A Primer on Internationalization
of a Campus

Preface

As an increasing number of colleges and universities undertake the process of internationalizing their campuses, we see an amazing number of approaches. There are those which believe that internationalization is accomplished best by recruiting and bringing in a large number of international students. This, they believe, is all that is necessary.

Other institutions seem to believe that in addition to these students it is the services required by them, the development of specific organizations for international students (and for those non-international students who profess an interest in the world), and providing outlets for creativity, specific kinds of entertainment, and special "days," that are a necessary part of internationalization and take the process a step further.

Still others add study abroad opportunities, primarily through other organizations, such as the International Student Exchange Program, and arrange travel opportunities through foreign language clubs.

There are various other approaches, all in their way successful, but what we present here is a rather basic approach to internationalization. The material herein comes from one of our own internationalization efforts at Missouri Southern State University.

Based on our research and investigation, the following are what we believe to be the essential ingredients in a successful internationalization effort.

We hope you enjoy our efforts.

Richard W. Massa, Director (1996-99)
Institute of International Studies
Missouri Southern State University

ll members of the faculty must be involved in the internationalization effort. Staff members and students must be involved as well, for the entire community must know what is happening, what the goals are, and what part they are of the entire process.

Gaining the support of such a large and usually diverse group seems, at first, to be impossible, but it can be done. Establish a Task Force for Internationalization. In a detailed memo, outline the specific goals the administration has at this stage and invite all faculty and staff to attend an open meeting for discussion of the process to be used. Establish five or six topics at the most for discussion. Make it clear in the memo that the participation of as many faculty and staff members as possible is desired, for they are to be the developers of the program.

The first meeting should be an "open" one, open to discussion to disparate ideas, even to opposing ideas. The stress is on inclusiveness and it’s really allinclusiveness, each one having the opportunity to speak and to be heard.

Someone, of course, takes notes, preferably on a large pad on an easel so that there is somewhat instantaneous acceptance of the notion that someone is listening and that ideas and messages are being recorded. At the end of the meeting the sheets from the pad are transposed to formal minutes which are then distributed to the entire campus community.

From the meeting should evolve the ideas of forming subcommittees, asking for volunteers when the subcommittees are announced, and stating, again, openly that membership on the subcommittees is open and numbers are desired.

Making sure that ALL have the opportunity to be involved is the first essential step of internationalizing a campus.

ack up with action your demonstration of all-inclusiveness at the open meeting. Get the minutes of that meeting out as quickly as possible, within 36 hours preferably. In a separate document, which could be the first page of the "minutes," announce the five or six sub-committees being formed and give instructions on how faculty and staff may volunteer for service on one of the committees.

Within a week, re-issue the call for volunteers, despite the number you already have. If you have had a great many, say so, but add "We are open to more, because we want this to be a total campus-wide effort." Send e-mail to the community reminding them also. In other words, use paper and e-mail at separate times to reinforce your interest—but not your desperation. Play on "coming together in this great effort" and not on "very few are helping out." Such should not be the case, however, if there has been a genuine attempt to get involvement.

At an appropriate time, but not too long after the general Task Force meeting, send out announcement of committees and their chairs.

How are you selecting the chairs? Probably the vice president for academic affairs should, honoring long service and records of accomplishment; youth with demonstrated vigor, ideas, and support from a good portion of the faculty; and position. There should not be the usual names. There should be a surprise or two, catering to groups where action and support are likely, but in all cases the chairs should be known supporters of the general concept of internationalization and should be persons of vision. Once the chairs have agreed to serve, have them look over the list of volunteers for their committees and ask them if there are names they’d like to add. Have them personally call those individuals to ask them to serve. After all, the volunteers may represent too few departments and some important departments or schools where support is essential may not be represented. They must be, and they must be represented by persons who command respect among their colleagues.

With the chairs, develop the charges to the committees, making sure that the administration’s desires are met as well as the visions of the chairs. Each committee must submit a final report; set the deadline for that. Each committee probably needs to submit interim reports to the entire Task Force body, and most committees probably will need to hold public hearings. Have all these understood, and let the committees go! Receive the final reports.

reate from those final reports an overall, general report from the Task Force to the total community. Who will write that report? Did one chair emerge from the subcommittees as a "take-charge" person with vision? Was there among the chairs a leader? If so, that’s the person to write the report. If there is no such person, find one individual who served on a subcommittee who demonstrated a type of leadership needed for the development and implementation of the internationalization process. You might be surprised who will have emerged as such a leader and by the support that person has across campus.

The report that emerges may use the subcommittee reports as an appendix or in a supplementary document, but the final report must demonstrate a cohesive program of internationalization that will engender further enthusiasm among the members of the community by its overall vision, by its strength of writing, and by it clarity of expression that what is proposed can and will be done—in time.

That document will serve for many years as the "constitution," as it were, for whatever internationalization takes place. It is the document that details the plans, creates the organization, outlines the procedures, and lays out the future for the campus. It is "the vision," and from that vision must emerge reality. Therefore, the document must be structured with realizations that individual subcommittees may not have had. The document must, of necessity, perhaps, reject some proposals for cash outlays and propose, instead budgets based for each of the next five years or ten years based on priorities assigned in development of the total international program. The budgets will show a progression of the development and will help the campus understand how all that is proposed is going to come about.

The document needs to be distributed. Posting it on the web site of the institution is one way. Then individuals can print off copies. Making available copies for those who request one is another way. The most obvious way is to print copies for each and every faculty and staff member. That way, you achieve another aspect of "all-ness" in creating involvement.

Students need to be involved, also, and that may be done by distributing copies of the report to student leaders and then convening a "student task force" to discuss their concepts of internationalization.

etermining the next step is easy. It’s getting the finances to do what has been proposed. If budget is not a problem—that is, if funds can be reassigned, or reorganization is possible, or a special appropriation is likely—then you have few concerns for the future. Unfortunately, most institutions have budgetary problems, and financing an internationalization project looms almost always as a major obstacle. Funding from various grants programs will help some institutions more than others, perhaps, but the federal government’s Title VI grant for international studies and foreign languages is always a source for seed money for specific projects.

Having said that, let’s go back to the final overall report. Did it play up international studies and foreign languages? Or did it merely talk about bringing in international students, adding in some departments a few classes that have "international" or "global" in the course name? Did it define goals and purposes? Did it promise what students would receive as a result of the international program? Did it promise what benefits the state would receive? Did it have a philosophy, in other words? All these become important if you are to sell the request for funding to a grants organization, to a legislature, to a prospective donor, or to whoever has a say in your total budget for the institution. How well thought out is what you wish to do? And while I ordinarily dislike repeating myself: Is there a vision?

So you try the grants route, and you can have some success with Title VI if you have a well thought-out plan and if you work with the Department of Education in planning and writing the grant application. You may try other grant sources, but, again, there must be an extremely well thought-out plan with precise plans for implementation.

You can try cutting budgets elsewhere, and some savings can be made in curricular matters, perhaps, by re-thinking what has been done for years and what may be needed for the new century.

Most international missions fail for lack of on-going funding and lack of detailed, visionary planning. International programs can succeed because of revenue which can be generated by some projects, but international programs do not necessarily internationalize a campus. They make internationalization visible for some students in some majors or areas of study, but they ignore or overlook large numbers of other students and probably most faculty.

arly in the process of implementing the internationalization of the campus, you must have a leader, a faculty member who can get things done. It may well be the person who wrote the report of the Task Force. It may be someone else who has true leadership skills and who can command both support and respect from the faculty. That person needs to be given the authority and the title to lead the effort. If the individual comes from within the faculty, you have a built in guarantee that the leader knows the history of the plan, the traditions of the institution, and probably knows the campus well enough to know where obstacles may lie and where strengths exist.

Empower that person. Give the person the dignity of respect of a title. Permit the person to confer directly with the vice president(s) and the president and to have it made known publicly that he or she enjoys such communication privileges and has the full support of the administration. Do not place the individual under a school or under a dean. Make the person directly responsible to the vice president for academic affairs. The task the individual is undertaking is a difficult one because of the magnitude; it involves the entire campus, every school, every department, every staff member and every faculty member. It will eventually affect every student. The individual will have a responsibility above that of nearly every dean, and for that reason must have a quality of independence few other administrators have.

The title may be Director of International Studies, or Director of the Institute of International Studies, or Dean of International Studies, or Assistant Vice President for International Studies (or International Affairs; that title may be needed if there is under this individual one who directs student and faculty programs while the assistant v.p. directs exchange programs and development of bi-lateral agreements). Other titles may be possible, but whatever the title it should be unique, and it should carry authority. There is nothing more frustrating than having responsibilities but no title to show authority to others.

When this person is chosen and the appointment is announced, the administration signals its support, its commitment, and its intention. With those elements in place, the new leader can function with some degree of awareness that something will get done.

oreign languages are an area requiring immediate and on-going attention. They will most likely be at the heart of any true internationalization program, and if Title VI is to be a target for assistance in funding, it will be through foreign languages that success is achieved.

The first question you will need answered in an international mission is whether or not foreign languages will be required of all graduates. If you simply have an international program, not a mission, then the question which must be asked is what importance are you assigning languages in driving the program.

It is because foreign languages most instantly and most commonly represent the international aspects of a campus and teach internationalism every day of the week that they deserve this importance. One must come to the realization that international problems are usually the result of mis-communication and only through language study—not necessarily to become fluent—does one come face to face with thought processes of other peoples.

On your campus, who takes foreign languages? Probably the B.A. students, often the smallest degree-seeking group on a large campus. Who does not take foreign languages? Those in business, education, and technology, most commonly. Where are our biggest needs for language proficiency today? In business, wholesale, retail, marketing and management; in education, where we also have a massive need for TESOL-certified instructors; in law enforcement, the health professions, and manufacturing; in social work, and in many other fields that cross all lines of schools and departments.

Should we require languages of all graduates? That’s your decision, but certainly there should be a goal set of increasing numbers of graduating seniors in each and every field demonstrating exposure to languages. Setting goals of proficiency in language is another step, and making language offerings more attractive to non-B.A. students is yet another step.

One way to achieve the latter is through a restructuring of language offerings. The traditional five-day-a-week, five-credit-hour course serves its purpose of language training well, but it also serves as a deterrent to those not required to have languages. A three-day-a-week, three-credit-hour structure may not only increase enrollment in individual courses but may cause a student to prolong his or her exposure to languages and to pursue a minor.

eneral education courses are a good place to start in examining the internationalization of the curriculum. Let’s assume for a moment that foreign languages are part of the general requirements, at least for B.A. majors. Their part in the internationalization of the curriculum should be clear. It’s the other courses that need to be examined. Where and in what way can some or many of these courses be "internationalized" or are they already? Art, music and theatre should be easy. They are fundamentally international in nature if they include historical surveys. A literature requirement generally fits, also, if it involves either world literature or English literature as minimum requirements. Mathematics and science courses are perhaps international in every way except clarifying to students the international language they speak and the historical development involved.

American government and American history are international in their comparisons with other governments, perhaps, and in their detailing of entanglements with foreign powers.

What seems to emerge as one examines general education courses is that there is an international aspect to each of them, far more than one might suppose at first glance. It may well be the faculty teaching the classes who need to be internationalized.

Faculty who are not internationally-minded may miss the international aspects of courses. If they have not traveled abroad, they are less likely to instill in the minds of students the advantages of travel and study abroad, and will be unable to bring into class personal lessons or experiences learned internationally and applicable to the course they teach.

But since general education courses reach all students, beginning in the freshman year, these are the courses we must be sure help convey the international mission and help promote the international programs.

One sure place for this to take place is the freshman orientation course or whatever name we may give it. That course should be totally organized around the explanation of the mission of the institution and how everything fits together to fulfill that mission. If the faculty in other general education courses need to be internationalized, this course may well have to bear the brunt of internationalization of the core curriculum.

elping faculty members become internationalized is one of the essential goals of the mission or program. Faculty members should be surveyed: Who have passports? Who and where have they traveled? What is the biggest hindrance towards their going abroad? (Family obligations and graduate school debts will loom large here.) What kinds of assistance would they like see given the faculty for "internationalization purposes"?

So we’re back to funding, because that will be the primary answer to the final question. Faculty will likely suggest they be subsidized 100 per cent for travel and study abroad, or, at the least, to the same extent percentage-wise that they are for attending conferences in this country.

How are travel budgets, then, to be re-arranged or re-appropriated? In those institutions which receive special appropriations for international missions, it’s easy to set aside a fairly substantial sum of money to award competitive travel grants based on assigned priorities. Those priorities may include: leading a student study tour; attending an international university for a special course or session; presenting a major paper or address at an international conference; merely attending an international conference; visiting international institutions for the purpose of negotiating cooperative agreements; and other such reasons for travel.

Where there is no special appropriation, the overall travel allocation policy may need to be examined, and the institution must make a decision as to what priorities must exist. For the largest universities where funds may be more plentiful than in smaller institutions, there may be little problem. In the small institutions, however, where internationalization can perhaps more easily permeate the entire campus, the travel allowance generally is small, and faculty members find it much more difficult to contemplate traveling abroad for the institution. Personal expenditures provide opportunities, and personal enrichment results, and somehow these must be rewarded when it is proved they affect the individual’s teaching, influence students to think internationally, and bring a global view to another section of the campus. Whatever categories the institution uses for promotion and tenure, such travel and influence should be a consideration.

Faculty may need regular seminars on internationalizing the curriculum. They may need to hear about efforts made elsewhere and the results gained in those instances. But the director of the internationalization process must do everything possible to help the faculty become internationalized.

nternational students, without question, become part of any effort at internationalizing an institution. The only question is: To what extent? If they become the sole means of internationalization, then the thrust is away from totality of experiences for the college’s non-international students and more towards vicarious experiences by contacts with persons from other cultures. The benefits are there, and the multicultural experiences can be useful—if fully capitalized on.

However, doesn’t internationalization require students to know more than the fact that students from other lands may attend their institution? Isn’t the concept of internationalization one of applying knowledge and experiences to subject matter and integrating these into the learning process, not merely the social process?

Institutions like to use international students to give foreign food fairs, to speak as cultural ambassadors to local civic clubs, to make presentations in some isolated classes across campus on their culture and homeland. Are they rewarded for such services? Should they be? What strain might be put on their own academic careers by performing these services? And would we expect our non-international students ever to perform such services to represent their hometowns or counties or states?

International students need special services. They need assistance with visa problems, for example. They will have special problems, and the types of services which need to be provided are more than some institutions can handle simply because of numbers. The expenses in maintaining such services may, in essence, detract from the goal of giving non-international students first-hand experiences in international affairs, from allowing additional funds for faculty travel and from internationalizing the curriculum. Is the trade-off worth it? What about scholarships? Is there a scholarship program for international students? Could the funding for that program be diverted into travel grants for American students to go abroad?

There are no easy answers, but these are questions one must face. Examine carefully, once again, the over-reaching goal of your internationalization efforts.

oining any of the many organizations devoted to international education becomes a matter of early concern, as well. There seem to be so many to choose from, and each that is referred to you seems necessary if you are to have a credible program.

NAFSA, for example, would seem an absolute must. Its many sections provide help for almost any problem that could conceivably arise. NAFSA: Association of International Educators promotes the exchange of students and scholars to and from the United States. The Association sets and upholds standards of good practice and provides professional education and training that strengthen institutional programs and services related to international educational exchange. NAFSA provides a forum for discussion of issues and a network for sharing information as it seeks to increase awareness of and support for international education in higher education, in government, and in the community.

IIE, The Institute of International Education is perhaps the most experienced organization in educational exchange and training, is the source for news and information on Fulbright scholarships and fellowships, and sponsors programs attracting some 18,000 persons a year.

ACE, the American Council on Education, has an international initiative and a clear statement as to why internationalization is important. It begins: "America’s future depends upon our ability to develop a citizen base that is globally competent. Our nation’s place in the world will be determined by our society--whether it is internationally competent, comfortable, and confident. Will our citizens be competent in international affairs, comfortable with cultural diversity at home and abroad, and confident of their ability to cope with the uncertainties of a new age and a different world?

AASCU, The American Association of State Colleges and Universities has programs abroad one needs to know about.

Membership in these organizations can guide an institution to sources and resources not easily found elsewhere, and will find "soul-mates" for those at your institution responsible for developing programs.

nowledge must be the ultimate goal of any international program or mission, and while that seems a simple statement to make, investigation may show that many activities which pass under the guise of "international study tours" are explorations of a far different kind.

Assessment of each project must be an on-going concern for the director and for the institution as a whole. Guidelines for group travel experiences and expectations for solo adventures must be clear and concise and great care must be taken to assure the entire community that we are, indeed, in the business of education.

If we say we want our students to have a knowledge and understanding of other nations and their cultures, then, as in any academic course, procedure, or offering, our task is to emphasize the gaining of such knowledge.

If a department proposes to offer for college credit a study tour of one-week or two-week or however-long duration, there must be an academic syllabus addressing the material to be covered and the techniques to be used in covering that material. There must be an assessment program, and the assessment must be not only of an individual student’s work but also of the entire tour itself.

Usually institutions put into their mission statements something about knowledge and gaining knowledge. Yet, too often, in international travel programs they tend to seek numbers traveling abroad rather than assuring quality of each program. Institutions take great pride in reporting the numbers of students traveling abroad each year, percentages of their total student body, and places traveled, but more difficult to identify is the quality of each experience.

Written reports from students may address one phase of assessment, but unless the reports are insightful and reflective, they, too, may not be indicative of quality of experience or even quality of the education received at the institution.

The knowledge aspect of international programs needs to be measured carefully. We may forget to do so, in favor of numbers.

ondon, Paris, and Rome are all exciting cities, and your students may well be ready for these as their first experience abroad. These three cities quite naturally lend themselves to a variety of course disciplines and provide experiences students can forever cherish. It is these three cities which provide opportunities in organizing study tours for the first-time traveler.

London has an advantage as the starting point on any three-city tour; it is a city where customs are different but the language is basically the same. Students will be able to adapt to slight variations in pronunciations, to the various "accents" the Britons speak, and at the same time pick up a few new words or, rather, a few words with different meanings.

In London they are introduced to the society from which much of American society originally sprang, and they may come face to face with royalty for the first time. London is a great city for those interested in literature, in drama, in history, in economics, in government, in education, in nursing, and in many other fields. In London a student can feel at home yet away from home and there may be fewer fears of "messing up" because of the language. It’s a good city to be introduced to the subway system or to other forms of public transportation if the student comes from a city or town where buses are rare and walking or private auto are the chief modes of transportation.

Paris allows a student to savor a different culture, a different language, and a subway system that is one of the best in the world and allows one to see much of Paris in an easy manner. It’s interesting, however, that on their own many students will see only certain quarters of Paris and miss some of the really remarkable sites and locales. But for the student of language, of literature, of economics, of business and government, Paris is a city of learning as well as of light.

Rome is the magnificent experience of ancient history, and students can delight in the ruins of ancient Rome and walk where the Caesars walked. As a city of art and glorious fountains, Rome becomes even more a symbol of what students think of when they think of travel; there is adventure everywhere.

Three cities may be too many and too expensive for a beginning, but you can’t go wrong with any two of the three.

ission statements are part and parcel of any attempt at internationalization. If there’s no sentence within the mission statement which clearly points out the reason for any attempts at internationalization, then you are on dangerous ground. There must be a reason for your international program or mission, and the reason or reasons must be made clear to all of your constituent publics. It’s not a case of justification; it’s a case of stating what you are doing and that you are doing it.

True enough, many institutions have mission statements which are filled with vague, somewhat meaningless terms and promises which are difficult to prove as having been fulfilled or left unfulfilled. "Nourishing the spirit and enriching the soul" are difficult to assess, yet there are institutions which say they are doing these things. Of course, they really are, but how? What programs do these things?

An efficient organization has a mission statement which outlines precisely what its goals are and how it intends to reach those goals. That mission statement, in many cases, makes promises of what the institution will do to benefit the student and society. State-supported institutions make promises of what it will do to benefit the state.

Internationalism is met with skeptics in many cities, in many parts of the nation, and as part of a mission statement of a college or university; therefore, it needs to make clear why it considers internationalism important. So important is this statement it may need to be stated in a separate document to go alongside the mission statement. Internationalism must be defined by those implementing it so that all of those doing so will be able to agree on common outcomes.

Many philosophies exist for internationalizing a campus, and such statements from other institutions need to be sought out and examined. You will find a wide variety of opinions expressed and reasons, but they all seem to suggest internationalism is for the good of the student who will live and work in the 21^st century. But they need to explain why, and if languages are a significant base of any attempts at internationalism, languages must be specifically spoken to and the need for language study addressed.

ever assume that everyone agrees with your statement of internationalism nor that everyone even reads it. Never assume that everyone thinks you are doing a great job with your international program or mission because so many faculty and so many students are going abroad. You must sell the public and you must do it over and over.

What you must sell to the public is all that you are doing internationally and why what you are doing is benefiting those who support the institution. Tell why the community is benefiting, the region, the state. And if there is a national prominence, promote it, but always within the contest that local citizens are benefiting from what you are doing internationally.

If you are located in a rural area or in an area somewhat provincial in outlook, if your student population includes a great many first-generation college students, your responsibilities for informing the public is even greater. Students themselves need to be reminded why they chose this college and why what the college is doing is benefiting them.

You’ve lived through the arguments of general education courses and why students have to take those. The same is true with any program of an international flavor. Many students do not choose a college on the basis of internationalism, but if they do come to a college with an international program, they need to have explained to them what you have said in the mission statement and they need to know you truly believe what you are saying.

You also need to explain cost factors and how they can solve some of the cost problems of traveling or studying abroad.

If you don’t have the answers to those questions, why not? They are part of the internationalism of a campus.

That’s another reason you will find that internationalizing the faculty will be a long process, perhaps, because you will want faculty members who have experienced the same problems students have today in terms of deciding whether or not to study abroad. New hires may have to be made with international backgrounds in mind as you continue to try to give international experiences to existing faculty.

And in those new hires, are you sure they accept your mission statement and agree with your positions on international education and on the importance of languages in the curriculum?

rientation programs will solve many of your problems—orientation programs for new students and for new faculty. Most institutions have some sort of freshman orientation program, and many of these programs need total revamping to fit the Internet age, the travel age, and the internationalization efforts you are making. Some institutions fail to give new faculty members as complete an orientation as is necessary. Both groups need to be told about the international programs and mission, and they need to understand the whys and hows.

Of equal concern should be transfer students and prospective students. They, too, need intensive programs of orientation.

In fact, when you look at what some colleges do, you realize that orientation is one of the things they do worse than any other. Orientation to classes is often bad, and students often leave the first class period without any real feeling as to what the class is going to accomplish, what its goals are, and what the professor is really like. Freshman orientation is often like that. Too often freshmen are told how to compute grade point averages, how to use the library, where to go for various services, but have no idea of why they are in this class or at this college if they have to be told these things. They need first of all to know what education is and how this college is going to approach it.

Orientation for transfer students is often overlooked because colleges believe they already know why they are in college and they have suddenly become wise enough to know they should have been here to begin with.

Orientation for students traveling abroad is often pitiful. They are told basic facts they can find in guidebooks and in handouts from the college. They need to know about culture shock, how they might react, and how to get the most possible out of the experience they are going to have. And they need to understand fully why they are going. As in any other class, they need to know what the value is, the purpose is of this particular experience. Never assume they know. Orient them.

Faculty need orientation themselves every so often. Seminars and open meetings about internationalism help accomplish this orientation and help keep faculty in tune with what the goals are and what the institution hopes to accomplish. It is the faculty who are the key to these accomplishments.

ublic relations will be an integral part of the program. Both internal and external public relations programs are necessary, one to keep the campus community informed and a part of all efforts, and the other to sell the public and prospective donors, future students, and legislators on the efficiency and effectiveness of what the institution is doing.

To do public relations for an international mission or program, however, requires a p.r. person experienced in travel, in international study, and in the world of international media. The playing field is totally different from the one in which the institution is simply publicized. Here one is seeking not only the always hoped-for national coverage but international coverage as well, and that will require accurate reporting by the public relations person who has a solid understanding of academia here and abroad.

It requires, also, the right kind of publications—publications which are filled with color, with excitement, and which tell a story. Design must be of a type that has appeal for audiences abroad as well as nationally, and different publications for different audiences may be necessary. The use of foreign languages must be carefully inspected to make sure that there are no "other" meanings than those intended.

Public relations offices are often understaffed at small institutions; therefore, a greater responsibility for public relations may fall on the shoulders of the director of international programs. That person will need to work closely with the p.r. person, but perhaps more importantly, the p.r. person will need to rely on the director’s instincts and knowledge of what works best internationally.

Public relations personnel must be sensitive to the use of colors and designs for international programs and other publications. They need to be sensitive to flag placement and completely aware of flag protocol. Public relations personnel need to be aware of the proper protocol for visitors from other countries, and in most cases from each country visitors come. Gifts are a necessity for these visitors, but the public relations person must be conscious that some gifts are totally inappropriate for visitors from some lands, and must take care that they are not unintentionally insulting their guests. The same is true in the use of flowers.

Public relations on the international scene is simply not the same as on the national scene and institutions must be aware of the differences.

uizzes are a useful tool in learning for students. They should be useful for administrators of international programs as well. They are, of course, self-assessment quizzes of how well we are doing and whether or not we are accomplishing our goals and keeping our promises.

The most important question to be asked in this quiz is Why? But it has many variations: Why are we continuing to do what we do? Why are we implementing new programs (or why are we not implementing new programs)? Why are we concentrating on this program rather than that program? And, of course, many more.

Next: What. What is missing? What do we need to do better? What can we do better in each existing program? What do we need to implement? And, of course, many more.

Then: Who. Just who is benefiting from what we are doing? Etc.

You get the drift, don’t you?

Institutions need to be relentless in grading themselves, assessing themselves, in what they are doing and in whom they are really serving. After all, internationalism can be an expensive program and the dollars spent must be justifiable.

An internal audit may be called for, not necessarily of funds, but of procedures as well as of funds. Are the procedures fair and ethical to all concerned? Is there any hint of favoritism to a department or a school or a faculty group or student group in awarding funds? Are procedures written out? Are there written policies? Are they followed?

Does everyone have a chance at grants which might be awarded? Are the rules established early enough so that everyone knows what to expect if they participate?

Quizzes can be a bane in a student’s life. They probably should be a bane in the life of an international programs administrator for they represent a philosophy that has been expounded, published, publicized, and pushed. Without the quizzes there may be no way of knowing our successes and failures.

emember why you instituted the program of internationalism. Remember what you wanted to accomplish, and remember all those high-sounding words and phrases that were put down on paper to justify the internationalization of the campus.

Remember the students, the faculty, the townspeople who were to benefit from what you did.

Remembering is part of the assessment process. It’s a reminder to yourself that you had an idea, a goal, and that you have ethics.

The reason for even listing remembering in a primer on internationalization is that we too often see administrators of such programs get lost in the daily grind of the job and forget the reason for the job and whom they are serving.

Remembering, therefore, is not just for international programs; it’s for every administrator in every job, as well as for faculty and staff.

Remembering also refers back to one’s own first international experience, and what that experience came to mean to you and when it took on that meaning. It means putting yourself back where the students are today and trying to remember the mistakes you made from which you did not learn and the mistakes you made from which you did learn.

Remembering is something every faculty member should do, recalling the times spent in class as an undergraduate and the temptations that were around and what was inspiring and what was not and what led you to that international experience.

Remembering is keeping up with international news and using that news to add meaning to the lives of students. Maybe a bulletin board outside your office with today’s headlines from around the world will convince some student that there is a world out there and that they are part of it. Maybe they will thank you for the bulletin board, and maybe they won’t. But you will not know the affect it has unless you try.

Remember to be international yourself, in other words, and to convey internationalism in your work.

incerity in everything you say and write is an important aspect of internationalism. You have got to demonstrate that you believe in the concept, in the idea, and that it is necessary for education.

How do you achieve sincerity? By believing wholeheartedly in what you are doing. That’s another reason the mission statement is so very important. It is an explication of attitudes and beliefs. That’s why an assessment program (the "quizzes," if you will) is so very important; it’s a demonstration of sincerity. That’s why a knowledgeable person in public relations is essential; it’s a demonstration of your institution’s total belief in what it is doing. That’s why honesty and ethics in every single financial undertaking are important; they are other signs of your sincere belief in your work.

Sincerity is important for another reason, too; it is so often the easiest quality of an educational experience to be omitted. We may pride ourselves on our efficiency and our accuracy, even on our friendliness and our service, but we may still lack sincerity.

In dealings with our colleagues in other countries, we need that sincerity as well, and we need to know how sincerity is expressed in other cultures, how a handshake may not be enough and how a gift is all-important.

In knowing these things, again, we show sincerity. In not knowing them, we demonstrate a lack of real concern, a lack of caring, and we could call into question our entire program.

Attention to details is necessary in the work of the international programs administrator, but sincerity in the reason for checking those details is ultimately the key to many of the successes we will eventually have.

An administrator who says, "It’s the administration’s desire, not mine," is revealing too much of his own insincerity and disassociating himself from the administration. One would question, then, the sincerity of the total program.

To achieve sincerity, believe in what you do, and if internationalism is more than a catch phrase of the times and is truly a mission in which you believe, then sincerity will be easier to achieve.

enure and promotion should be tied to the international mission. If the college has an international mission or declares its international programs to be at the heart of its academic program, then participation by faculty in internationalizing their own courses, participation in international conferences and colloquia, submission of articles to international publications all should be criteria to be considered in granting promotion or awarding tenure.

It’s a demonstration of the sincerity you have in your own program.

The mission statement, the promotion and tenure policy, and the faculty handbook are three places where the sincerity of the campus in its international mission or programs is clearly demonstrated. Unless these documents all agree as to the importance and significance of the program or mission, then it should be back to the drawing board to step A: All faculty and staff must be involved.

If they are involved, there should little or no hesitancy to a tenure or promotion policy or policies which require demonstration of some sort of international activities. For promotion to full professor such demonstration should be mandatory and it should be a demonstration of having met with international colleagues on their own turf, working on agreements, and coming to an understanding of cooperation.

Sounds stringent, doesn’t it?

Well, maybe it is.

But the stringency of your own policy or policies as they develop will be the evidence of your own seriousness and sincerity in the mission or program you have undertaken.

Instituting such a policy will not be difficult, if all have been involved or if efforts to involve all have been sincerely made.

But remember, the mission statement, the faculty handbook, and the policies on promotion and tenure should point out the sincere belief you have in your internalization attempts.

niqueness is a hallmark of international programs. That seems strange to say when you look at the similarities of programs between campuses and the cooperative programs that exist between so very many campuses here and abroad. But uniqueness is possible.

Each campus needs to make an inventory of its existing resources, of the hidden or overlooked talents of its faculty and staff, of language skills, of relationships, of heritage and interests.

It needs to examine its geographical area and remind itself of the cultural make-up of the area historically as well as currently.

Internationalism is all around us simply because of our ancestry and because of the ancestry of our friends and neighbors. And those facts can be utilized by us in developing special emphases and special centers of expertise. It takes only one such center to establish uniqueness, but it does take some vision, and some awareness of what can be done.

Uniqueness comes in the "twists" added to everything done in the name of internationalization, and again, a qualified public relations person is a tremendous asset in publicizing and handling some of these events. A two-way videoconference between your school and a European partner can become a major news event if handled properly. All it takes is familiarity with the partner school’s locale, a good florist, a good caterer in that city (or university food service, if such exists) to have surprises for the partner. Even flying a person from your school to the other school to make a presentation on camera on behalf of your president to the president of the other institution is fairly easily arranged. That person’s trip can be tied in with visits to other partners or to desired new partners, but it makes for a news event because it is unique.

Uniqueness comes in the attitudes we have in developing programs and in creating the future programs of which we will be so proud.

Uniqueness simply means being the one of its kind, and for that uniqueness you simply need a one of a kind director or promoter.

enues for programs on your campus are probably somewhat plentiful, or at least they exist, and certainly you want as often as possible to bring your public to your campus to see what you are doing. But there are times when you should seek venues off campus.

Internationalization, after all, implies a coming together of cultures. The process, therefore, could and should involve taking your own efforts to civic clubs, public and private schools, to senior citizens. Our approach is more than merely a faculty member making a presentation, but that is one way of achieving our ultimate goal of taking the college to the people. But it’s also possible to book programs and speakers for your college but to hold their presentations off-campus.

It’s also possible to develop somewhat regular meetings with constituents in your area at public school auditoriums or even in churches to discuss the internationalization program.

Venues are important because they reveal something about the institution. If the venue is off campus it reveals that the college cares enough to go where the people are. If the venue is on campus it demands that we be receptive to those who come, that we extend a different kind of welcome than we might have in the past.

For international programs, flags and costumes become significant, as do hallway displays and stage décor with international flavors. It is not merely the program which is international; it should be the entire setting and the atmosphere. Plan a reception featuring Chinese food after a program of Chinese music, held in an auditorium with slight touches of Chinese décor. Adapt this to any culture at any time, and carry it out in the printed program you hand out.

And in that printed program, be sure to include a full page about your international program, what it is, and what it does and will do.

Venues are where we hold programs. Make sure the programs adapt the venue to fit and that the total atmosphere and aura are international.

riting about international experiences is a valuable way to inculcate the spirit of adventure in the readers. Students should write reports about their travels; faculty members should write reports about theirs; and the director should write about personal travel experiences. The best should be available on the web site the international program has, and if very good, the reports or selected reports should appear in printed form for distribution.

Many do not write good reports. They write about what they saw and did, not what they felt or tasted or smelled. They do not write about the sum total of their experiences but about the sum total of events.

Encourage good writing, appropriate writing, and make writing reports part of the orientation program prior to a trip. It is not enough that the trip be planned as an educational experience in history, literature, or whatever, but the concept of writing across the curriculum should be present, too. How often does a student get the opportunity to write about foreign travel? Shouldn’t the writing be worthwhile?

Teaching writing is really teaching another person to be observant to all the senses, and to experiment on one’s own, to face adventure (within reason, of course) in the taste of new foods, the familiarity with new flowers, the fun of shopping in a foreign market.

In teaching writing, one is actually teaching how to get even more out of the trip than one might have first imagined. Teaching writing is to teach one to observe the changes occurring within oneself and to mark those changes at the time and place, or to read the essay later and discover the moment a discovery was made.

Writing is the secret ingredient missing from many orientations and from many international programs, yet writing is a skill that provides pleasure years later when one goes back to read what impressions were gained on a particular journey.

Writing reports becomes a task of the director and of others associated with the internationalization process, but the well-written reports turned in by students and faculty on their travel will make report writing much easier. They will serve as evidence of missions accomplished.

anadu may have been a stately palace for Kublai Khan or even Citizen Kane, but as a place of imagination, as a castle of our dreams it became a goal we yearned for as youths. At least, for many of us Xanadu became a symbol at a time when we could dream and have ambitions despite the threat of wars, of A-bombs, of bomb shelters, or whatever other terrors may have awaited us.

In an international program, therefore, let Xanadu stand for the dreams that you hope your students have or the dreams that you will try to give them in becoming part of the process.

Bulletin boards, flyers, posters, news releases, personal letters are all devices to help you give that dream to students. Freshman orientation class must help give dreams; professors will help give dreams; but take nothing for granted; you, too, must give them "the stuff dreams are made of."

Have you considered travelogues running throughout the Student Center, showing exotic places and wonderful times? Have you considered classical music piped into the hallways of some classroom buildings at certain times of the day? Have you considered posters of foreign lands on walls of classroom buildings and of classrooms, themselves?

Have you considered displays of newspapers from around the world, perhaps recording the same date in time? Have you considered writing letters to each and every student telling them what services you offer and what kinds of dreams you’d like them to have? (These letters must be extremely well written and must not have the flavor that so many institutional letters have!)

How do you utilize the services of international students on campus other than through food fairs? Have you tried talent shows? Have you tried letting these international students demonstrate in classes something of their homeland?

Of course, you have done many of these things, and you know the importance of flag displays and flag plazas, but what have you done about them?

Internationalization must be seen, and touched, and heard, and smelled, and tasted, and only when all the senses have been utilized will Xanadu really exist as only a dream. Reality will take its place.

ou have read some ideas. For each letter there are other ideas. There are groups of ideas for some letters, but many of these are for another time and another level of sophistication in the process of internationalizing a campus. You, though, have chosen a worthy task, and the rewards will be many.

As you begin you will encounter some difficult times and even some roadblocks. The nay-sayers will pound you at times; there even will be those who say internationalization is evil and you are doing the work of the devil. You know the truth, however, and you know that what you are building is a world of difference, of understanding, of peace-seekers, of those who want to cooperate with one another and learn from one another and teach one another.

What matters most is that students will meet other peoples in other lands.

From a purely personal viewpoint, one of the greatest experiences in this author’s life was being in Africa with a very good friend. We saw things together that we had never thought about seeing at all. What made it special for me was that the friend was now a colleague, who was to succeed me in my position, but who had been a student of mine 20 years before and whom I had grown to love as a son.

I told him many times on that African trip that I had promised him in class that someday we would see the world together. And here we were. With him I met people I came to respect and admire for their tenacity, for their forbearance, for their ability to withstand pain of poverty and illness and yet smile and extend a hand in friendship.

I sometimes think that week in Africa is what has come to symbolize for me the entire internationalization process and what we all work for and dream of.

You will share such joys and such pleasures with others, but always keep in mind that what you are doing is for others and for peace and understanding throughout the world.

Before one trip abroad I saw the musical The King and I once more on Broadway and I listened carefully to the song, "Getting to Know You." Listen to the lyrics. They are the lyrics of our work.

eal! That’s what you need. A zeal, a zest for living and for working and for traveling, and energy galore. It’s not hard to get, but it may be difficult to maintain. Advancing age and infirmities may rob you somewhat of some of the pleasures. The steps get harder to climb. The mountains seem steeper. But zeal will get you through the roughest times.

Zeal when you do those reports and make those financial accountings.

Zeal when you answer the same question a thousand times and know you’ll hear it 10 thousand more times.

Zeal when the e-mail fails, the fax goes on the fritz, and tickets are not delivered on time or the passports are not returned with visas on schedule.

Zeal when you get to the airport with your group and find that one student gave her nickname to you for her ticket but her passport is in her real name and both documents must match!

Zeal when a student is missing one night in Zurich and no one has any idea where she might be.

Zeal when someone says to you in the hallway, "You did know that I’m leading 30 students to Dakar, didn’t you?" and you had no idea.

Zeal when someone says, "Do you really think you know how to internationalize a campus?"

Zeal when the president calls you and asks if you have arranged the dinner for tonight that he had spoken about to your previous secretary a month ago? (And you didn’t know a thing about it.)

Zeal when the telephone starts ringing while students are on summer trips abroad and you are not sure whether there are problems, complaints, or hurricanes.

Zeal when an earthquake strikes the city where a group of 25 of your students are, and first reports are that 25 Americans are dead, but you know your students are safe, because you had emergency procedures in place for such an occurrence, and you’ve heard from them.

Zeal when the students start returning and you see new excitement, hear new enthusiasm, and sense new desires and new dreams.

Zeal because you know what you are doing is right.

Good luck!

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