VII
THE NEW CENTURY: THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION

The charge to the task force on internationalization from Provost David Shulenburger echoed the closing words of the report of the committee on “The University and the World” in 1960: “To be a major university in the United States in the 21st century,” wrote the provost, “a university must be an international university. It must provide its domestic students with a window to the wider world through its teaching on campus and its programs overseas, it must encourage its faculty to do research on topics all across the globe and to collaborate with researchers in their disciplines in any nation, and it must welcome students and scholars from every part of the global community.” But it was significant that these words were not addressed to a committee but to a task force. By that choice of title the provost made it clear that he was not asking for a new vision—or the reassertion of an old time—but answers to specific questions.

What, precisely, defines a “significant international experience?” Meredyth-Wolf’s account takes this to specifics—each of them an issue that had beset those committed to or at least concerned about international education at KU in years past: How to make sure that each of KU’s approximately 19,000 undergraduate students would have such an experience? Where and how should the international experience fit into the system of academic book keeping? How and by whom would it be decided what experience qualifies as being not only “international” but also “significant”? And, perhaps most critical, how are these international experiences going to be paid for?

These are not idle questions. To take them in reserve order, KU’s inability, once the Ford Foundation money and the several Carnegie grants had come to an end, to build international education into the university budget caused the university to lose such energetic advocates as George Beckmann and John Augelli and to discourage many others who were perhaps less determined.

The university was not without experience with the allocation of courses to curricular categories. The College had mandated a distribution requirement at least seventy years ago, with each student having to take three courses in each of three areas of the curriculum. It started out neatly, with each department being placed in either the humanities or the sciences (including mathematics) or the social sciences. It did not take long before imaginative instructors found reasons to have this or that course listed in more than one area; the area programs were, almost by definition, either outside or all across the matrix.

Under Waggoner’s deanship “principles courses” had replaced the three- areas requirement—but before long departments or programs that had been denied a principal course designation claimed that they had been discriminated against—and soon practically every beginning course had been declared to be “principal.” Once again, reality had won out over a formal requirement. Could one overcome this problem in dealing with international experiences?

The task force, chaired by associate dean of international programs Paul D’Anieri (political science and Russian and East European Studies) and working through three sub-groups, addressed these issues and questions arising in relation to them. At the time the task force’s report was made public Dean D’Anieri was able to note that work on a number of the more pragmatic changes was already underway. But running through the report is the repeated warning that “where to draw the line between rigor and availability, is a difficult question.”

All members of the task force concurred in the finding that, to internationalize the students, the university must internationalize its faculty. This requires that internationalization must be “promoted either through selection (e.g. hiring and promotion) or through development (supporting efforts by faculty to increase their own international expertise.” Such efforts—and the emphasis is mine—will require commitment at the highest levels, both in terms of providing funds and eliminating existing discriminations. Chancellor Hemenway’s commitment—one of several he has made, in words and actions—properly appears on the first page of text of this narrative of KU’s journey per asper ad mundum—through difficulties to [awareness of] the world.

In the introductory chapter of this account the reader was given a gentle reminder that academics are to a large extent individualists. “Undoing” faculty members will not be an easy task. The task force alludes to “existing discriminations” —we noted earlier that some members of the area programs felt that they were being penalized by their traditional departments. In some instances this may have been due to personal frictions but it may also have been the result of systemic flaws (e.g. the fact the forms used for the processing for promotion in rank provide no place where international activities can be listed).

The task force did not mention that the selection of faculty members (or persons of comparable status, e.g. librarians or research associates) for programs involving groups of students or persons of differing cultural backgrounds requires more than the usual amount of scrutiny. One asked to serve as a faculty member or group director with a study abroad group is not only a teacher but also a counselor, a student welfare worker—a general troubleshooter. He or she needs to have a record of appreciation of cultural differences and diplomatic tact sufficient to cope with them. Not every person is suited for this kind of an assignment—nor is every spouse happy to be in constant proximity of a group of 20- or 21-year olds.
The structure for international education is now in place. The challenge to fill the framework with the kind of content that, from the 1960 report to the recent task force, has been the university’s aim—that challenge continues.

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