Task force issues report for giving undergrads more international exposure

LAWRENCE -- A university task force has issued its report on how to give every University of Kansas undergraduate student a significant international experience.

Plans call for giving students, particularly those who are not able to participate in a study abroad program, more sustained exposure to international cultures and issues than regular coursework or readings in a text offer.

The 22-member task force, which included faculty, administrators and students, worked for more than a year to develop recommendations requested by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost David E. Shulenburger.

"This report does a great deal to provide us a pathway from the university's past commitment to international education, most marked in the years of Chancellor Franklin Murphy and Dean George Waggoner, to our future, which must reinforce that important commitment," Shulenburger said. "If we are to fulfill our compact with students to prepare them to succeed in today's world, their education must be one that looks outward and provides an understanding and appreciation of the world's citizenry and cultures."

The recommendations include:

 • Increase student participation in study abroad.
 • Require or strongly recommend that every department provide a study abroad experience suited to its curriculum. (The Western civilization department and the School of Architecture and Urban Design already do this.)
 •Create international experiential programs on campus for the many students who cannot study abroad and create a way to certify and document these programs.
 • Reward faculty and increase administrative support for leading study abroad programs, which is generally time-consuming and undervalued work.
 • Eliminate disincentives in faculty hiring and promotion for international activities such as exchanges, international curriculum development and research abroad.
 • Raise funds to implement much of the above.

One of the keys for students to have a valuable international experience is to internationalize KU's faculty. The task force calls for offering New Program Development Grants that would be funded by the schools, International Programs, Study Abroad and the university at large. Faculty should be eligible for international travel support every year or every two years, rather than the current every three years, the task force recommended. It also suggested the university offer special foreign language classes for KU faculty and graduate students to help acquire another research language or language for traveling to new areas.

The task force said the university should continue its efforts to increase the number and the national diversity of international students, scholars and professors on campus and to maximize the opportunities for "interactive encounters" between these visitors and American students at KU.

The report noted student housing can play a significant role and that programs that attempt to pair American and international roommates, or stimulate internationally oriented social and cultural events in the residence halls, merit attention.

In addition, the report called on the university to assess an international education fee to fund international education opportunities such as study abroad programs. The Office of Study Abroad also should become involved in new student orientation to make incoming freshmen more aware of study abroad opportunities.

Implementation of the recommendations is already under way. Paul D'Anieri, associate dean of international programs and task force chair, is working with the Office of the Registrar on how to document the international experience on student transcripts. And he is working with various constituents across campus to develop procedures by which different activities will be certified.

"We're trying to implement as much as we can given budgetary constraints and difficulties of working across the many schools, the College and the university," D'Anieri said.

Increased funds for study abroad scholarships, international student scholarships, faculty exchanges, faculty international research awards and the training of international GTAs, among other international priorities, is part of the university's current capital campaign, KU First.

Associate Provost Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett and Diana Carlin, dean of the Graduate School and International Programs, convened the task force in January 2001 and gave the members three objectives: define an international experience in a way that could be measured, certified and recorded on students' transcripts; explore ways in which more KU students could take part in study abroad; and explore how faculty and scholars and the university will be affected by efforts to increase internationalization.

For a copy of the full "Report of the University of Kansas Task Force on Internationalization" and listing of task force members, see www.ku.edu/home/oip.