Blog Archive

Higher Education in a Global Society

How do we advance the concept of a global education today?

The humorist Dave Barry once observed, “Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.”

Here’s another take on travel abroad…

“Consider the fact that the largest city I’ve ever lived in is State College, Pennsylvania (at a mere 44,000 people). The transition from life in a small, rural college town to an emerging urban super city that is experiencing growth so fast it threatens to tear the city apart has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life.” - Penn State student on his experience in Bangalore, India.

And here’s another student after the bombings in Bangalore…

“It's not every day that you hear about bombs going off in your city, and it's not every day that you hear about bombs going off across your country, but it's something I've lived through here this weekend and it's been a unique experience.

These comments reflect the benefit and risk of travel abroad for students and their universities. But there is little doubt that international experiences have enormous value to students and to society at large. Our nation’s security and economic competitiveness will be enhanced if our citizens have a broad global understanding.

But how do we advance the concept of a global education today

Universities traditionally have taken a two-fold approach to internationalism: foreign student recruitment and study-abroad programs. These efforts have yielded some success.

Last year, there were nearly 600,000 international students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, which is a 3 percent increase over the prior year. This marks the first significant increase since 2002, according to the Open Doors report, published annually by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

Notably, most international students in the U.S. are graduate students; at Penn State they comprise two-thirds of our international student population. Grad students tend to be attracted to an institution to pursue specific research or professional interests. They are a productive but often insular group that usually lives off campus and socializes with smaller, more homogeneous groups.

Conversely, undergraduate students often live in residence halls and may have more opportunities to interact with a broader population in clubs, organizations, and classrooms. The relations formed can go a long way toward building goodwill and lasting respect among young adults. It would serve us all to recruit more international undergraduate students.

Another way to make our universities more international is to integrate global perspectives into the curriculum. This shouldn’t be confined to one “International Perspectives” course within a major. It is crucial that humanities, social sciences, arts, and business course content reflect variations across countries, cultures, and time periods.

Fluency in a foreign language is a key component of an international education.

The fact that English has become the second most spoken language and is the language of international commerce doesn’t lessen the importance of encouraging competency in a second or third language. Over one billion people speak a form of Chinese, while Hindi and Spanish are a close third and fourth to English.

There also has been some good news in the area of study-aboard. The proportion of institutions offering education abroad opportunities has grown sharply to 91 percent in 2006 compared with 65 percent in 2001 (Source: Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campuses: 2008 Edition, ACE).

Yet, while the model of a semester or year abroad is still effective, it is important to offer additional experiential options in the summer and over holiday breaks so more students can participate. A 2007 survey by the IIE found that 56 percent of those studying overseas are enrolled in programs that are shorter than a semester.

As the economic crisis continues to squeeze families and universities, it is imperative that we continue our own institutional efforts to globalize higher education and to provide international experiences for our students.