Internationalization & Intercultural Engagement
As an immigrant to the United States I have always taken this aspect of my responsibilities very seriously and have raised my own children to have a global outlook. My family has participated as a host for international students for the past 15 years. In that time, we have developed relationships with students from Africa, Europe, Korea, Japan, China and South America.
I led the development of a comprehensive business plan to implement English language and cultural support services for international students at Radford. This plan included creating similar operations at international sites to recruit students to Radford and partner institutions abroad.
At FHSU, because we had over 40 faculty living in China teaching at partner institutions, we offered unique opportunities for our faculty and students to study abroad, and engage in cross-border scholarship. The new partnership with the American University of Phnom Penh, in which I played a significant role, offers similar opportunities. We were engaged in recruiting similar partners in other countries, particularly in Asia and South America.
During the re-engineering process at FHSU I created an integrated service center for international students and study abroad. This center housed the offices of International Student Admissions, Intercultural Integration, Study Abroad, and English as a Second Language. It is managed by the newly created Associate Provost for Internationalization & Global Partnerships and provides integrated services from recruitment through graduation for our international students. The Associate Provost also has responsibility for internalization of the curriculum and worked closely with the new Director of Liberal Education to incorporate this into the general education requirements. As a result of this new emphasis, we had a significant increase in short term faculty-led and long term (semester) study abroad, International student exchange, and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) experiences for our students. The office received a gift of $330,000 to support student study abroad during its first year of operations.
At Mercy College the Director of The Center for Global Engagement reported to me. I led the development of the Global Engagement strategic plan which has guided its growth.