Posted on by Kristen.VanVleck · 2 Comments

W9 – Global Strategic Planning

The three main Global Strategic Plans we have read in this class (Baruch last week and Ohio University and Middlesex Community College this week) all have similar themes.  The broad goals for each include increasing study abroad, creating international partnerships, and internationalizing the home campus through increased global themes in the curriculum, emphasizing international student recruitment, and fostering a welcoming environment for international students.  It was nice to see that diverse institution types put such an emphasis on internationalization.  However, the way each institution goes about creating a Global Strategic Plan varies widely regarding approach, specificity, and presentation.

Ohio University’s Global Strategic Plan almost seemed more like a persuasive paper about the importance of having an international component in education than a tangible plan of an established university.  They provide an extensive background, even going into historical trends such as the transition from a service economy to a knowledge economy focused on communication technologies.  They spent about a third of the document focusing on AIEA’s first principle of successful strategic planning: “Educate about internationalization.”  It seems they are convincing the campus community of the need for large scale internationalization.  This is in contrast to the strategic plans we’ve read on the East Coast, specifically Baruch with a student body that is already extremely diverse in a setting where the importance of internationalization needs little explanation.

Middlesex Community College’s (MCC) Global Strategic Plan is very specific, including a number of specific documents in their appendix such as applications for MCC study abroad programs and a promotional flier regarding the Mission and Values of the college.  These support documents indicate a level of organization and preparedness not seen in the other strategic plans.  For example, Appendix A is a worksheet in the form of a table that includes columns about each Strategic Direction of the college and the corresponding specific initiatives, measurements, resources, and areas for further research.  Along with Appendix A, MCC used tools to succinctly present the information in a way that anyone could understand.  For example, the SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) and the Goals and Strategies (pg. 21 – 24) were both great ways to not only establish what the institution is already doing but also to clearly outline specific activities and evaluation methods.  They were able to efficiently fulfill many of AIEA’s strategic planning principles including “establishing a timeline”, “ensure that internationalization touches all students,” and “disseminate the information.”

Both Global Strategic Plans share common characteristics.  For example, they both emphasize the importance of preparing students to succeed in an increasingly interconnected world and produce graduates capable of solving complicated global problems.  They also both connect the new Global Strategic Plan with the institutional mission and general strategic plan.  However, Middlesex seem to be further along in the strategic planning process than Ohio University.  MCC also seems to be more coordinated.  This could be due to a number of factors including the institution’s current student enrollment (MCC is more racially diverse), or size (MCC has about 12,000 students while Ohio University has 17,000 undergrads, but almost 6,000 graduate and doctorate students).  In both of these areas Middlesex has an advantage when it comes to global strategic planning.  Additionally, perhaps because Middlesex is a Community College there are fewer distinct schools and fewer degree levels, making it easier to craft a strategic plan to applies to everyone.  Regardless, both institutions clearly but a lot of effort into crafting these strategic plans and each has their own strengths and weaknesses.

Posted on by Ben Levine · 5 Comments

W9- Let’s look at the Stats

First of all, I would like to say that the global strategies laid out by Middlesex Community College and Ohio University are pretty impressive. To have such a focus on internationalization signifies that the states (Massachusetts and Ohio) have deep interest in promoting the concept of global citizenship. It is one thing for a private institution to have that type of support is one thing, but public institutions? And on top of that, a community college?

Reading BRIC Universities as Institutions in the Process of Change shed more light on the autonomy and structuring of educational systems in various countries around the world. Every country does things a little bit differently when it comes to funding by local, state, and federal governments. HEIs might thrive better depending on which level they are more closely tied to, if they have a choice at all. Learning about how other countries’ systems are constructed got me thinking about how things are done in the United States. The autonomy of a college varies so much state by state, whether it is a matter of money or mission. We see lots of controversy even in our own state of New York, where there are battled being waged between city and state governments. Conversely, other states have fewer problems, maybe because cities aren’t as big or educational systems as vast. Additionally, some states are experiencing major changes whose results are yet to be seen. The state of Connecticut has merged all its public colleges into one system, thus removing degrees of autonomy from each individual college.

What I really would like to talk about though goes back to the global strategies. Since I’m always looking to create some debate in this class, I’d like to comment on the purpose of the extensive global strategies of the two colleges being discussed. What I have to say is this: it makes sense for them. Throughout this course we are promoting and worshipping internationalization; it’s as if we are saying successful, smart colleges will encourage it and bad colleges don’t. I’m not on that bandwagon. I think internationalization is a choice, and it doesn’t HAVE TO BE a major focus of a college’s overall strategic plan or mission.

Let’s compare the demographics of Baruch with Middlesex Community College and Ohio University. If you look at Baruch’s numbers, they show that the college is extremely diverse. Lots of whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. As I’ve mentioned before, over half of these students are either from other countries or have parents who came from abroad. I just don’t see the purpose of pushing and pushing internationalization at a college like this. It’s internationalized enough as it is. Now, let’s look at Middlesex’s and Ohio’s numbers. Quite a different story! The former is 66% white and the latter is almost 82%! I think it makes sense why these colleges have such thorough plans- because they want to attract more diverse students. By encouraging study abroad programs, international students, IaH, these schools can become ‘better.’

To me, all a school like Baruch needs to do is celebrate what it already has. Clubs, events, representation- that’s more important. Show the students that they are wanted and respected. If some students want to study abroad, make sure a program exists. But, personally, I do not believe Baruch needs a global strategy like that of Middlesex or Ohio.

Posted on by m.parsowith · 2 Comments

W9, Blog 9: Melissa Parsowith (Article Response)

This week’s readings, while all centering around strategy, were extremely different in nature. The first article I read, “Global Strategy & Internationalization at OHIO,” gave a great, but lengthy overview of a global University’s strategic plan and vision for its future. The document reviewed important points such as what OHIO University offers currently to its students, what their personal strategy is to create and prepare global leaders moving forward, how the present trends of higher education play a role into their goals, and ultimately the framework that they will focus on in order to accomplish their goals. Something I really liked about this piece was the fact that they include a “Questions for Further Dialogue” part at the end of each section. When reading a huge piece such as this, I find that as the reader, it can sometimes be a helpful tool to pause and absorb everything you have just read. The questions helped prompt the reader to think deeper and more critically about OHIO and their global plans and strategies. I also greatly enjoyed their use of graphs, charts, and “Fast Facts” sections. This helped dissect the article into reader-friendly portions.

The next article I read was “BRIC Universities as Institutions in the Process of Change.” As a side note, I was not aware that “BRIC” was an acronym for “Brazil, Russia, India, China” In the future, it may be helpful for the article to have that mentioned somewhere before we begin reading so we have more of a framework for what the title means. In this excerpt, the author discusses how each country influences change in their universities and how the institutions have responded. As expected, each BRIC state establishes a unique relationship with its higher educational system, based on the political structure present.

The last article I read was the global strategic plan of Middlesex Community College from 2014-2017. I found this extremely interesting because it was nice to compare and contrast from other strategic plans of 4-year universities. Their plan just reestablished to me how important the globalization of higher education is. Although community colleges are not always considered in research, etc because of the varying nature of their students, faculty and academic offerings, I was impressed to see that a community college has acknowledged the ever-present trend of “going global” and has established groundwork to accommodate their students this way.

After reading all of this week’s articles, something that I found was a reoccurring theme was the basic need to create a global strategy, and the greater nod that these pieces have as to the direction our higher education institutions are headed worldwide. I was looking at NAFSA’s website and found a really cool page titled “Trends & Insights” of global Higher Education. I think that these links really speak to a lot of the points we have discussed in class, such as going global, but at what cost? or the limit of academic freedom on global campuses. Feel free to click the link and take a look!