will help to raise its international rankings. The government hopes to attract researchers by providing tax and benefits incentives for those who are going to be employed at a university and additional grant funding for research.

For countries like Russia, that want to build their capacity, having more scholar mobility oriented policies would benefit them greatly. However, for countries such as the United States that already have such a high concentration of scholars, researchers and institutions, this might not be the best policy approach. In addition, the Chronicle’s article noted that this new incentive program is geared towards attracting scientists, researchers and scholars of Russian origin to return. From this line it seems like Russia wants to bring back the talent that has left their country by offering incentives. However, if the program is so focused on recruit scientists of Russian origin, the country would not have a very diverse population of researchers. It could be that Russia experienced a “Brain Drain” and now wants to bring back the talent they have lost. Achieving the diversity might not be Russia’s aim; but, giving preference to just one ethnicity of scientists and scholars might not allow them to attract the talent they desire.

Russia’s new program is definitely a step in the right direction if the country wants to increase scholar mobility and capacity but the narrowed concentration on scholars of Russian origin might not give the country its optimal results.

Posted on by c.graziano · 2 Comments

W2 – ACE Internationalization Higher Education Worldwide

When reading over this article, I was intrigued by the section on student mobility.  I had personally never heard of the definitions described, differentiating “degree mobility” and “credit mobility” – while they differ greatly, I had never given much thought to these concepts.  This topic was particularly interesting to me because, just a few weeks ago, I attended and assisted with the International Student Orientation program at John Jay College and learned an array of information about J-1 and F-1 visas, work regulations for international students while in school and post graduation, and how difficult the application process to study in the US can be.   Students are able to work for up to 12 months post graduation through Optional Practical Training, but only in their field of study, which is very restricting.  The US ranks among the worst countries for international students to find work post graduation, especially after the recession http://www.studyabroad.careers360.com/best-and-worst-countries-work-after-study-opportunities.  Australia has seen a resurgence in Indian students applying to their schools because of changes to visa regulations that would allow students who graduate from an australian university to apply for a visa of up to 4 years.  I personally lived and worked in Australia on a work-holiday visa and felt the opportunities to find work as a foreigner were plentiful and they welcomed us with open arms.  I do not feel the same goes for the United States.

 

I also realized that almost 100% of the international students I encountered, planned to be at John Jay for their full term of their degrees. I feel that this differs greatly from American students who chose to study outside of the U.S., as they usually study for a finite amount of time.  The amount of incentives, admissions preferences and financial benefits of U.S. students choosing to complete their full degree makes me wonder why our students do not take more advantage of this?  We constantly hear about how tuition is too expensive and students are graduating with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt, yet there are countries who offer free tuition, among other incentives, why would they not take advantage?  Countries like Denmark and Germany offer international students free tuition.  In addition, some programs offer programs for bachelor degrees in 3 years and masters degrees in 1 year.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/6-reasons-american-teens-may-want-to-get-their-college-degree-abroad_us_55f839b9e4b00e2cd5e7f6be  I believe this information is not readily available to our high school students and their parents when they make these important decisions on where to go to college.  Governments should target high schools to make this information more readily available and launch campaigns to provide information on incentive programs and I think we would see an increase in US applicants seeking full degrees abroad.

Posted on by A. Olly

W2 ACE Reading- Student Mobility

The policy category of Student Mobility was my favorite of the two covered in the ACE reading. The subcategories of Inbound and Outbound Mobility, Degree and Credit Mobility discuss the national polices implemented to further international higher education.

Visa policies are the first and foremost issue for inbound student mobility. The reading covers differing approaches, with Australia streamlining their application process, and efforts of the European Union to ease intra-EU mobility for non-EU students. However, we also have the United Kingdom increasing visa regulations in response to concerns about international students at public colleges.

How will the recent Paris terror attacks affect visa restrictions for international students?  France introduced new measures during the last few years aimed to increase inbound international students to 20% of total higher ed enrollment.  Have recent events made France reconsider this goal? This will be an issue to watch going forward, especially among nations they may consider to be ‘high risk’.

Another vital issue is that of ‘harmonization’, or alignment of educational systems. Differing academic calendars, credit systems and degree structures can inhibit student and job mobility.

I have seen harmonization issues in my workplace regarding graduate admissions qualifications. A four year Bachelors degree is required, meaning that students who completed their undergraduate studies in a country with a three year system were ineligible for our Masters programs. This issue of incohesive educational systems lost my school some talented applicants and left them with fewer options to further their studies.  ACE gives examples of successful harmonization initiatives such as the Bologna Process in Europe and the Reykjavik Declaration in Scandinavia, which provide common standards and mutual recognition of credentials.  Harmonization policies provide greater opportunities for students residing in participating regions. However I wonder if harmonization efforts put pressure on regions with fewer resources to conform to the standards set by wealthier regions. What disadvantages are faced by students in a region with a unique higher ed system that does not have the means to adapt to (often) Western standards? If higher education is to be truly global, what are the responsibilities of developed regions to the rest of the world?

 

Allison Olly