Senator Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization Nomination Essay Arcadia University

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1 Senator Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization Nomination Essay Arcadia University Arcadia University believes that the student experience should be rich in problem-solving and critical thinking skills that help students achieve their full measure as citizens of the world. A well-known leader in international education, Arcadia University began study abroad programming in Today, Arcadia serves its own students and more than 3,000 students from other universities each year. As the 20 th century ended, Arcadia raised its own expectations on internationalizing education. The University set the goal of infusing a focus on global issues and concerns throughout every aspect of the University, especially the curriculum. Arcadia University has been an innovator in higher education, breaking new ground with its writing across the curriculum and senior capstone projects. It was an early provider of part-time classes for adult women. In the 1960s, it pioneered the concept of study abroad for undergraduates in fields beyond foreign languages. It was one of eight institutions in the country profiled in the American Council on Education (ACE) 2002 report Promising Practices: Spotlighting Excellence in Comprehensive Internationalization. Arcadia s Ten Year Plan, approved by the Board of Trustees in 2003, indicates the University s determination to blaze a new path into the world. Arcadia s planning process involves the entire campus community from the students to the Board of Trustees with a clear institutional goal: setting Arcadia apart as a distinctive leader in preparing students to live and work in a rapidly changing global society. This collaboration has continued directly from ideas to implementation, and changing presidents in mid-stream only kicked the process into a higher gear. When President Jerry Greiner took office in 2004, he used the ongoing collaborative process to identify five Strategic Directions for action. The University continues to measure programmatic successes and brainstorm Big Ideas for more international, interdisciplinary, integrative learning. Strategic Direction: Into the World Strategic Direction No. 1 for Arcadia University is: Establish a unique, integrative learning environment infused with international and multicultural issues and values throughout students experiences. Arcadia s commitment to internationalization is as visible as the flags that line the central quad one for each country where students are studying and for the home countries of international students and the colored sashes worn by graduating seniors representing credits earned abroad. Permeating the curricula with the educational experience of studying in a foreign land is at the core of Arcadia s efforts. While a decade ago few students traveled abroad, now almost one-third of undergraduates spend a semester or more abroad, significant progress toward a goal of at least half. Many more Arcadia students participate in international enrichment experiences. About 75 percent of Arcadia s students obtain and use

2 passports during their first year. Arcadia provides academic year, single semester and numerous short-term international educational experiences to students at all stages of their undergraduate and postgraduate studies. In addition to integrating study abroad components throughout its academic disciplines, Arcadia provides several distinctive opportunities: London/Scotland/Spain Previews are non-credit freshmen spring break experiences that encourage study abroad as a means toward increasing international understanding. Begun in 1994, these programs demonstrate the University s firm commitment to international education. In spring 2006, about 180 students will participate in London Preview, 80 will experience the Scotland Preview, and 25 students will initiate the first Preview to Spain. Preview offers students an opportunity to visit and learn about another country for only $245, including transportation, accommodations and a week of activities. Arcadia University covers the additional costs. Italy Preview is a for-credit program that gives new transfer students the opportunity to learn in Rome and Florence during spring break, taking more than 80 students to Italy in spring Interest in this new program drove the University s rate of transfer students higher. Arcadia s First Year Study Abroad Experience (FYSAE) in which freshmen spend their first college semester in Great Britain entered its third successful year in fall 2005, with 50 students studying in London and Scotland. With Arcadia s encouragement, most FYSAE participants find an additional opportunity to study abroad as undergraduates. These programs are presented to prospective students as an integral component of their first year at Arcadia. Their success has resulted in increasing numbers of Arcadia University students at all academic levels heading to Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia each year. The University also has developed a London Preview experience for high school and community college counselors. The University promotes study abroad through its Pathways for Study Abroad, the Arcadia University Web site s window to the world, which shows students in every academic major how and when they can study abroad. The Pathways Web page helps students understand how, at Arcadia, the world really is their campus Internationalizing the Curriculum During the past decade, the University has focused much of its energies on integrating internationalization throughout the curriculum. Each academic discipline has found ways to internationalize, such as attracting visiting international scholars and students, creating shortterm undergraduate experiences embedded within courses and graduate programs with overseas components, engaging faculty in partnerships with colleagues around the world, and finding unique integrative learning experiences such as internships, research projects and fieldwork. The faculty s connections are many and varied. Seventeen of Arcadia s 108 full-time faculty members were born outside the United States.

3 Undergraduate Programs The most basic and ubiquitous element of Arcadia s undergraduate commitment to internationalization begins in its General Education curriculum. Arcadia has a Foreign Language requirement. All Arcadia undergraduate students take the four-credit Global Justice course, which examines issues of justice on a global scale by looking at major encounters between the West and other parts of the world. This is followed by a required Pluralism course, which looks at diversity in the United States. Arcadia's General Education curriculum also has an International Experience component that students can fill through study abroad or through enrollment in home institution courses with substantial international components. Arcadia has been chosen as one of 16 institutions in the nation to participate in Shared Futures: General Education for Global Learning, a multi-project, national initiative of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The project will combine the best theory and practice of General Education reform organized around global content. While being chosen to participate in this collaboration is recognition of Arcadia's commitment to making global issues an integral component throughout the curriculum, Arcadia welcomes this opportunity to collaborate with others to explore General Education from a global perspective and to enhance its own curriculum. Every student, faculty or staff member who travels abroad brings back experiences that broaden the educational dialogue. Staff accompanying freshmen on London Preview, faculty visiting colleagues overseas, and students returning from internships share insights and examples that contribute to greater world understanding throughout the university community. Almost all fulltime faculty and most staff employees have been involved in Arcadia s international programs. Additional examples of international initiatives include: The Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program (BBPP) includes U.S. and Equatorial Guinea faculty and student researchers from many disciplines. Begun by Biology Professor Gail Hearn, who traveled to West Africa in 1990 to research primates on the verge of extinction, BBPP is now a joint initiative of Arcadia University and Universidad Nacional de Guinea Equatorial, offering two annual undergraduate experiences a 15-week semester and a 3-week research expedition. Arcadia faculty from Education, Modern Languages, Mathematics and Computer Science, Business, Biology and Economics have taught in Equatorial Guinea, providing in a steady flow of information, ideas, and best practices. University faculty from Equatorial Guinea regularly come to Arcadia for specially designed summer courses. With a Title VI grant, Arcadia recently established a new program, an International Studies major, and launched a Languages Across the Curriculum project. Additional funding provided a language lab, video-conferencing, and internet-based teaching and research facilities. International Studies students already have arranged several live video conferences with students in the Middle East, and Global Justice students conducted an online conversation with students in India on human rights.

4 ID 181 courses in which students study at Glenside, spend time abroad, then finish the course at Glenside, include: Spanish Language students in Mexico, Psychology students in Austria, Art students in London, Political Science students in Russia, French Language students in Paris, and Ecology and Conservation students in Costa Rica. The study of Modern Languages is an integral component of internalization. Arcadia offers a major in Spanish and minors in Spanish, French, German, and Italian, and has recently added the study of Japanese. Many undergraduate programs also offer integrative learning opportunities in other countries, such as Business internships in London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Toledo, and Sydney. Psychobiology majors have the exclusive opportunity of completing a semester-long internship at the London Zoo. International service projects include the alternative spring break trip to build houses in Tijuana, Mexico. Graduate Programs The first cohort in Arcadia s new M.B.A. with an International Perspective travels to Ireland in spring The 20-month accelerated program includes two mandatory oneweek business abroad immersion courses one in a developed economy and one in a developing economy. In the master s degree program in International Peace and Conflict Resolution, students are challenged to apply knowledge and theory to practical problems faced by today's leaders. Recently, students traveled to Costa Rica to work with United Nations mediators examining the impact of a new hydroelectric dam on displaced indigenous people. Students travel to Northern Ireland to learn about the troubles. The program encourages most degree seekers to spend their entire second year studying or interning overseas. Arcadia recently developed a partnership with the American Graduate School in Paris, which will offer Arcadia master s degrees in Paris. Many programs put classroom learning into practice through fieldwork, research projects, internships and clinical experiences around the world. Physical Therapy students can do their practica in Britain or volunteer in Jamaica, Peru and Italy. Creative Writing students can include a summer seminar in Scotland or an internship in London in their degree plan. Physician s Assistant students can do their practica at a hospital in Birmingham, England. Teacher certification students can do part of their student teaching in England. Board Policies/Administrative Commitment All these activities are made possible because Arcadia s Trustees have a genuine commitment to internationalization. Board oversight includes overseas fact-finding missions every 18 months. Trustees have visited Arcadia facilities and programs in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Greece, and England. The next fact-finding trip will be to New Zealand in Arcadia s internationally

5 informed Board annually approves a University budget that supports both study abroad and faculty international experiences as part of the normal operation of the University. The University sees to it that most students who study abroad can do so at no additional personal expense. At the administrative level, the Board created the position of Associate Dean for Internationalization to manage and promote the infusion of global learning into the curriculum. The Office of International Services supports and encourages student participation in study abroad. And the Center for Education Abroad (CEA), which serves students from more than 350 different colleges and universities nationwide, provides the logistical and in-country support services to ensure programmatic success. CEA is constantly expanding the frontiers of study abroad in developing countries and other non-traditional study abroad sites, including a new partnership in China. The next step for Arcadia is discussion of faculty-generated Big Ideas this winter, which may include an Integrative Learning Center in Tanzania, further progress on Languages Across the Curriculum, and further internationalization of the General Education curriculum. To enhance the classroom and co-curricular learning of students and faculty, the University has recently begun an aggressive campaign to recruit more international students. Until recently, students from overseas have comprised a small percentage of the undergraduate population. Arcadia is now working to increase significantly the number and diversity of international students. Like the University s other major initiatives, this is part of a coordinated effort to infuse the curriculum with a global perspective and to prepare students for life in a rapidly changing global society.