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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

Leading Internationalization Kavita Pandit State University of New York American universities are facing a growing imperative to internationalize to prepare students to live and work in a globalized world, to enhance scholarship and discovery, and to foster economic links between their communities and the rest of the world. Comprehensive internationalization strategies include the integration of international content into the curriculum, increasing study abroad participation, recruiting and interacting with international students, and building strong and effective international partnerships and networks. Geography’s traditions of regional study, fieldwork, and synthesis give us a historic opportunity to position ourselves as institutional leaders in defining internationalization. To do so, we need to build on the strong international foundation of our curriculum and its content and begin to embrace the breadth of international practices. By becoming central players in campus internationalization, we will be in a position to speak forcefully in support of a model of internationalization that is consistent with the missions and goals of higher education. Key Words: geography, higher education, international education, internationalization.

Con urgencia impostergable, las universidades norteamericanas enfrentan hoy el imperativo de internacionalizarse, con el fin de preparar a sus estudiantes para vivir y trabajar en un mundo globalizado, acrecentar el saber y el descubrimiento, y para fortalecer los lazos econ´omicos entre sus comunidades y el resto del mundo. Las estrategias internacionalizadoras de mayor alcance incluyen la incorporaci´on de contenidos internacionales en el curr´ıculo, una participaci´on cada vez mayor en estudios en el extranjero, atracci´on de estudiantes internacionales e interacci´on con los mismos, y la formaci´on de asociaciones y redes internacionales fuertes y efectivas. A nosotros, en particular, las tradiciones de los estudios regionales, el trabajo de campo y la capacidad de s´ıntesis de la geograf´ıa nos brindan una oportunidad hist´orica para posicionarnos como los l´ıderes institucionales a cargo de definir la internacionalizaci´on. Para asumir tal papel, necesitamos construir un cimiento internacional robusto para nuestro curr´ıculo y su contenido, y empezar a tomar el amplio aliento de las pr´acticas internacionales. Al convertirnos en los jugadores centrales de la internacionalizaci´on del campus, estaremos en posici´on de hablar con propiedad para apoyar un modelo de internacionalizaci´on que sea consistente con las misiones y metas de la educaci´on superior. Palabras clave: geograf´ıa, educaci´on superior, educaci´on internacional, internacionalizaci´on.

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ver the past decade the topic of higher education internationalization has begun to receive considerable worldwide attention. In 1999, leaders from twenty-nine European countries signed a declaration that launched the Bologna Process—an effort to improve the quality of European

universities and thereby their attractiveness to overseas students and international employers of their graduates. Beginning the same year, the American Council on Education (ACE) began publishing a series of reports that highlighted the current state of internationalization in U.S. universities and put in place resources

C 2009 by Association of American Geographers Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(4) 2009, pp. 645–656  Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC.

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and programs to support comprehensive internationalization (ACE 1999, 2003). Internationalization guides have been published for campus presidents (National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges [NASULGC] 2004, 2007) and chief academic officers (ACE 2008), and profiles of colleges and universities that have demonstrated excellence in internationalization are profiled annually by NAFSA.1 In 2006, the U.S. Departments of State and Education cohosted a University Presidents’ Summit on International Education at the White House to draw attention to the importance of international education for the national interest. Several factors have contributed to this surge of interest. There is a growing societal recognition that our graduates will compete in a global labor market and need to develop the ability to work more effectively in international and multicultural settings. Universities are seeking to internationalize to position themselves to attract overseas opportunities and advance economic development in their communities and regions. International partnerships enhance faculty research and scholarship and bring national and international distinction to the university. Additionally, the restructuring of higher education itself over the past decade has made it more corporatized, with universities seeking to capture ever higher shares of the expanding global market for international education through aggressive recruitment of students and the establishment of foreign branch campuses (Biddle 2002). It is only recently that I have begun reflecting on the meaning of higher education’s internationalization and geography’s role in this process. As a student attending the Bombay International School and later as an international graduate student at The Ohio State University, I never consciously thought about being at the receiving end of an international education. Indeed I would have argued that using the term international to qualify “education” was a redundancy. As a geography professor teaching courses in introductory human and world regional geography, however, I became painfully aware of the geographic illiteracy of many of my undergraduate students and the crucial role that our discipline plays in instilling a global perspective in our students. Beyond this, our discipline is the one that equips students with an understanding of how we construct and understand the regions of the world, the ways in which physical and human domains are interconnected, and how the processes at one scale influence those at another. It became clear to me that geography can and should be a foundational discipline in an international education.

It was puzzling to me, then, as a university administrator, to find that geography is not automatically associated as the lead discipline to turn to in guiding and defining campus internationalization. In probing why this was so, I began to realize that although the content of our curriculum and the questions we pose are central to understanding the world, we have lagged, as a discipline, in practicing or modeling internationalization by not making study abroad a vital component of our curriculum, by too rarely involving our overseas students in advancing internationalization, and by failing to build deep links with international partners to advance teaching and research collaborations. These are the sorts of activities at the heart of a comprehensive international strategy; they are the ones we need to embrace if geographers are to stake a claim as key players in campus internationalization. Equally important, these activities give our students the experience they need to live and work in a multicultural and international environment, and they are critical to establishing the kind of networks our faculty need to broaden and deepen the international component of their teaching and research. In calling for geographers to take a central role in campus internationalization, I do not want to imply that geographers should uncritically accept the higher education internationalization project. On the contrary, I have seen over and over again how, in the rush to position themselves as global players, universities have often embarked on overseas ventures that are highly visible but only weakly connected to their core academic mission and the traditional concerns of a liberal education. Geographers can and should play a critical role in asking questions such as these: How do our overseas programs affect host cultures? What are the long-term implications of establishing overseas branch campuses and even offshoring higher education? How is the landscape of higher education being reshaped by the globalization of the university? These questions take on particular significance today in the light of the national economic crisis and cutbacks in public funding of higher education. Yet our voices can be heard only if geography is recognized as a centrally engaged discipline in the work of internationalization. My remarks are organized as follows. First I discuss the evolution of international education in the United States. This is followed by a discussion of the various activities associated with comprehensive internationalization in which geographers need to be involved. I close by addressing how our discipline can begin to seize a leadership role in higher education internationalization.

Leading Internationalization

The Evolution of International Education in the United States Despite what seems to be the recent “discovery” of international education2 and internationalization3 in the United States, neither is new. Students and scholars have been globally mobile since medieval times (Altbach 1998), and U.S. colleges and universities have been engaged in foreign language training going back to the establishment of the earliest universities (de Wit 2002). In the years following World War II, however, the emphasis on international education became more explicit (Hines 2001). The rebuilding of warravaged countries required language training and cultural knowledge. International education was promoted as a force for peace and mutual understanding and ultimately as the means through which the United States could build and maintain its influence in the world. The Fulbright Act of 1946 generated new flows of international students to the United States and catalyzed overseas exchanges and study abroad (Ruther 2002). Underlying all these initiatives was the philosophy that world leaders trained in the United States would be more inclined to understand and sympathize with the United States when conducting their international affairs (de Wit 2002; Ruther 2002). Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1960 provided federal funding for multidisciplinary area studies programs and foreign language centers and spurred the internationalization of the curriculum. Thus, throughout this period, international education was supported by a “peace and understanding” rationale, which, in turn, was tied closely tied to considerations of foreign policy and security (de Wit 2002). Following the end of the Cold War, the supporting rationale for international education began to shift from the political to the economic. With the rapid growth of the high-technology sector in the United States in the 1980s, the presence of international students in science and technology programs on American campuses took on newfound importance and played a role in making American universities global centers of technological innovation. These students—largely of Chinese and Indian origin—were heavily recruited by industry after their graduation and played a major role in the U.S. high-tech boom of the 1990s (Saxenian 1999), further underscoring the linkages among innovation, economic development, and international talent.4 Awareness that international students can be powerful economic assets has become even more acute in the past decade as countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia have begun to aggressively enter the market for international students and as major sending

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countries such as China, India, and South Korea have begun investing in earnest in their domestic higher education systems. These developments have reinforced the widespread concern that in the “flat world” environment, the United States is losing its position as a leader in the knowledge economy (Friedman 2005), catalyzing discussions on visa policy reform (NAFSA 2006). In the wake of 11 September 2001 (hereinafter 9/11), there has also been a clear harking back to the post–World War II rationale for international student recruitment, namely, the need to build friends and allies across the world to counter future threats to the country. Finally, a fundamental restructuring of higher education over the past two decades has transformed university education itself from a public good into an internationally traded commodity (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004; Altbach 2006; Harris 2008). Indeed, the global market for “higher education services” has been growing exponentially and is part of the basket of goods negotiated under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (Ross 2008). The desire on the part of universities to capture a significant share of this market has profound implications for their internationalization strategies. One outcome is an aggressive recruitment of the very best students worldwide, which has been compared to the Western world’s scramble for natural resources a century ago (Hazelkorn 2008). International rankings of universities5 have become a powerful tool in recruitment even as the methodologies used to derive them remain as controversial as ever (Hazelkorn 2008; Liu 2009). Universities have also begun to establish overseas outposts or branch campuses and to enter into programmatic collaborations with foreign partners. This sort of academic “offshoring” (Ross 2008) or higher education “franchising” (Cavanaugh and Cavanaugh 2006) follows multiple models, but in most cases it is aimed at capturing the market for those students who want to receive a Western-style education without leaving their home country or region (Altbach 2006). Finally, new players, beyond public and private universities, are reshaping the international higher education scene. These include proprietary and for-profit institutions, third-party providers, and commission-based recruiting agents. There has also been a proliferation in diploma, accreditation, and visa mills, which in turn has given rise to a growing international “quality assurance” industry (Contreas 2009). In many ways, then, there is currently a struggle underway to define what international education is or should be and the values that the process of internationalization should advance. We, as geographers, must

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be involved in these discussions within our universities. Our presence ensures that key considerations related to internationalization are kept in the forefront: the link between physical and human domains, the problematization of the regional constructs with which we examine the world, and the impacts of processes operating at one scale with those occuring at other scales. Geographers, trained in synthesis, are also in a position to bring together the many players across the university who are involved in internationalization to craft a common institutional vision. Before we argue for a place at the table, though, we need to be confident that we ourselves are practicing the sort of internationalization in our departments and programs that we can hold up as an example to the university.

Toward a Comprehensive Internationalization Strategy The broad swath of activities associated with comprehensive internationalization can be conceptualized as being arrayed along two dimensions: where the activity takes place (home or abroad) and to whom it is most directly targeted (domestic or international students). Figure 1 captures how the key activities associated with internationalization are ranged along these dimensions. Activities in each of the four quadrants present unique opportunities for geographers to define, practice, and advance internationalization. International Content in the Curriculum The core of international education has historically focused on the development of a curriculum that injects international content into the breadth of disci-

Figure 1. Schematic showing the dimensions and scope of international education. Source: Based on Biles and Lindley (2009).

plines. The rationale for curricular internationalization is both pragmatic and values based (Jones and Brown 2007). At the pragmatic level, an international curriculum and outlook equips domestic students with the skills and knowledge to compete in a globalizing world. The values-based rationale is based on the expectation that universities bear a responsibility for creating a globally responsible citizenry that is well versed in issues of ethics, justice, and cultural awareness. Early efforts to internationalize the curriculum led to the emergence of area studies as a distinct field in the years after World War II. Sparked by federal funding of foreign language centers and institutes under the Title VI program, the effort broadened over time to include a wide range of disciplines engaged in instruction and research related to specific countries and regions of the world. This, in turn, led to a growing presence of regionspecific centers and institutes on campuses made up of loose coalitions of faculty members from a variety of disciplines with a common regional interest (O’Meara, Mehlinger, and Newman 2001). For many decades, the work of these centers and institutes was considered to be synonymous with international education. Geography, particularly regional geography, has played an important contributing role in the development of international education. During World War II, regional geography had a strategic function but this quickly gave way to a scholarly tradition that focused on a deep and comprehensive understanding of places combined with a commitment to fieldwork (Gregory 1994). It is our regional geography roots that gave us the most obvious justification to stake our claim as a foundational discipline for understanding the world and for geographers to be seen as central players when it comes to curricular internationalization (Johnston 1984; Haigh 2002). Over the past decade, however, new majors and programs such as international affairs, international relations, global studies, and peace studies have challenged geography’s primacy in the area of curricular internationalization. For example, the field of international relations, considered a branch of political science, claims a scope that covers foreign affairs and the global issues among states. Geography’s internal debates about the place of regional geography in our undergraduate and graduate curricula have further complicated this argument. So what does this mean for geography’s continuing role in international education? Clearly, the need to promote geographic literacy and equip students with a spatial perspective continues to be urgent.6 Geographers can ensure that crucial questions with respect to

Leading Internationalization place, space, and scale are posed when studying the world. For example, whereas scholars in other disciplines tend to accept world regional configurations as exogenously given or fixed, geographers bring about the awareness that regions are products of social, economic, and other processes and their definition is constantly in flux (Murphy and O’Loughlin 2009). The perspective that geography provides leads students to probe the interconnections between the local and the global and the human and the physical domains. A geographic education also develops skills in field methods, the ability to work across disciplinary boundaries, and spatial thinking—key competencies associated with international education that are in high demand by employers across many different sectors (Solem, Cheung, and Schlemper 2008). These points have been made eloquently by several former presidents of the Association of American Geographers (AAG; Abler 1987; Demko 1988; Murphy 2006). Second, whereas no single discipline “owns” the international curriculum—much as no single discipline owns the environmental curriculum—geographers can play a leadership role in creating bridges across the various international programs. International education increasingly depends on the construction of partnerships and alliances across the campus and beyond to build a wide-ranging set of international and intercultural course offerings (Trubek 2001). Although this might sound simple, the divergent, sometimes competing, analytical frameworks and pedagogies across disciplines can make this effort challenging in practice. For example, in many universities efforts to promote international education have remained separate from those seeking to advance multicultural education even though both seek to give students an intercultural perspective (ACE 2007). The work of geographers can draw attention to

Figure 2. U.S. students studying abroad, 1986–2007. Source: Institute of International Education (2008).

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common ground such as research on multiculturalism as it plays out in a global context and the reshaping of urban neighborhoods and cultures by immigrant communities. Our orientation toward synthesis (Gober 2000) and our analytical tools for measuring and visualizing spatial change give geographers a unique advantage in fostering collaborations across these types of divides. In doing so, we have the potential to regain our position as central players in international education. American Students Studying Abroad The past two decades have seen a fivefold increase in study abroad7 participation by American students (Figure 2). This expansion has gone hand in hand with an explosion of shorter term study abroad alternatives— programs of eight weeks’ duration or less—to what used to be a traditional “junior year abroad.” Europe has long been the destination for the majority of American students, but its dominance is declining (Institute of International Education 2008). The typical study abroad student today is female, white, and in her junior year. The growth of short-term programs, however, has made study abroad more attractive to students from underrepresented groups and low-income families because these programs require a lower time and money commitment than semester or yearlong programs. As a result, we are seeing more ethnically diverse participants who study abroad in their sophomore and even freshman years (Dessoff 2006). Few of us need to be convinced about the value of studying abroad. The positive outcomes include becoming more proficient in a foreign language, becoming more comfortable living and working in a different culture, gaining a significant cross-cultural understanding, and improving interpersonal and communication skills.

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At a broader level, study abroad expands the imagination of students and stimulates greater creativity (Maddux and Galinsky 2009) and has lasting positive impacts on their careers and personal lives (Akande and Slawson 2000). Study abroad is particularly compelling for geography education because it is vitally connected to two of our long-standing traditions: regional geography and fieldwork. In the first case, study abroad can energize our regional geography curriculum and provide students with a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of a particular location. Geographers can make added institutional contributions by offering abbreviated regional geography “service courses” as orientations for all students prior to their embarking on study abroad. In the second case, study abroad can introduce students to the excitement of being “in the field,” which has drawn so many of us to the discipline. It provides faculty members conducting international research with the opportunity to take students to their field sites and to share the details of their work with students. There are also ample opportunities to engage study abroad students in local research projects and in global service-learning projects. Study abroad programs can, therefore, reconnect geographers with our field-based tradition and help students to develop into truly well-rounded scholars. Geographers have been active in designing and offering study abroad programs (for example, Stanitski and Fuellhart 2003; Willis 2003; Jokisch 2009). Yet to what extent have we as a discipline embraced the notion of study abroad as an integral part of our curriculum? One of the key findings of the 2004 study The State and Future of Study Abroad in the United States was that other than costs, the most significant barrier to study abroad was its lack of integration into the curriculum of academic majors. The study found that students rarely received

guidance from their professors and academic advisors regarding study abroad options and those who chose to pursue these opportunities did so largely on their own initiative. Further, courses they took while overseas often remained disconnected from the course of study for the major. As a discipline that values international experiences, we need to make sure that our practices in this regard reflect our values. As a first step, then, we need to take a careful look at the place of study abroad in the curriculum of our departments and programs and ask ourselves these questions: Does the program of study for the geography degree have the flexibility to incorporate study abroad courses? Have we identified a set of study abroad courses that meet the requirements of the major? If we are not able to offer “home-grown” study abroad courses, have we identified courses offered by other units on campus or by other institutions that would be appropriate for our students? Do we routinely advise our undergraduate students about study abroad options? By integrating study abroad into the fabric of our programs, we have an opportunity to serve as a model for the rest of the university. International Students in the United States Over the past half-century, the United States has seen a steady growth in its international student population. The United States was long regarded as the preeminent destination for globally mobile students around the world and did not have to make special efforts to recruit these students. International student college enrollment patterns shifted significantly in the post-9/11 environment, however, and, in 2004, the United States saw an actual decline in its international student population (Figure 3). A number of reasons

Figure 3. International students studying in the United States, 1986–2008. Source: Institute of International Education (2008).

Leading Internationalization have caused this decline: an aggressive effort of countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia to attract international students, the growth of agentbased recruitment of overseas students, and the perception of discrimination against international students— particularly those from the Middle East (Lee and Rice 2007; Lee 2008). Proactive measures by the federal government and the higher education sector were reflected in last year’s sharp upswing in the international student population, but it remains to be seen if this is the start of a sustained trend. At the national level, the desire to expand international student enrollment is closely tied to the positive economic impact of international students, the human capital they represent, and the need to cultivate friends and allies around the world. At the institutional level, there are additional compelling reasons for attracting international students. International students serve as powerful agents or catalysts of internationalization, providing many American students with their first contact with another culture. Their presence in our classes brings in diverse perspectives and broadens the scope of discussions. I have found that most of my international students rarely fit neatly into the conservative versus liberal positions with which American students so often align themselves, and their perspectives allow for classroom debates that go beyond this dualism. Institutions with large numbers of international students often have a unique campus climate that helps link the local community and the domestic student body to the rest of the world. The recruitment of international students, however, represents only the first step in the work of internationalization. The more crucial effort involves the design of programs and activities that take advantage of the presence of these students to advance intercultural learning. Many American universities offer a range of services to help new international students negotiate hurdles related to housing, transportation, finances, and immigration. Individual departments complement these with program-specific orientations. As a recipient of these services many years ago, I can attest to how important they were during those early, confusing weeks in the United States. What we have been less successful in doing, however, is recognizing and taking advantage of the potential that our foreign-born students offer in advancing internationalization. Thus, by focusing solely on assimilating international students and training them to be ambassadors of American culture, we have tended to overlook the wealth of global knowledge and connections these students bring to our campuses.

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A critical first step is to ensure that there is meaningful interaction between domestic and international students. In the absence of proactive efforts to create an environment for such exchanges, international students often find it comfortable to remain within co-ethnic networks. Many American undergraduate students report being nervous and intimidated when striking up a conversation with international students (Pandit and Alderman 2004). Consequently, even though cultural diversity on our campuses provides a superb environment for intercultural learning, there can be a disturbing lack of interaction between domestic and international students (Volet and Ang 1998; Petersen, Briggs, and Dreasher 1999). With the right sort of planning and program activities, however, we can encourage such interactions. For example, study groups and team projects can be strategically organized to bring together students from diverse backgrounds. International students could be invited to make presentations on how the particular issues being discussed in the class play out in their home countries or provide training in cross-cultural communication for faculty and students conducting research or going on a study abroad experience. Overseas alumni can be involved as valuable partners in publicizing our geography programs to students in their country. The opportunities are many and require only that we begin to view the cultural background of international students as an asset rather than a liability to be overcome. International Partnerships, Collaborations, and Alliances Internationalization is associated with an enormous expansion in the types and number of partnerships, strategic alliances, and networks (Higgitt et al. 2008; Olds 2009). These involve different types of “providers” that include higher education institutions, professional associations, third-party providers of educational services, and commercial IT and media companies. The modes of engagement are likewise complex and range from the use of communications technology that allow students in two different countries to take a common class to the establishment of an international branch campus—a bricks and mortar facility—where an institution delivers its programs in another country. Between these two are a vast array of partnership arrangements that involve collaborative teaching and learning partnerships, dual degree and diploma programs, shared digitial repositories of scholarly work, and jointly owned research equipment and laboratories (Altbach and Knight 2007; Allen 2009). In this section I focus on the subset of partnerships and networks that

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are most pertinent to advancing geography’s internationalization at the faculty and departmental levels. Geographers are most familiar with international collaborations that relate to research (Ray and Solem 2009). This is undoubtedly an outgrowth of our tradition of fieldwork that spans the human and physical geography. Overseas fieldwork is greatly facilitated by having local institutions and scholars to turn to for support and advice. Besides the logistical advantage of having local research partners, international research collaborations hold great promise in the production of new knowledge. The National Science Foundation’s Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) program, for example, supports collaborative projects between researchers and educators from different countries. These programs, in turn, can build new international networks of scholars and students and further promote international research. The AAG has been active at the disciplinary level over the last few years in building linkages with geography associations and universities in other countries and collaboratively organizing research conferences and symposia that bring American and international geographers together. Another type of international network that holds great promise is a teaching and learning collaboration facilitated by electronic communications technology. Geographers appear to have less experience in this area as compared with research collaborations (Ray and Solem 2009). International learning environments link students with peers, faculty, professionals, and even community and government leaders and allow students to build knowledge across national and cultural divides (Starke-Meyerring and Wilson 2008). An example is the development of online courses or Internet-based projects that are led by international faculty teams and enroll students in two or more countries (see, for example, Warf, Vincent, and Purcell 1999; Solem et al. 2003). Courses of this type provide a way for faculty and students to work in international and intercultural spaces without the logistical challenges and expenses associated with overseas travel.8 More formal international partnerships are represented by department-to-department links that advance student and faculty exchanges. Student exchanges, although a variant of study abroad, are distinctive in that they require students to immerse themselves in a foreign university for, typically, an entire year. The experiences and insights gained from participation in an exchange program are often much deeper than those from the more “protected” and shorter duration study abroad programs. The importance of faculty exchanges is often understated in the international education literature. Not

all faculty have had the opportunity to travel overseas, yet when they do, the experience can be immensely transformational for their teaching and research. The hosting of international scholars can be instrumental in opening new horizons in international research and teaching. Building close links between sending and receiving institutions, departments, and faculty is most essential for establishing successful exchange programs. Sister department relationships might be a desirable way to cement these links. There has also been an expansion of various models of joint programming between U.S. and international partners. For participating international students, arrangements such as dual degree programs allow them to benefit from a U.S. education at a significantly lower cost because they complete part of the program (typically the first two years) in their home country. For the U.S. department or institution, this sort of programming has the potential to attract international students from countries other than the major origin countries (currently India, China, and South Korea) and thereby advance institutional diversity. These types of collaborations demand close articulation of general education courses and therefore require coordination at the university level. Regardless of the type of collaboration, the need for quality assurance—that is, due diligence with respect to the academic standing of the university and department—is critical given the proliferation of dubious operations that are marketed as legitimate institutions of higher education. A broad array of resources, from online databases to firms offering quality assurance services, is now available to help vet international partners. It is also important to make sure that the objectives, design, and management of the international partnership are carefully worked out prior to embarking on any activities (Shepherd, Monk, and Fortuijn 2000; Higgitt et al. 2008; Starke-Meyerring and Wilson 2008; Ray and Solem 2009). Attention to these factors will ensure that the partnership begins on a solid footing and a mutually agreed-on framework. Finally, the extent to which faculty members engage in building international partnerships is strongly dependent on systems of rewards and incentives at the departmental and college levels (Foote 1999; Ray and Solem 2009). It is important that we recognize faculty efforts in the international arena through existing mechanisms, including our tenure and promotion policies. As universities begin to adopt explicit international goals, there is an increasing likelihood that departments that promote international activities will be rewarded through the budget allocation process. It

Leading Internationalization is up to us geographers to take the lead in advocating for these changes and to demonstrate that internationalization activities do not distract from the work of the faculty but instead enhance it.

Conclusion In this piece, I have argued that geography and geographers need to seize a leadership role in the internationalization of higher education. That geography is by definition an international discipline in terms of its intellectual content and methodological orientation is vital but not sufficient to taking this claim. We need to become engaged in comprehensive internationalization by integrating study abroad into our curriculum, working with our international students in ways that advance departmental internationalization, forging partnerships with overseas scholars and institutions, and building intracampus collaborations across the different units involved in international education. In this concluding section, I would like to speak to two broader efforts—one institutional, the other scholarly—that will make us recognized leaders in higher education internationalization. The first is the articulation of an international plan for departments and programs.9 It is often the case that international activities within a department and university are initiated with little attention to how they link to one another and, as a result, do not comprise a coherent whole (ACE 2008). An important place to begin is a review of the program’s “international assets”: courses with explicit international content, geography study abroad courses, international students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty, overseas alumni, international research sites, and international partners and networks. An examination of the scope and geography of these assets can reveal voids as well as areas of opportunity. The connections that emerge may be surprising. For example, we often think of our international students and alumni only in terms of their countries of origin. Yet the mapping of not just their national origins but also their regional homes and prior universities attended may reveal connections that were previously hidden. These unexplored links could form the basis of more formal department-to-department partnerships. The international plan itself should not be simply about adding a few activities here and there. Instead, it should be a comprehensive strategy that is built with input from the many stakeholders: faculty, students, alumni, and others. Besides laying out the steps for in-

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ternationalizing the departmental curriculum and faculty scholarship, such a plan should speak to the ways in which the department can project its international image through its print and Web site materials, engage its international alumni base, and advance other such efforts. It is important that the department’s international plan is aligned with activities at the university level. For example, a department might be able to take advantage of, or contribute to, existing international partnerships that have been entered into by the university, something that is particularly useful if universitylevel resources have been dedicated to advancing these links. Similarly, the plan could outline ways in which the department could bring about intracampus synergies in international education by bringing together key disciplines and units or contribute to universitywide efforts related to international student recruitment. The articulation of such a plan and its alignment with international activities at the university level can be a powerful signal to senior administrators that geographers take the work of internationalization seriously. It will give geographers a seat on advisory boards and task forces related to internationalization within and beyond the university. The second effort is related to the role of geographers in advancing scholarship on the topic of higher education internationalization. This is a relatively new field, which, until recently, has lacked recognition as a separate research area in its own right (de Wit 2002). Geographers have written extensively on both higher education internationalization issues as well as on globalization and the knowledge economy (Olds 2007) and are well positioned to define the scholarly terrain and advance this field. Geographers have also challenged the dominant study abroad model that perpetuates the flat earth discourse of globalization in favor of progressive study abroad initiatives that recognize the priorities of not just the home institution but also the receiving countries (Biles and Lindley 2009; Schroeder et al. 2009). Yet the need for expanding this research is becoming ever more apparent as institutional practices with respect to international education evolve rapidly and reshape the global landscape of higher education, and geographers have much to contribute. International education today presents a complex and contested terrain. Thoughtful internationalization is consistent with the goals of a liberal education: to give students the ability to ask the right questions and learn to listen, analyze, and communicate. It challenges them to confront their own prejudices and empowers them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change.

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Internationalization has also become meshed in the neoliberal globalization agenda of the university, paving the way for market-driven practices that are often at odds with the mission and goals of higher education. Let us, as geographers, with the advantage of our scholarly traditions, take the lead in helping our colleges and universities to internationalize in ways that are consistent with the core values of higher education. We owe it to our universities, our students, and, importantly, to our discipline.

Acknowledgments My deepest appreciation goes to Ellen Kraly, Alec Murphy, Kris Olds, Risa Palm, Douglas Richardson, Michael Solem, and Jenny Zorn for their detailed and insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. The support and inspiration of Doug Richardson and the AAG presidents who preceded me—Duane Nellis, Alec Murphy, Vicky Lawson, and Dick Marston—are also warmly acknowledged. Finally, I thank colleagues in international education at the University of Georgia and the State University of New York who have helped shape my ideas on best practices in higher education internationalization.

Notes 1. Founded as the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers, NAFSA was renamed the Association of International Educators in 1990 without changing the original acronym. 2. International education, rather than being a distinctive field, refers to a collection of activities that have an international component undertaken within and by universities (Vestal 1994; Lambert 2001). These activities include those related to the teaching and research about international topics and places (e.g., language instruction, area studies, geography, international affairs) and those associated with professional activities that involve other countries (e.g., study abroad, foreign student recruitment, and international partnerships). Although there is a wide range of definitions for the term (see discussion in de Wit 2002, 109–16), most contain elements reflected in the following offered by Epstein (1994), namely, “International education is that which fosters an international orientation in knowledge and attitudes, and, among other initiatives, brings together students, teachers, and scholars from different nations to learn about and from each other” (918). 3. Among the most widely accepted definitions of internationalization (or the internationalization of higher education) is that offered by Knight (2004), “the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions, or delivery of post-secondary education” (11).

4. A study by the World Bank (Chellaraj, Maskus, and Mattoo 2005) found that for every 100 international students receiving science or engineering PhDs from U.S. universities, the nation gained sixty-two future patent applications. The financial impact, direct and indirect, of the tuition and other spending of international students can also be significant. NAFSA estimated that in 2006–2007, these students and their dependents contributed approximately $14.6 billion to the U.S. economy (NAFSA 2008). 5. Currently, the most comprehensive of these is published by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (http://www.arwu.org/). 6. A 2006 National Geographic–Roper poll, for example, found that six in ten young American adults could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East despite near constant news coverage from that country. The report concluded that recent graduates of our educational system lack the basic skills for navigating the international economy and are unprepared for a global future (National Geographic Educational Foundation 2006). 7. Study abroad refers to a broad range of educational programs involving study, work, research, or internship outside the United States that award academic credit (The State and Future of Study Abroad in the United States 2004). 8. The AAG’s Online Center for Global Geography Education (CGGE) has facilitated the formation of such partnerships by developing a set of online, open access undergraduate course modules that are available to students and faculty worldwide. These materials provide the means to engage students in multiple countries in dialogue and collaboration; they also provide geographers an easy entry point for developing international collaborative learning networks. 9. It is worth noting that the AAG has, as a professional society, articulated and adopted such an internationalization plan for itself (see Ray and Solem, 2009). The resources that the AAG has put in place can be of added assistance to geography departments.

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Correspondence: State University of New York, 353 Broadway, Albany, NY 12246, e-mail: [email protected].

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