International Activities Meeting Distribution Materials May 6, 1999




International Activities Planning Commission Task Group 1 Progress Report May 6, 1999 Task Group I: Faculty and Students Abroad The task group is continuing to focus on areas identified in our last report. Actions include: 1. Exploration of funding opportunities for faculty and student international experiences. A web site will be developed this summer with state, federal, and foundation funding opportunities. Tax implications of international work will also be included. David LaRue is leading this initiative. 2. QualChoice is examining its international coverage component. Len Schoppa will discuss further with Tom Massaro. 3. The International Living and Learning Center Subcommittee is meeting so that their plan will be well delineated preventing any delay should final approval be received. Theo van Groll serves on the subcommittee. 4. APT data collection re: evaluation of international work is ongoing. Julie Novak will provide an email report upon completion. Iternational Anctivities Commission Planning Commission Task force # 2: May 6, 1999 INTERNATIONALIZING THE CURRICULUM Tico Braun, Daniel Ehnbohm, Richard Guerrant, Janet Horne, Jon Mikalson, Bill Jackson We have identified the following areas of activity: 1. Organizing information on international concerns and areas of study, and making them more readily and systematically available to students and faculty, via web pages and links, through the on-line and also the hard copy of the Course Offering Directory, etc. See minutes of the meeting of April 22. 2. Restoring SCOLA, and making it, or something akin to it available throughout the university by the Fall of 1999. Janet Horne has been working toward this goal, together with Brantly Womack. Much has already been accomplished, as Alderman Library has agreed to pay for the subscription. Our thanks to Carol Wood for initiating this funding via a luncheon meeting with Karin Wittenborg. The remaining task is to find the monies for the downloading. 3. Working toward the opening of the doors of an International Living and Learning Center/International College at the Sprigg Lane Residences for the Fall of 2000. Tico Braun is on the committee working toward this goal, which various task forces of the International Commission have identified as an anchor for all of our international activities, plans and proposals. The WORKING proposal is for a residential and learning center of the UNIVERSITY, linking students and faculty from all the different Schools and Departments, with first year students to post-docs, from the United States and from abroad (approx. 50/50). 3. Assisting the International Commission in the organization of a meeting of the different foreign language departments for early fall, in order to discuss language teaching at the University. This is to take place as an end in itself, and also in preparation for the visit of Maria Regina Kecht, of Rice University. You might consider visiting their web page at www.ruf.rice.edu/~csl/ , especially the link to courses and training. Hopefully during the summer some preliminary thoughts might be generated by this course on teaching methodology. Do we do this? Is it any good? What might be adopted from it? Etc. 4. Looking into various Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum (FLAC) programs at other universities, and considering the possibility of setting up one or two pilot programs here. 5. Perhaps...sending out a very brief questionnaire to selected faculty asking them to pinpoint curricular weaknesses in the international component of their respective programs/areas of interest, and ways these might be remedied, and what curricular things they would like to see here in their own areas within the next ten years or so. International Activities Planning Commission Task Group Three May 6, 1999 International Students and Scholars Task: To investigate systematically the experience of foreign students and scholars in order to ease their entry in the Academical Village and to facilitate their academic and professional goals. The task group met on April 29 to review our goals for the coming year. Summer Projects: 1. Duane Osheim will be discuss ESL with Marian Ross, who presently is responsible for most all efforts in this field. We will also be talking to the people at the Writing Center and the Teaching Resources Center. 2. Survey of Students and Faculty. We agreed that we needed to know more about the situation in the various departments and schools. We are in the process of identifying a series of issues we would like discuss with the Deans and Chairs. We want to discuss their experiences recruiting or inviting foreign scholars to the university, the place of foreign students in their graduate and undergraduate programs. 3. Julian Bivins found an excellent source of information on International Students and Scholars. The report is called Open Doors (cost $40-Julian has ordered a several copies). Information on it is found at http://www.iie.org. Preliminary study indicates that foreign undergraduates tend to concentrate in large urban universities; scholars tend to concentrate at the great research institutions. These are, of course, sometimes the same school. 4. In looking into the problems involved in bringing more international scholars to the university, David Martin has discovered that many departments need to advance funds to scholars from Third World countries who do not have access to the sorts of credit which would allow them pay costs and then wait for the university to reimburse them. Julian noted that there are ways to work around the issue, but they apparently are not well know in many departments. 5. Desiree Yang noted that most of the International Center programming seems to appeal more to the graduate students than to the undergraduates. It is simply assumed that international undergraduates can meld into the general undergraduate population. 6. Quick fixes: A. Contact the Offices of Admissions and urge them to place information essential to foreign students, or links to that information, more prominently on their web pages. (The information is not easy to find on the Undergraduate Admissions page) B. Undergraduate Foreign students tend to be concentrated in certain less desirable dorms simply because dorm assignments are first-come-first served-and they are typically the last to be admitted. We will ask Housing to make some accommodation. C. Resident advisors in undergraduate Dorms get almost no training in the special issues affecting foreign students. We will lobby this summer for changes in the Residential Life orientation. D. There is no single source of information or help for arriving students who need to get from the airport, need to get an Social Security Number and countless other issues. We may need to discuss this with the International Studies Office. E. Undergraduate International Students need storage space in the summer. They have no place to store belongings and not realistic chance to haul it all home. We should discuss this issue with Housing or Residential Life. International Activities Planning Commission Task Group 4 Progress Report May 6, 1999 1. Our purpose is to propose institutional arrangements that advance CENTRAL strategic goals of the Commission. 2. There should be some correspondence between the pattern of UVa. study abroad and other institutional agreements and the pattern of foreign language study at the University. A. For example: do we have/does it make sense to propose, a study abroad infrastructure in the Spanish-speaking world that takes into account the fact that half of our undergraduates fulfill their foreign language requirement with Spanish? B. Might consideration be given to strengthening the foreign language requirement to include passing an oral fluency test that is after all best and most rapidly acquired by living abroad? C. Does it make sense to establish/can we administer, a foreign internship program? 3. Focus should be on programs that open up broad possibilities for our students and faculty, beyond the individual programs now in place. (Qatar would not be the model for these purposes.) 4. One model that comes to mind: the consortium arrangement that the Engineering School has with seven European Union and two other US universities in engineering and the sciences. Might something comparable be established for the humanities and the social sciences? Is some such arrangement imaginable/feasible in Latin America? 5. Consider the attraction of "American Studies" as what UVa. can offer in particular to its foreign counterpart institutions. (A USIA program is available toward such ends.) 6. TASK METRICS: A. What are relevant institutions for comparison and aspiration? i) public universities with notable international experience: e.g., UCLA, UNC, U of Washington, U of Maryland at College Park, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U of Florida (re. Latin America), inter alia. B. Metric task(s) to perform: i) establish the number of students abroad compared to the student body in the given institution; ii) how broadly are our peer institutions represented in major world regions? how does that correspond to the pattern of foreign language study at the institution? are there significant internship programs? iii) where do our DEPARTMENTS want to be in2020? iv) examine the web site: studyabroad.com v) visit the following umbrella associations: the American Council on Education, the Association of European Universities, the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education, the Association of African Universities. International Activities Planning Commission Report from Task Group 5 Organization/Coordination of International Activities May 6, 1999 (Presented at the May 6 International Activities Meeting) Members Present: Les Grayson, Nat Howell, Courtland Lee, Barbara Nolan, Bill Quandt Also Present: Theo van Groll The group discussed a possible major aspiration for the University: that every student will have an international experience (semester or summer) as an integral part of his or her degree. In order to begin to move towards this, Task Group 5 will begin an investigation of best practices among international studies offices/programs at selected peer institutions. By Fall 1999 the policies and practices of international studies offices/programs at the following institutions will be studied: Duke - Bill Quandt and Nat Howell Syracuse - Theo van Groll Follow-up with UC-Berkeley & UCLA - Courtland Lee UNC-CH - Courtland Lee The task group will study programs/offices at University of Michigan and University of Pennsylvania. The questions to be asked of officials at these schools include: What does [the institution] mean by internationalization? What does the [international studies] person/institution do to promote internationalization? Budget issues, i.e., "What does it cost to run an international studies office/program? How many students/faculty are served by the international studies office/program? What operations come under the purview of the international studies person and that office/program? Does the international studies office/program give financial support to students, i.e., scholarships for study abroad? The Task Group will also talk with those in international studies leadership positions within UVA Schools. The question to be asked of these key leaders is: "What help would you want from a centralized office that is charged with the coordination of the University’s international activities?" The Task Group discussed focusing some of its efforts and that of the Commission on ways to strengthen the current International Studies Office. Through its work during the summer and into the fall of 1999, the Task Group will continue to explore ways to advocate for moving the ISO from the periphery to the mainstream of University life. The Task Group will be vigilant in looking for "low hanging fruit" with respect to the functions of the ISO.