University Politics in an Age of Paradox: The Question of - - PDF document

• Dr. Michael Woolf: Presentation Transcript

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University Politics in an Age of Paradox: The Question of Internationalization An Age of Paradox I will start with an assertion that you may well want to challenge. We live in an age of paradox where borders are both more and less significant. Militant parochialism, leading to the re-enforcement of borders, is an emergent force in global politics. Development of radical nationalism in many contexts is symbolized by the construction of real and metaphorical walls. These reflect a retreat from internationalist or cosmopolitan values. Like the border, they exist to keep the world out and the parochial within (the USA, the UK, Hungary, Myanmar, the Czech Republic and so on and so forth). Simultaneously, borders are increasingly redundant. Technology means that we all know more about each other now that at any time in history. We are no longer strangers in a strange land unless we make the ideological choice of

• isolation. Borders are also of little or no significance when it comes to

environmental degradation. They keep nothing in and nothing out. Climate change recognizes no borders. The notion of community is no longer constrained by geography— “Friend” is no longer defined by proximity. In terms of intellectual exchange, borders do not constrain the development of knowledge or research.

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Open and Closed Ideologies This paradox has created a new ideological divide; the collision of grand narratives of recent history, the great isms that saw conflict between communism, fascism, and liberalism as the core causes of fractures in international politics, have become less and less significant. The collision of interests that created the Cold War have less and less resonance for us, and even less for the students we teach. Instead, the global political momentum apparent in 2019 signifies an ominous erosion of internationalist ethics. Militant, radical parochialism is increasingly strident, perhaps as a reaction to perceived impacts

• f globalisation as an alien dynamic that erodes national identities. Closed

world views conflict with open world views. This is not a new concept. In 1945, Karl Popper analysed the tyranny of closed narratives in The Open Society and Its Enemies. The open world view he describes is inclusive and, most importantly, resists totalitarian militancy. Written between 1938 and 1943, Popper’s thinking evolved against the backdrop of a cataclysmic conflict. He argued that: This civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth – the transition from the tribal or “closed society”, with its submission to magical forces, to the “open society” which sets free the critical powers

• f man.

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The rise of militant parochialism, a “magical force” against the impacts of international and global dynamics, recreates a dichotomy between closed ideologies and open ideals. International Agendas at University It is apparent that universities have a choice that is simple and unavoidable. The purpose of any university is to serve the region, of course but, what constitutes the region has expanded and indeed exploded. Most of us would recognize that institutions best serve their region, however you might define it, by alignment with open rather than closed ideologies. Universities are not politically neutral. At the most basic level we believe in reading books rather than burning them. We recognize that knowledge has no

• boundaries. The poet John Donne’s axiom is entirely relevant “No man is an

island.” No university either. International commitments are critical to universities. To relegate international education to a peripheral role is not the absence of action, it is a political action that signals parochialism; a rejection of contemporary realities and alignment with ideologies of isolation. This resonates with one of the criteria outlined in The National Survey of Student Engagement, “Reflective and integrative learning.” To achieve this, the survey suggests, students need to “make connections between their learning and the world around them.” That world is wider than neighborhood, broader than nation. A simple way to demonstrate

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this to students is to ask them to look at the labels on their clothing. They are wearing the world as well as living in it. Our view is, however, inevitably conditioned by time. Each generation tends to believe that the present represents some kind of culmination of development; history, in this view, is progressive leading to the uniqueness of the present. That is, of course, an illusion. The academy has long seen the value of scholastic mobility. Erasmus taught at Cambridge from 1510 to 1514 and complained about the beer. Galileo taught mathematics at the University of Padova between 1592 and 1610. His fame attracted students from Jagellonian University in Krakow Poland. They complained about their housing and the Rector of Padova University complained that they drank too much. So, some things do not change that much. However, we operate on a different scale and in an environment where travel between Krakow and Padova is somewhat easier than it was in the sixteenth century, except on British Airways. Isolation is, for the most part and for most of us, not defined by geographical

• location. It is an ideological choice, a political action. In Karl Popper’s terms,

its opposite is “the ‘open society’ which sets free the critical powers of man.” The politics of universities, often implicit rather than explicit, are aligned almost inevitably with open ideologies: we believe in the production and dissemination of knowledge; we believe that engagement with the unfamiliar is enriching; we believe that unexamined stereotypes are a form of prejudice. These are actions that are international in theory and practice.

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An International Strategy The degree to which universities commit to an international strategy is a matter

• f aspiration, imagination, capacity and resources – human and financial.

An international agenda, in any case, depends upon some level of integration of areas of action; each supports and strengthens the other. The mobility of people and ideas are critical in this process. The constituent elements are manifest in a number of ways including: a) Empowering faculty to establish transnational research relationships through physical and virtual mobility. b) Recruiting faculty from other countries so as to bring fresh perspectives into the intellectual life of the university. c) Bringing foreign students to the campus for full-degree and shorter-term study so as to bring the world into the classroom. d) Creating meaningful opportunities for students to study abroad in a manner that truly enhances their education. e) Reviewing curriculum to integrate international perspectives as far as possible (e.g. A course on The Vietnam War also needs to consider the alternative perspective war of Franco-American aggression. In studying the War of Independence, you might consider that, for us Brits, Benny Arnold is a patriot much maligned by unruly rebels). Considering, therefore, how parochial assumptions may be embeded in courses.

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An integrated agenda includes mobility of faculty, staff and students and, critically, internationalization at home. Not all members of the university community can travel but international people and themes can be brought on to the campus. Let me spend a moment considering the question of the recruitment of international/foreign students which is sometimes contentious. There is no contradiction between serving the needs of local students and recruiting them from other countries. Indeed, if these students are supported effectively, they will enrich the learning environment by bringing the world into the classroom. We will though need to take a rather more nuanced approach to the notion of “international” students. “International” is an administrative category not a human one. No students come from a place called “international”; nor do students go there (wherever it is) to study. In short, the needs, of French, Indian, Chinese (or wherever) students are not the same. Provision of support needs to recognize the specificity of need. That said, there are significant institutional benefits to be gained by recruiting these students and giving them satisfactory educational and social experiences. a) They form national alumni associations who have positive perceptions of the institution, region and nation. This is a form of effective soft

• diplomacy. (Numbers?)

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b) Armed with their American degrees, these alums might well achieve high-level positions at home. They form, therefore, a potential source of funding for endowment or foundation objectives. c) They will also enhance the reputation of the institution within the particular country increasing the likelihood of further recruitment. In summation, if well served, with the kind of level of concern that you would expect for your students from organizations like ours, foreign students can enliven campus life, enrich the academic environment, enhance reputation, and be a potential source for alumni donation. There are, of course, cost implications but these may be defrayed by income generating activities. A cost-benefit analysis of an integrated international strategy is measurable by reference to: a) Institutional ranking and status which increasingly derives from relative impacts internationally. b) The recruitment and retention of better students. The absence of international opportunities will inevitably drive students to seek education abroad opportunities elsewhere. c) The recruitment and retention of better faculty and administrators. d) Research and teaching are invigorated and becomes demonstrably responsive to contemporary realities. The National Survey of Student Engagement offers “Discussions with Diverse Others” as a measure of

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effective learning. That is, of course, a critical element in education abroad. Good journeys The creation of good journeys becomes an educational and ethical imperative. The best of journeys always takes us in two directions: into physical, geographical space and, simultaneously into the self. Movement into space necessarily involves encounters that are physical and metaphysical; that operate

• n literal and metaphorical levels. When exploration and introspection coexist

the journey is most productive/enriching. We also acknowledge that it is perfectly possible to travel and learn nothing (autobiography). That is why what we do is called education or study abroad; it is based on an intentional learning agenda. That agenda may take many shapes, but it will contain some combination of the study of academic ideas and, at the same time, a consideration of the spaces (abroad) in which the study occurs. The importance of the context of knowledge in time and especially in space is what we call “situational learning.” All knowledge is conditioned by location but in domestic higher education that is rarely part of the learning agenda. In education abroad, the impact of location is a critical element in what we study and teach. In that sense, education abroad has a broader learning agenda and is,

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necessarily, multi-disciplinary in that context coexists with specific disciplinary content. There is, of course, a significant difference between travel and education

• abroad. What we all do is driven by learning outcomes and aspirational

educational objectives. This resonates with a key term in the rhetoric of international education: experiential education. A significant distinction is between learning through experience and experiential education. Most animate beings learn through experience; rats are very good at this. You can train a dog, but you can’t educate it. Experiential education is, in contrast, a didactic

• approach. It embeds learning objectives that are intentional, planned.

There are many possible ways of expressing learning objectives. At CAPA. we understand that for good or for ill no borders constrain the impact of

• globalization. We have focused on matters we consider central to contemporary

experience (globalization, urban environments, social dynamics, diversity). Our leaning objectives cohere around the contested nature of the global city and focus on measurable and observable impacts. However, other approaches that relate to strategic internationalization aspirations can, of course, be equally

• productive. The key concepts are intentional learning, integrated approaches

and a direction of development shaped by a strategic vision. The journey into the self is not dependent on mobility. It is possible to learn many things without going anywhere (the hermit, Julian of Norwich late 1342 – after 1416 etc). However, few of us are, or even aspire to be, saintly mystics.

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Movement into unfamiliar space can be a significant stimulus to introspection. Education abroad creates space in which we are able to reinvent ourselves, to examine who we have become and what we may become in the future. 4. In education abroad, we cross borders. The hardest border of all to cross is that which separates the primacy of self from the reality of others. We may learn that we are only at the centre of our own universe. An example So far, I have largely focused on institutional benefits. I would like for a moment to llustrate some of the benefit to students briefly by reference to a student from Kansas – not so far from here. She was not one of ours and is somewhat atypical in that she had little by way of pre-departure orientation and seemed deeply unconcerned about transfer credit but, she was a kid from Kansas (not therefore entirely different from many CAPA students).. Her experience was also in a non-traditional location that does not feature heavily (or at all) in Open Doors. I speak, of course, of Dorothy Gale, the creation of Frank Baum’s 14 volumes. What she learns along the yellow brick road is instructive and relevant to our endeavours. She encounters imperialism, conflict, political discord, ethnic diversity and

• division. She acquires something of a cosmopolitan perspective in that she

understands that what unites us may matter as much as what divides us. She

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learns independence and courage, and that understanding worlds elsewhere is neither simple nor easy. Her journeys also offer us an ideal metaphor for liberal international education: the point of arrival may be less significant than the path towards that arrival. The journeys of Dorothy lead her towards what Baum calls “wisdom” (The Emerald City of Oz) – not a word we hear often enough in the context of

• education. They also offer a corrective to the utilitarian focus in education

abroad; the wisdom of the Shaggy Man teaches Dorothy that the path itself is what matters: Each of the roads must lead somewhere, or it wouldn’t be here...if we travel long enough, my dear, we will come to some place or another in the end. What place it will be we can’t even guess at the moment but we’re sure to find out when we get there The Road to OZ, 1907. Dorothy’s experiences demonstrate that, in Socratic or liberal learning,

• utcomes are less predictable in that the end is not so easily discernible.

Learning is embedded as much in the journey as in the anticipated end and is not an industrial process with predictable inputs leading inexorably to anticipated outputs: the pursuit of wisdom is not along a straight path. There is a difference between learning outcomes, those things that we hope that students will learn from our teaching, and outcomes of learning, all that messy stuff we acquire through the serendipity of experience. In short, we do not yet know

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what we may learn as we meander along the yellow brick road towards the distant mountains that surround the Land of Oz. What Dorothy has surely learned is that Kansas is not the world; nor is America (or Wyoming) and that there are places beyond the borders where what she thought was true may not be; reality is more complicated than she suspected; compassion, courage and intelligence may be expressed in many diverse and complex ways. Compassion is not expressed in false expressions of devotion (the same lesson learnt more painfully by King Lear); courage is more than bluster or bravado; a capacity for reason may be developed and expressed in many ways. These are, ultimately, profound learning experiences. If Dorothy can learn this on a short-term, travelling study abroad experience (hardly worthy

• f any credit at all) how much more may be able to teach our students if we

create intentional learning experiences? Conclusions: Crossing borders In short, we seek to cross two kinds of borders: that which separates one nation from another; that which separates the self from others. When these kinds of mobility align, the potential is for what George Kuh calls high impact learning. This is a kind of secular pilgrimage. Politics of education abroad

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Mobility is central to our work. In the international, cosmopolitan mind, it is a pre-condition for enlightened education. However, we also want students to understand that voluntary mobility is a privilege. For many, mobility is involuntary (circa 6 million students study abroad annually; in contrast, there are currently circa 65 million displaced persons – the combined population of Texas and California – contrast with circa 560,000 population of Wyoming). Mobility is simultaneously enrichment and tragedy. Refugee, outcast, nomad, flaneur, cosmopolitan, hobo, pilgrim, missionary, migrant, tourist; these terms signify nuanced distinctions that reflect diverse motivations and consequences. Historically, the greatest catalyst for mobility has been war For a privileged elite (like us), mobility enables a journey towards something positive: education, adventure, pleasure, and enlightenment. The distinction between going toward and retreating from is at the heart of the paradoxes of mobility. All education contains ethical assumptions; it is not value free. It is assumed that knowledge is better than ignorance; learning usually confers status. Except in the most totalitarian of environments (where knowledge may be seen as a threat and ignorance a form of social control), the value of wisdom and erudition is embedded in the social construction of hierarchies: professors, teachers, sages, gurus, have an elevated status based upon the fact that they know more than those they teach. Thus, implicit in the idea of education is the concept of the value of knowledge whether that be expressed in terms of

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individual enrichment, social and political development, or some combination

• f those.

In the context of education abroad, political values may be unspoken and unrecognized, but they invariably include the notion that engagement with diverse social and political environments enriches learning. By implication, the domestic world does not have a monopoly on truth or wisdom: a view that is essentially inclusive and liberal. A parochial view might, in contrast, perceive the world elsewhere as under-developed, of less value or interest, in need of improvement; this is the classic assumption behind political colonialism and a missionary agenda. Education abroad recognizes the potential for diverse environments to demonstrate that what we believe and know is neither necessarily superior nor inclusive of that which is true or of significance. Duration. In short, we seek to make journeys meaningful. That process takes time and the question of duration has to be considered. Not all long experiences are better than short ones: the dentist. However, adding time adds opportunities; it does not guarantee anything but creates conditions in which something more is

• possible. If all things were equal (and they never are) longer is better. It simply

takes time to learn stuff. You can potentially do more if you have more time. This does not mean that you will do more, but that duration is an enabling factor. However, the crucial variables are what you teach, how you build an academic ethos that motivates

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creative curiosity, and how, or if, you facilitate learning within and beyond the classroom. This should not be taken as a critique of short terms programs. Rather it recognizes the obvious: duration matters. Longer may not be intrinsically better. Bigger books are not necessarily more important than smaller books. It is perfectly possible to learn nothing in a year, or a week. However, the optimum conditions in which to acquire insight (perhaps wisdom) are more likely to be longer than shorter. Meandering along the yellow brick road takes time – as the verb suggests. Time is not an absolute good but, if something is good it is usually better if it lasts longer. That is not just an educational principle. Finally Education abroad involves crossing borders that are literal, frontiers that divide countries, and metaphorical, the line between the familiar and the unfamiliar that may be physical, intellectual, and/or emotional. Some of these borders require legal access, a passport and visa, others require acts of imagination and

• empathy. It is the job of international educators to facilitate that mobility, to

analyse and explore the significances of those spaces. We want our students to become secular pilgrims on a road towards

• enlightenment. Their road is not yours or mine – we each choose our own path,

and some will be rockier than others.

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In On the Road, Jack Kerouac reminds us that not all journeys will be successful: At night in this part of the West the stars, as I had seen them in Wyoming, were as big as Roman Candles and as lonely as the Prince who's lost his ancestral home and journeys across the spaces trying to find it again, and knows he never will. There is though an imperative to seek enlightenment: “Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there.” “Where we are going, man?” “I don't know but we gotta go” Jack Kerouac, On the Road The single common experience for all students, wherever they have studied abroad and for whatever duration, is that they have, probably for the first time, experienced life as a foreigner. They have, in one sense, or another discovered what it is to be an American through the experience of not being (whatever this may mean) a native of these parts. This recalls Malcolm Cowley who in 1961, looking back to the American expatriate experience in the 1920s and 30s in Paris, wrote in Exiles Return that: “We had come three thousand miles in search

• f Europe and had found America…” What Cowley recognizes is that life
• utside of one’s home country inevitably forces one to explore the nature of self

because that identity is challenged by the experience of residing in a different

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• environment. Beliefs, values and mores that students have believed to be

universal are exposed as conditioned by contexts. One consequence might be some kind of transferred empathy towards foreigners in America; an understanding of the challenge of difference; greater comprehension of America’s place in the world and, thus an enhanced understanding of what it is to be American. Anecdotally, I believe that the single aspect of education abroad that is most repeatedly retained is that sense

• f being a stranger in a strange land. There is, after all, a world elsewhere even

if you reside in the great state of Wyoming. So, let me try and answer Roy Rogers’ question. Why, oh why, did I ever leave Wyoming? Why, oh why, did I ever have to go? Why, oh why, did I ever leave Wyoming? One answer comes from the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Move you must! ’Tis now the rage, The law and fashion of the Age And the State Motto is “Forward” –not stay where you are.

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There are more cogent reasons than a slogan and the zeitgeist. Above all, internationalisation is an intellectual, ethical, political action: a choice of open ideals and the rejection of closed ideologies. In short, we choose to destroy walls rather than build them.