Thursday, August 25, 2016

Call for Chapter Proposals: “Future Agenda for Internationalization in Higher Education: Next Generation Insights into Research, Policy, and Practice”


Editors Douglas Proctor (Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education) and Laura Rumbley (Boston College Center for International Higher Education) are pleased to launch a call for chapter proposals for an edited collection focusing on next generation perspectives on the internationalization of higher education. The title for the volume Future Agenda for Internationalization in Higher Education: Next Generation Insightsinto Research, Policy, and Practice.

As part of Routledge's "Internationalization in Higher Education" series, this book will focus on new contexts for internationalization in higher education, new topics of enquiry, and new or innovative modes or methodologies of research. As the title suggests, the book will also give primacy to next generation perspectives from emerging researchers and analysts.

The call for proposals and key timelines are now available online at www.nextgenizn.org. This website also contains background information about the rationales for the book and its structure, as well as bios for the editors. 
What I really like about the approach Douglas and Laura are taking with this book is the focus on "next generation" perspectives.  For the purposes of this book, the editors define next generation authors as:

  • early career individuals with fewer than 10 years of post-PhD or professional experience
  • advanced doctoral students with particularly strong potential as thoughtful and innovative scholars, or
  • individuals who may be more established in their careers but who have a particularly “forward thinking” perspective to share on the future of internationalization. 

If you are interested in submitting a chapter proposal I strongly recommend that you visit the website at www.nextgenizn.org.

Disclosure:  I make no profit nor any other type of financial gain from posting about this call for chapter proposals

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

International House at the University of Chicago



John D. Rockefeller, Jr. believed that if American and international students could live, work, and study together, they would both build friendships and global understanding. In 1932, he gave that belief life at International House at the University of Chicago, which is today one of 17 members of the International Houses Worldwide network. (citation from the I-House website)



Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Community College Corner: Theory for Practitioners: UIUC's Studies Research Seminar

The following is a guest post by Derek Shouba, Dean of Arts and Sciences at Morton College.  This is Derek's second contribution to the IHEC Blog  'Community College Corner'.

Thanks again to David Comp for inviting me to address international education issues in the community college-setting.  This post is dedicated to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Global Studies Summer Research Lab.  As most community college faculty members know, community college educators suffer from several serious challenges related to campus internationalization programs.  One of these challenges is that community college educators often have little time to do the kind of sustained critical thinking that makes for good academic programming.  Teaching five or more classes each semester, full-time community college faculty members can sometimes find it difficult to conduct systematic research before implementing a new course or academic program.  Teaching at multiple campuses for lower wages, community College adjunct faculty members may find it almost impossible to methodically examine existing scholarship in a given subject area before implanting course reform.  The University of Illinois’ grant-funded Global Studies Research Lab is an inspired attempt to ameliorate the situation by offering community college faculty and staff across the country the opportunity to earn short-term fellowships to support a wide range of global education initiatives. 

Applying for the fellowship in the spring, I received an acceptance letter in late April, and began a week in residence on the University of Illinois’ beautiful campus in July.  My project centered on the creation of an enhanced comprehensive campus internationalization plan at my community college near Chicago, Illinois, but other fellows in the program intend to create new international courses, new research bibliographies, or new study abroad programs.

The Global Studies Research Lab affords fellows access to one of the country’s premier research libraries.  The grant covers the cost of the dorm for up to six days, as well as travel expenses to and from Urbana-Champaign.  It also offers fellows a small honorarium for the delivered product, with the opportunity to receive some modest additional funding for the implementation of the product in the months to come.

For me, the highlight of the week was the opportunity to meet with scholars whose work touches on themes related to campus internationalization.  In my case, I had the chance to meet with Dr.Antoinette Burton, historian of empire and author of dozens of extremely influential books and articles on subjects related to globalization.  Dr. Burton’s work has influenced my thinking on globalization, and global history in particular, for quite some time, so it was an honor to meet with her.  Her book, A Primer for Teaching World History: Ten Design Principles (Duke University), has been particularly helpful to me over the past couple of years. While the book acknowledges many of the challenges of teaching global history effectively, it nevertheless offers historians (and perhaps faculty in many other related fields) very practical strategies for tackling this enormously important task. 

To conclude, the Global Studies Research Lab is a wonderful opportunity for community college faculty members to spend some time connecting theory to practice in the field of international education.  I can only hope that this form of dialogue between our nation’s senior and junior institutions finds many analogues in the coming years.