The Knee-Jerk Internationalization in Higher Education

The outlines of higher education have changed radically, primarily as a result of pressures from the knowledge-based economy, innovations in information technology, and globalization. For survival, relevance, and success, universities around the world have begun to explore creative ways of engagement with the new world order. One central way by which this exploration has taken place is by means of developing international inter-institutional partnerships. In addition to creating opportunities for access, new knowledge creation, and curriculum enhancement, such partnerships often resulted in significant commercial advantage for the partnering institutions.

Over the last quarter century and more, educational export activities have diversified beyond traditional franchising and joint ventures; concurrently, internationalization of higher education as a process has moved from the margins to the core.

Globalization presented both opportunities and threats. Universities realized that they could lose students from their traditional geographical catchment areas in their backyards but also could more than compensate this with students from the other side of the world.

This was the primary driver for most Western universities to jump into the bandwagon of internationalization. And, these universities began to engage with their markets just as business enterprises would do.

More recently, disillusionment with this came in the form of increasing calls for universities to see internationalization as a means of self-realization rather than as a financial means of existence. This call coincided with various other discontents with globalization, as famously observed by thinkers like Noam Chomsky. I would argue that globalization should not be allowed to dictate the objectives or directions of internationalization of higher education and that university leaderships should take a more active role in these matters by orchestrating concerted actions of their key constituents.

Some Background

Internationalization of higher education took different shades in the Western world. Overseas campus operations became the most important revenue stream for several universities. Even locally focused small-scale colleges have made it a point to introduce in their courses and degree offerings elements of the international context. Likewise, faculty members began to increasingly attend global events, network internationally, and make their presence felt by means of publications in international journals. Most US universities historically have had an international student services division which also coordinated visiting scholar programs and study abroad programs for the students. Also included in the relationships were the export and import of textbooks and other learning materials between the partner institutions.

Campuses have begun to be branded as cross-culturally sensitive spaces, with physical evidences of these coming in the form of architectural designs brought in from abroad.

However, with the ultra-proliferation of partnerships over the last few years, the benefits from traditional modes of engagement have spread thin. Also, there is a heightened awareness that partnerships have to grow in scope and complexity and that mere volume in terms of student numbers or short-term revenue are not enough. In marketing theory, profit is often conceived as a byproduct of good practices. Higher education leaders, although of late, too, began to see investments in international relations this same way. Among many downsides of marketing orientation in higher education, this was an exceptionally rare ray of hope.

Several top tier universities in the Western world now see partnerships as a way to improve their cross-cultural adaptiveness and transnational agility – rather than as a quick revenue stream.

The focus away from treating international operations as a ‘cash cow’ actually increased faculty support for it. In countries like the United States and Canada, where a considerable percentage of faculty members in the university systems are of foreign origin, this was even more evident. Interestingly, universities in developing and underdeveloped countries have always had this lofty perspective when they ventured into global partnerships. They were always losers in the immediate financial calculations, but they absorbed those losses happily, for the longer term greater good that it afforded to their students and their own institutional reputation.

Internationalization as a Hasty Response to Globalization

In this wave, many education institutions have grown entrepreneurial beyond traditional business operations. Mainstream scholarly support for internationalization too came in the form of the argument that it would significantly enhance institutional agility and competitive advantage for the participating universities.

Yet, some scholars began to ask questions like these: is internationalization driven by the need to positioning a university’s knowledge in a global framework and linkages or is it merely an excuse to increase revenues by means of recruiting more students? Highlighting exigency and trends, are the university administrators taking over academic decision making away from faculty and placing the existence of universities at the whims of global forces?

I would maintain that universities should not be internationalizing their campuses and curricula in a hasty and imprudent manner, just because globalization implies so. In fact, these are ideas that were once cherished by even some of the world’s most ancient universities – when they embraced internationalization in their own times. A radical shift in thinking since the second world war, that education is no longer a provincial, state, or national concern, reignited these ideas.

Some thinkers related the need for higher education internationalization in the US with the very ideas of what the United States should aspire itself to be, as a country of migrants and as a geographical cluster of free-flowing ideas.

There is no choice but to engage internationally; the only choice is to be a passive recipient of its impacts or to become an active player impacting its directions. Globalization does imply internationalization of higher education, although institutions of learning should exude the leadership necessary for crafting strategies appropriate for them.

An oarsman may not be able to steer his boat against high tides but if he chooses to leave it entirely to the tides to take him to wherever, he is more than likely get wrecked and perished.

Global forces might dispose what the universities propose but it is still better to give a fight and lose than face dishonorable exit from the game. When it comes to internationalization strategies, it is imperative to recognize the value of not just doing things but also of doing them in a certain manner and also their time-boundedness. So, where do we seek guidance in this regard? One must be cautious about applying generalized perspectives of organizational internationalization in business enterprises to higher education.

This is because, universities are very loosely coupled systems with high degrees of intra-institutional autonomy, unlike typical business enterprises.

The metaphor of octopus captures the university system – a convenient configuration of decentralized and autonomous subsystems. For organizations like universities, concerted outward facing behavior does not necessarily need internal consensus within the university system. Leadership should rather aim to orchestrate a harmony among the diverse viewpoints and concerns of the sub-systems. I have personally observed international programs becoming utter failures when university administrations bulldozed consensus rather than concerted actions like in an orchestra.

Concluding Thoughts

At a broader level, internationalization of universities could enrich the quality of academic life, only if it is practiced in a way that looks beyond the immediate return of investments, seeing the potential of self-enrichment, esteem, and actualization it would fetch. It is not about just having students from one or two foreign countries coming to study certain fancy disciplines only because their parents could afford it. It is also not about reaping benefits without giving anything away to the foreign students, institutional partners, or their societies.

It is time our universities begin to think in terms of the spirit of universalism based on which they were originally founded, when they craft their internationalization strategies.

Globalization need not replace the inner drive for growth and enlightenment that universities intrinsically have. The latter should be the guiding force for internationalization. In fact, universities that truly lived up to their names did internationalize much before globalization as a wild force became evident.

Actually, if there is a common thread in all the varied studies on this topic, it is that internationalization should not be a kneejerk reaction to globalization. Globalization is not a planned or goal driven process where as internationalization is (or should be).

We should be able to find order in the chaotic process of globalization; internationalization should be carried out as a planned means to an anticipated end.

Sustainable internationalization must involve a comprehensive range of activities and supportive institutional processes. Appropriate cultural shifts must be ensured before the structural transformation. At an even deeper level, organizational consciousness should recognize and accept these, too.