W-11 Mapping Internationalization

Survey’s show a great way of getting an idea of how an idea is moving along. But, there are also biases in surveys. This survey for mapping internationalization at higher education institutions may show great advancements and lack thereof but it may not grasp a complete idea of how active higher education is in mapping internationalization as there may be institutions who did not participate in the survey. It was interesting to see that those who did participate gave us a good idea on where higher education needs to work on with internationalization and where we are succeeding. One thing that caught my attention was that 95% of doctoral students saw and felt internationalization more according to the survey. It made me think if more doctoral students saw this because many doctors often do their doctoral work in a different country. It is very common for doctoral students especially for medicine to go to the Caribbean to finish their degree but are associated with American universities so when they return they can easily move into their residency.

Formal assessment is important in higher education but has not been at the forefront of it, which is a huge problem. I find it very interesting that higher education as a whole is having difficulty with formal assessment of educational outcomes and success of their students but this is at the forefront of internationalization of higher education. According to the survey their was a decrease in the early 2000’s of assessment of internationalization but in 2011 they saw an increase in formal assessment of internationalization of higher education of 37%. What phenomenon between 2006 and 2011 occurred that this number increased? Why hasn’t this effected higher education as a whole? Many strategic plans are starting to include internationalization and some institutions are creating separate strategic plans just for internationalization. A concern I have is that if so much effort is put into internationalization an institution will the home campus begin to loose out. This is a reoccurring theme as we have discussed internationalization over the semester. Co-curriculum programs are now progressing to the internationalization end. I have never been a fan of this for the reason as they are no credit, students already spend large amounts of money on college, why would they opt to take a non credit course. Yes, they enhance the curriculum but it makes it hard for students on a budget to enhance their education when they are not receiving credit for a course. Expanding this to internationalization at home is going to leave out a certain socioeconomic group of students who cannot afford that luxury.