Faculty, staff and administrators attending the Associated New American Colleges (ANAC) Summer Institute at Elon spent time discussing ways of making internationalization an institutional priority. Details...
The June 14 session titled, “The Institutional Culture and Commitment of Educating Global Citizens,” gave participants the opportunity to learn about how Arcadia University and Elon University have given their institutions an international focus.
“It’s about creating a culture of internationalization that permeates every access,” says Larry Basirico, dean of international programs at Elon. “It’s not a building over there, and they’re taking care of it. It’s going on throughout campus.”
Basirico spoke about how Elon makes global citizenship a university-wide focus by encouraging students to take part in a variety of experiences, such as study abroad and service learning. These experiences are tied to graduation requirements so that students who wish to participate aren’t behind in meeting course requirements.
Norah Shultz, dean of undergraduate studies and faculty development at Arcadia described how Arcadia is working to transition from a school that focus’ primarily on international programs, to one that integrates both domestic multicultural and international programs. Students without the means or desire to study abroad can choose to partake in off-campus semesters where they live and study in a nearby environment unlike that in which they grew up.
“We made our reputation with internationalization. We thought it was critically important,” she said. “Now we’re working with how do we bring it together with multicultural domestic programs.”