What I Believe about Education

What I Believe about Education

Education is always ‘high stakes.’ Education attempts to change people, and people go out into the world, make decisions, and take actions. The potential of education to get it right – to influence people to make good decisions and to take positive action – or to get it wrong – and to influence people negatively – means that it cannot be left to chance or in the hands of people who fail to understand it or who want to use it for selfish or evil ends. Education is also high stakes because you get only one shot at it: individuals in any teaching and learning situation can have this moment only once. Nobody can reverse the clock and re-do a lesson. So it is vital that those involved try to get it right.

When considering ‘what I believe about education,” I start out by asking, “What are we doing education for?” I take as a basic premise that there are many possible answers to that question; and that, given the high stakes nature of education, whatever answer we reach must be grounded in sound principles and not simply be taken for granted. I also begin with the obvious fact that people are not all the same: they have differing strengths, weaknesses, dispositions, and talents. All are capable of learning, but may not necessarily master the same knowledge, skills, and qualities, and certainly not all in the same way. An attempt to impose a single educational process on all may be a convenient and efficient way to organize mass education, but is a denial of the diverse combinations of strengths and dispositions of individuals. Similarly, I believe that people of good will ought to be able to debate the purpose of education, especially public education, which concerns us all.

I contend, though, that more than ever, the economic rationale for public education in the United States is widely taken for granted, such that in public discussions about improving education, the purpose of education itself is rarely raised. As the New York Times stated in 1998, “the economic rationale for schooling has triumphed” (as cited in Kohn, 2004, p. 18). The report A Nation at Risk, published in the 1980s, was a key influence, as was George W. Bush’s 2006 American Competitiveness Initiative. I believe it is critical to question this rationale, because large sums of money are being spent to promote educational initiatives designed to serve the country’s industrial and economic needs, and these initiatives, if successfully implemented, will affect the education and the lives of millions of young people. Meanwhile, other possible rationales for education – strengthening democracy, building community, and developing each individual’s potential, to name but three – are being neglected.

The intention of initiatives like A Nation at Risk is to create an education system that produces an adult population whose purpose is conceived of as working for the good of the nation or state. The recent initiatives might be justified if we believe that the economic benefits, if they come, will lift up everyone in society through the creation of greater national wealth. However, we need to ask: What kind of individuals come out of an education that has been oriented to serving not their individual growth and development but the national interest, and ultimately what type of society results from this?

We can imagine other goals for education: looking around us at modern America, instead of a report claiming an economic crisis brought about by poor quality education, we can easily conceive of one describing a critical thinking crisis, a caring and compassion crisis, an ethical crisis, an aesthetic crisis, a peace and stability crisis, a citizenship crisis, an environmental crisis, a crisis of meaning – the list could go on. Each of these crises could conceivably become the justification for a reorientation of American secondary education.

But I have an even more basic reason for questioning the economic rationale that dominates American public education. I find it in the moral philosophy of the 18^th century philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose second formulation of human moral obligation, or categorical imperative, states that one should “act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end” (cited in Law, 2007, p. 106). This maxim seeks to be a proscription against crimes against others, as well as an admonition not to coerce others. Its treatment of human beings as ends in themselves was enshrined in the French and American declarations of human rights (Lund, Pihl, & Slok, 1962), and more recently in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I believe it can be applied to any declared purpose of education: does it treat the student as an end in him or herself, or does it seek to use the student as a means to an end?

It is hard to imagine that teachers in particular and educators in a broader sense find their motivation in serving the national economic agenda; most enter the profession with a strong desire to nurture young people. Therefore, I think the application of Kant’s second maxim would be accepted by many if not most educators. Why, then, have they apparently accepted the current rationale? Those in a power who are promoting the economic agenda have so dominated the discourse around education that that it has taken on the quality of a hegemony – a way of thinking that has come to be so widely assumed to be correct that it is almost impossible to have a conversation outside of it. That is why discussion of how to improve education tends to be limited to the question of make education better serve national economic ends; and why, when anyone tries to argue for a different set of goals for education, they are dismissed as dreamers and utopians.

What would an education look like that treated each student as an end in him/herself and not as a part in the unstoppable economic machine? I believe that education’s fundamental aim is to bring human beings together in the quest for truth; that it should aim at human betterment; and that it should help individuals learn how to make a life, not just a living. Education should result in each individual having a sense of self-determination, agency in the world, a sense of responsibility, and the desire to do good. Such an education is not simply centered on the individual, however, since human beings, like all living things, live in a web of dependency that sustains and nourishes them. Therefore, education should lead students to an understanding of the human communities they belong to – local, national, and global – and the importance of nurturing these communities; it should teach them about the environment of which they are an integral part; about the social contract and the laws that enable human beings to live harmoniously together. It should help people become problem solvers, using mathematical, verbal, and critical thinking skills and their creative faculties; it should work on the development of their ‘excellences,’ their individual talents and skills, without assuming that everyone needs to turn out the same; it should impart knowledge and help them to use that knowledge.

Although I have focused on public education here, I believe that the principles I have argued for – that education has potentially a multiplicity of ends, and that we should treat others as an end in themselves – are applicable to all educators. In my own field (teaching English to international students), asking “Why are we doing this? And why are students here?” can prompt discussion on policies and practices such as English only, monolingual vs. bilingual dictionaries, non-native English speaking teachers, teaching methodology, and so on. Above all, it ought to serve as an antidote to fossilized policies and practices. And Kant’s admonition to treat others as an end in themselves informs program management decisions, especially where profit and educational motives compete, as they often do in my field.

I would like all educators of good will – in whatever situation - to question the underlying rationale of their context in light of these principles.

References

Kohn, A. (2004). What Does it Mean to be Well Educated. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Law, S. (2007). Philosophy. New York, NY: Dorling Kindersley.

Lund, E., Pihl, M., & Slok, J. (1962). A History of European Ideas. London: C. Hurst & Co.

A Brief History of International Collaborations and Partnerships in Higher Education

For higher education institutions in the early 21st century, the reality of a closely interconnected world is forcing a shift in orientation. Increasing global competition for students drives recruitment efforts onto the international playing field, and increasing demand from a new generation of students for access to the globalized world compels institutions to seek ways to provide such access as part of the educational offering. Meanwhile, emerging global markets for higher education are attracting the attention of long-established institutions in the developed world; and researchers are discovering new opportunities and means to collaborate with colleagues who have similar interests in institutions in other countries.

The most significant way for higher education institutions to gain access for their students to educational experiences in foreign countries, to attract international students and faculty to their own campuses, and to encourage research collaborations across borders, is through the formation of partnerships (also referred to as relationships, collaborations, and alliances,) with institutions and organizations located or operating in other countries. For the purpose of this paper, discussion centers on the collaborations and partnerships between higher education institutions, departments of institutions, or even individual faculty, which aim to achieve some goal, such as student or faculty exchange, or collaborative research. These agreements may be more or less formal, but are usually approved by the institution’s senior administration. Although universities and colleges may enter into partnerships with other types of entities, such as industrial corporations or private recruitment firms, the focus here is on relationships between higher education institutions, or what are referred to as “academic partnerships” (e.g. Boston University, 2006), though with the recent rise of partnerships between universities and for-profit companies for academic purposes, these are also considered.

International partnerships are a not a new phenomenon. However, the rationales for their creation, and the nature and extent of the partnerships, have undergone profound change in the past decade. In order to analyze the causes and the results of this evolution, three periods or ‘phases’ of the growth of collaborations and partnerships are proposed. Stage 1 can be called the pre-globalization phase, which encompasses most of the 20th century. The use of this term is not meant to imply that globalization was not occurring prior to the end of the 20th century; rather, until that time, the process was much more gradual and not widely recognized. Stage 2, the globalization phase, began in the late 1980s with the advent of the internet and mass travel, and was firmly established by the time Thomas Friedman declared in 2005 that “The World is Flat.” (Friedman, 2005) The final stage, the post-globalization phase - in which the interconnectedness of the world is taken for granted, just as the nation-state is today - is yet to come: how will collaborations and partnerships develop in the future? Although we cannot say for sure, there are plenty of clues to be found among current developments to allow us to make some informed guesses.

The analysis that follows illustrates an evolution in international partnerships that is closely related to the onset of globalization and institutions’ responding through a process of internationalization. During this process, the trend has been for international partnerships to evolve from relatively informal to relatively formal; from relatively simple to relatively complex; from relatively small in number to relatively large in number; and from the status of institutional ‘add-on’ to being an essential component of an all-encompassing process of internationalization.

The Pre-Globalization Phase
Altbach and Knight (2006) described medieval universities as international – de Wit (1999) used the term “cosmopolitan” - in that they attracted “the wandering scholar looking for knowledge and an understanding of other cultures.” (de Wit, 1999, para. 7). The rise of the nation state turned the focus of universities inward, and by the twentieth century study abroad and other international activity initiated by the university was an attempt to reach out into ‘foreign’ countries and cultures. Far from being an imperative in a rapidly shrinking world, study abroad was an experience to be had when relatively autonomous nation states still held each other at arm’s length.

International collaborations and partnerships arose mostly in an unplanned and piecemeal way, with collaborations being formed to serve the needs of institutions, departments, and faculty to work together on research, conduct faculty and student exchange, and permit students to engage in study abroad experiences. Mostly this was a sideline or ‘add-on’ activity, reserved for a small number of faculty and students with international interests, such as students of modern languages who wanted or were required by their departments to spend some time studying in a country where the language of study was spoken, or an architecture department that offered its students exposure to European architectural styles and ideas through a period of study abroad (for example, Wentworth Institute of Technology, 2010). A characteristic of a program like this was complementarity: students were able to gain an experience in their discipline, or use facilities in the host institution that the home institution was not able to offer. As Boston University’s Subcommittee on International Partnerships described them, “Academic collaborations allow for scholarly exchange and alliances where the two institutions might have complementary programs.” (Boston University, 2006, p. 4)

In the case of study abroad, the visit may have been organized by a study abroad office, or it may have been organized at the departmental level, sometimes the result of personal relationships between faculty members of the home and host institutions. Typical of the approach was that of Michigan State University, which described various types of agreements for various purposes, such as faculty and student exchange, study abroad, and collaborative research, but which did not necessarily articulate an institutional vision for internationalization. (Michigan State University, 2010)

Collaborations and partnerships arose also to some extent out of a desire on the part of students to explore the unknown, the world out there, to broaden one’s mind by experiencing a new country, somewhat in the tradition of the European “Grand Tour” that was undertaken by young aristocrats starting in the sixteenth century in order to round out their classical education. Indeed, as Altbach points out, “American colleges and universities, especially those in the upper tier of prestige, have long declared their interest in providing students with an international consciousness and, if possible, an overseas experience, as part of their undergraduate education.” (Altbach, 2004, p. 6)

Other rationales for international initiatives included serving Americans overseas; serving students abroad who wanted an American degree; and, in the case of the many branch campuses opened by U.S. institutions in Japan in the 1970s, for financial reasons. (ibid p. 8 – 9) The University of Chicago Business School opened a branch campus in Barcelona in the 1990s to extend its brand internationally, serve executives who would not be able to attend a program in Chicago, and, by having top faculty teach in the program and then return to Chicago, to have them “create courses that can be taken back to Chicago” (Trapp, 1993) and thus enrich the program there. None of these rationales represented, either individually or in combination with others, a conscious and articulated strategy for internationalization at the institutional level. Nor were they, as Altbach and Knight (2006) have pointed out, a particularly profit-making activity, though Altbach and Knight acknowledged that “such activities may enhance the competitiveness, prestige, and strategic alliances of the college.” (Altbach & Knight, 2006, p. 3)

Beyond such institutional-level rationales for international activities, political rationales played a part in promoting some international activity in higher education. De Wit (1999) pointed out that with the rise of the U.S. as a global power, especially after World War II, knowledge of other cultures and languages became critical, and universities received federal funding to deliver area studies, foreign language, and study abroad programs, ostensibly in the interest of furthering world peace, but likely also, in the context of the Cold War, in order to gain a better understanding of potential allies and opponents. (Andringa, 2001) The Fulbright Program, established in 1946 and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, offered further encouragement to American students to pursue studies abroad for similar reasons. (CIES). One of the key impacts of the Fulbright program, according to a 2002 evaluation, was to initiate long-term partnerships between the participating faculty of the home and host institutions: “75% have continued to collaborate with colleagues since their grant’s completion,” according to an SRI International report. (SRI International, 2010) A federally sponsored initiative like Fulbright, in other words, provided a part of the ‘backdrop’ against which institutional collaborations and partnerships could arise.

Thus, in the pre-globalization phase, international collaborations and partnerships among higher education institutions arose in a somewhat piecemeal way, initiated at the faculty, department, or institutional level, but in most cases not representing a strategic push toward institutional internationalization.

The Globalization Phase
By the end of the 20th century, the Cold War was over, the world was rapidly becoming connected via the internet, international travel was easier and cheaper than ever, and multinational (now global) businesses were developing worldwide networks and integrated supply chains, aided in part by the removal of trade restrictions. The process of globalization was rapidly creating a global market for goods, services, and culture. Although the start of the process of globalization might be traced back hundreds or even thousands of years, the rapid integration of world cultures made possible by a combination of factors at the end of the 20th century can be seen as a “tipping point” (Gladwell, 2002) in the process which increased the rate and level of cross-border flows of information, people, goods, and services enormously.
Knight defined globalization simply as “the flow of technology, economy, knowledge, people, values, and ideas…across borders.” (Knight, 2003, para.10) Higher education became involved in this process. According to Altbach and Knight, globalization constituted an amalgam of “economic, political, and societal forces pushing 21st century higher education toward greater international involvement.” (Altbach & Knight, 2006, p. 1), and de Wit characterized the response of institutions thus:

Not only are nations and international bodies placing greater emphasis on international cooperation and exchange, but the institutions themselves are developing their own strategies to internationalize research and teaching. (de Wit, 1999, para. 1)

Simultaneously, there was a growing awareness among the populations of developed countries of the importance of international experiences in higher education. With globalization came the realization that to succeed in the work place, people needed the knowledge and skills to be able to succeed in cross-border and cross-cultural interactions. They needed intercultural competence, language skills, knowledge of the wider world beyond their own country’s borders. Universities were perceived as a means to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills in a globalizing world. According to a 2000 American Council on Education report, over 70% of respondents to a public opinion survey believed that students in higher education should study or work abroad before graduating. (American Council on Education, 2000)
As a result, in many institutions, a more consciously implemented strategy of institutional internationalization was initiated, one that was to supersede the unplanned array of activities already in place. Referring mainly to the international activities of universities in the U.S. and other countries of “the industrialized north,” Altbach expressed this evolution thus: “While higher education has always had an international dimension, with more than a million students studying overseas and with many collaborative arrangements among universities, this multinational thrust is a new development.” (Altbach, 2000, para. 3)

This notion of higher education institutions becoming strategic about their international activities is a defining feature of the globalization phase. As de Wit explained, this new strategic approach to higher education internationalization was distinct from the implementation of a few internationally focused activities; and distinct also from the rationales given for these activities, such as “peace and mutual understanding” or “the needs of an ever more international labor market.” (de Wit, 1999, para. 3)

Jane Knight, in a 2003 paper, defined the new internationalization as, “the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions, or delivery of postsecondary education.” (Knight, 2003, para.5) Key to this definition is the word integrating: Knight elaborated on the term as follows: “the process of infusing or embedding the international and intercultural dimension into policies and programs to ensure that the international dimension remains central, not marginal, and is sustainable.” (ibid, para.8) She distinguished between an activity approach to internationalization – comprising study abroad, faculty exchange, research collaboration, and so on – and other, ‘deeper’ institutional approaches that she referred to as the competency approach, the ethos approach, and the process approach, each of which embeds internationalization into the fabric of the institution. (Andringa, 2001) Hence, a globalization-inspired approach to collaborations and partnerships differed from previous practice in that collaborations and partnerships were starting to be seen by some institutions as integral to a more comprehensive institutional approach to internationalization, rather than an add-on or a series of unplanned and unsystematic linkages.

This is not to say that U.S. higher education as a whole was quick to respond to globalization. In 2000, the American Council on Education reported that little progress had been made: foreign language enrollment was in decline, only 3% of students studied abroad during their university career, the average duration of study abroad was becoming shorter, with few students spending more than a semester in a foreign country, and international awareness among students was low. (American Council on Education, 2000) Although the report stated that, “Increasingly, college and university leaders are emphasizing a commitment to internationalization and its importance on their campuses,” (ibid p. 16) on most campuses there appeared to be little to show for it. The report’s conclusion acknowledged, though that, “It is also likely there are exciting, innovative activities going on in international education about which we are unaware – programs that are missed by traditional measures or reflect innovative techniques using the Internet or other new technology.” (American Council on Education, 2000, p. 29) However, its overall assessment was pessimistic: the data, it stated, “paint a disturbing picture of the state of internationalization in U.S. higher education as a whole, and suggest that we are slipping further behind the poor performance levels found when ACE carried out its assessment in 1986-87.” (ibid)
This view was reinforced by Altbach four years later. He acknowledged the large number of international students studying in the U.S., but pointed out that, “they constitute only 2.7 percent of undergraduate students in four-year institutions and 13.3 percent of graduate students – a much lower percentage than for other major host countries.” (Altbach, 2004, p. 7) However, Altbach recognized that U.S. higher education was on the cusp of what he called “The New Transnationalism:”

We are at the beginning of the era of transnational higher education, in which academic institutions from one country operate in another, academic programs are jointly offered by universities from different countries, and higher education is delivered through distance technologies. (ibid)

As evidence of the onset of this new era, Altbach and Knight reported a significant increase in international alliances, including the involvement by foreign universities in the establishment of new universities in Saudia Arabia, joint degree programs offered by institutions in developing southeast Asian nations and those in developed countries, the setting up of branch campuses in Africa, and others. (Altbach & Knight, 2006)

Institutions that embraced the goal of internationalization made it a part of their mission or strategic plan. Northeastern University announced a new strategic plan in 2009, in which internationalization was to play a key role. Referring to the internationalization goals for the university, Northeastern president Joseph Aoun was recently quoted, “In our rapidly changing world, students need to become inquisitive, life-long learners with a global perspective…higher education today must be driven by the mission to prepare students to succeed in a global economy and become engaged members of a global society.” (Northeastern University, 2010)

Beyond the somewhat idealistic talk of preparing students for the ‘global society,’ however, it can be argued that competition for students has become a key driver of institutional internationalization. This ‘survival rationale’ for internationalization has bred cynicism among some that universities’ enrollment of international students is financially motivated. Altbach in particular has alluded to this, claiming in 2004 that, “the primary goal of many of the branch campuses and transnational programs is to enrich the home campus,” (Altbach, 2004, p. 8) and again, with Knight in 2006, stating that, “many countries recruit international students to earn profits by charging high fees – including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the US.” (Altbach & Knight, 2006, p. 2) While it may be true that internationalization at the activity level – such as through entering into partnerships with overseas universities - is driven in many institutions by the need for new markets, it is unlikely that it will be sustained without a long-term international strategy which embeds these activities in supportive environments and targeted programs. Nevertheless, questions continue to be raised, now that not-for-profit higher education institutions are entering into partnerships with for-profit companies – from individual study abroad agencies to multinational corporations - to recruit international students and deliver international programming. Many universities that may previously have been reluctant to enter into such arrangements now embrace them as a way to ‘fast-track’ internationalization activities.

One means of doing this is for higher education institutions to work with for-profit companies to provide ‘pathway’ programs to prepare non-English-speaking international students for academic study. The most prominent collaborations involved, Navitas, INTO, and Kaplan, (INTO, 2010; Kaplan International Colleges, 2010; Navitas, 2010) have formed recruitment and academic preparation partnerships with numerous universities in the UK and Australia in the past ten years, (Spencer, 2008) and they are making inroads into the U.S. In 2010, INTO and Kaplan have each partnered with two U.S. universities, and Navitas with one.
The period of rapid globalization and internationalization has thus been a time of enormous change for many institutions of higher education. A strategic move into the global higher education marketplace is prompting more and new types of institutional partnerships. To support the activities that will arise from these partnerships, many institutions are making a deeper, more embedded internationalization ethos a part of their vision for the future.

The Post-Globalization Phase
Though we cannot know for sure what the future holds for international collaborations and partnerships, some trends that are already apparent will likely shape their nature and extent in the coming years.

International partnerships will be seen as integral to the mission and operations of higher education institutions.

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia is a new graduate research institution, having opened its doors to students for the first time in September 2009. The university’s vision statement puts forward the aspiration for science and technology research that is “comparable to that of the world’s top 10 science and technology universities…in areas where KAUST can be exceptional by global standards.” (KAUST, 2010b) Even during the university’s start-up phase, research relationships with institutions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America were established to support its Global Research Partnership; Academic Excellence Alliances were formed with departments of leading research universities worldwide to help develop KAUST’s curriculum; and Special Academic Partnerships were created to develop campus facilities and jump-start research. (KAUST, 2010a) The KAUST example illustrates well the priorities of a major new university established in an era of globalization. International alliances are seen as integral and are built into the fabric of the university, not ‘add-ons’ or ‘optional extras.’ KAUST may be an example of the university of the future; existing universities undergoing internationalization are faced with the challenge of integrating their international relationships into its operations, but unlike KAUST, may have to overcome institutional inertia and even resistance.

Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) is an example of a U.S. university that is embracing this challenge. It sees a strategic approach to international partnerships as a key factor in a broadly based push for internationalization. (Sutton, 2010) While maintaining the partnerships that have been developed at the school or department level, it is in the process of identifying and engaging with ten to fifteen “strategic” international partners, approved by all the university’s schools, which will serve the university’s academic and research goals, in selected parts of the world. The partners will not only provide opportunities for student and faculty exchange, and collaborative research; the intention is also that references to the partners and their countries will be infused into the curriculum, enabling all students to benefit from them. (ibid)

Institutional collaborations and partnerships will be encouraged by government initiatives

Some national governments have come to recognize the strategic role universities have to play in the nation’s economic and political power in the world. Such recognition can lead to political initiatives that encourage the formation of new forms of collaboration. For example, the British and American writers of a 2008 report commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the historic links between UK and U.S. higher education, citing the large numbers of students going to the other country to study, and the existence of programs such as the Rhodes and Marshall scholarship funds, as well as similarities in the structure and values of their respective higher education systems (UK/US Study Group, 2009). Based on concerns, however, that American and British dominance in higher education is under threat from newly emerging higher education systems in countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, China, and India, and recognizing that many of the world’s problems – climate change and food shortages, for example – require transnational solutions, the report recommends the formation of an Atlantic Trust, which would, among other activities, provide international scholarships for students from the U.S. the UK, and third countries, to study for their undergraduate degrees at institutions in both the U.S. and the UK; and to support research by teams which would include institutions from the UK, the U.S. and a third country. Although the proposed Atlantic Trust has yet to see the light of day, this example illustrates the way that national strategic concerns could influence government policy, which in turn might create an environment that encourages institutional collaboration.

A related and more promising example is a recent report by the British Council (an organization that operates under the auspices of the British government), “U.K.-U.S. Higher-Education Partnerships: Realising the Potential,” which proposed an increase in the number and type of partnerships between U.S. and UK higher education institutions, and further, recommended that they leverage their combined strengths to enter into three-way partnerships with institutions in third countries such as China and India. (Fischer, 2010) The British Council also announced that it would finance, to the tune of $500 000, twenty collaborations between American and British institutions, particularly in the fields of science and technology.

Cross-border multi-governmental initiatives will also play an important role. Over the past decade, the governments of the European Union have been involved in the Bologna process, an initiative to harmonize the higher education systems, including degree structures and credits, of participating nations, (Altbach & Knight, 2006) laying the foundation for cross-border collaboration between European institutions. In Europe, the Bologna process has resulted in the harmonization of higher education systems and greater transparency of academic credentials. It is likely that this will encourage the establishment of cross-border collaborations between European institutions – though in a ‘borderless’ Europe, whether these collaborations will continue to be considered truly international is debatable. Further, it is possible that European institutions will become more active in establishing partnerships with universities outside Europe in order to enroll study abroad students, who may be attracted to the low cost and the “common academic space.” (Altbach, 2004) In fact, opening the Higher Education Area resulting from the Bologna process was the topic of the Bologna Policy Forum in April 2009, which was attended by both representatives of participating countries and also by representatives of around 20 countries outside the process seeking to strengthen ties in the field of higher education. (Europa, 2009) If the Bologna process truly has harmonized the higher education systems of participating nations, then in principle it should be possible to devise multi-university programs for students in which the articulation of credits both among those universities and with the home university outside the area is enormously simplified, making the possibility of a ‘global degree,’ earned at several universities over the course of a student’s academic career, more likely - especially if there is continuing funding for intra-European and worldwide academic partnerships through such initiatives as the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus program. (European Commission, 2010)

Governmental intervention is also likely to increase through implementation of Bologna-type initiatives in other parts of the world. The Japanese Ministry of Education, for example, has recently announced plans to work with South Korea and China to standardize methods of evaluating academic credentials in order to allow more study abroad among the three countries, according to an article in the Yomiuri Shimbun. (2010) Currently, the article states, individual institutions exchange academic credits at their own discretion. The three-way intergovernmental agreement may eventually be expanded to include all of the member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Limited government support may drive more collaborations and partnerships

In contrast to the supportive background provided by governments in other parts of the world, institutions in the United States are unlikely to be able to rely on government support for internationalization activity. As Altbach points out, “the United States…has never had a national approach to international higher education, and the federal government has provided scant support for it.” (Altbach, 2004, p. 11) There are no signs that this will change in the future. U.S. universities will continue to be compelled to sustain themselves, and in a period of declining numbers of American high school graduates, there will be a strong motivation to recruit international students. (Curry, 2008))
Changing economic realities for universities in other developed countries is likely to drive the formation of more international collaborations in order to maintain revenue levels. In the UK, for example, universities are expecting reduced government funding and have been told by Higher Education minister David Lammy that they will need to diversify their sources of funding. (BBC News, 2010)

The nature of collaborations will become more complex and more sophisticated

As universities seek new ways to internationalize their campuses and their students’ experiences, there will likely be a rise in the number of more sophisticated and complex partnerships which bring together various institutions to provide the ‘global experience.’ One example is a new Northeastern University-initiated program, the US.-Sino Pathway program, in which students in China take English and academic courses at various locations in China, delivered by a private, for-profit corporation, Kaplan Higher Education, under Northeastern oversight; after this they spend a summer session at Northeastern or the University of Vermont; and they subsequently matriculate into one of those universities or another of several that have formed a consortium for this purpose. Thus, the student undergoing this experience is handled by three separate institutions in partnership. Another innovative Northeastern program is NUin, which began as a one-semester study abroad experience for freshmen in their first semester, and will offer students a full-year, multi-location option from fall 2010. This may in the near future lead to a program in which students could spend two or three years at various international locations, all the while studying for their ‘Northeastern’ degree. Programs such as these require very close collaboration between the partner institutions if they are to succeed. Indeed, it might be argued that the partnerships involved, which require ‘intermeshing’ some of the operational and strategic activities of each party, and in which each party has an enormous stake in the outcome, will be far closer than the partnerships we have seen in the past. As long ago as 1999, de Wit suggested that universities might follow the lead of industry, with cross-border institutional joint ventures or even mergers. (de Wit, 1999) This does not appear to have happened to any significant extent yet, but with the educational standardization activities of Bologna in Europe, and now in Asia, there may be more potential for this to happen. It is an intriguing thought that where we now have multinational (or global) corporations, we might in the future have multinational – global - universities. Such an institution is most likely to arise in the private, for-profit sector, since private firms tend not to be ‘place-based’ and can in principle establish branch campuses anywhere.

New types of positions and offices will be created

In order to handle the diversity and complexity of partnerships, universities will need to establish dedicated staff positions and offices. These offices and positions will play an increasingly significant role on campus as institutions extend their internationalization activities. At Northeastern University, the NU Global unit was established in the College of Professional Studies to serve as an incubator for international initiatives. The unit is headed by a Senior Associate Dean for International Engagement. Similarly, at Arizona State University, the Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement “was established for the sole purpose of advancing the university’s global initiatives,” (Kussalanant, 2007, para. 4) in large part through creating and maintaining strategic international partnerships. Needless to say, the remit of these offices extends far beyond that of the traditional study abroad office. Indeed, some study abroad offices are likely to be absorbed into these new offices for global initiatives.

Branch campuses will encourage or obviate collaborations, depending on the location

We are currently witnessing a significant rise in the number of branch campuses, primarily of U.S., UK, and Australian institutions, in other countries. The purpose in setting up these campuses may be to facilitate study abroad opportunities for the institution’s domestic students; more importantly, they make it possible for those universities to offer their degrees to those in other localities or regions of the world who would not be able to undertake study in the USA for financial or other reasons. The effect on institutional collaborations will likely vary, depending on the region. In China, for example, foreign universities are not permitted to operate independently, and must enter into partnership with an existing public Chinese university. In some countries of the Middle East, on the other hand, the establishment of branch campuses is not only permitted, but is encouraged through the building of international higher education zones, purpose-built to facilitate the setting up of branch campuses. Dubai International Academic City (DIAC), for example, offers its “partners” not only an educational infrastructure to support academic operations, but also, “special privileges including 100 per cent foreign ownership, tax-free status, full repatriation of profits and seamless visa issuance procedures for students, faculty and the staff.” (Dubai International Academic City, 2010, para. 5) Such opportunities provide institutions the chance to ‘go it alone’ in the global education market, though it is still too early to tell whether branch campuses will meet students’ and institutions’ goals.

Conclusion
This broad-brush survey of the history and future of collaborations and partnerships necessarily leaves out much detail. In particular, it is important to keep in mind that while some institutions have forged ahead in forming international linkages, others have barely begun. Indeed, there are likely to be plenty of institutions that operate in markets that do not compel institutional internationalization, especially vocational institutions that serve local populations, or institutions that can better sustain themselves through other strategies such as online learning. Nonetheless, the overall trends are clear: with the onset of globalization and the subsequent perceived need for many institutions to internationalize, collaborations and partnerships have increased in number, and have become closer, more varied, more complex, and more strategic. Collaborations have come to serve a key role in campus internationalization; and while they are a necessary element in increasing the level of international activity, in order to sustain participants in this activity, institutions will have to make changes to curriculum, faculty, and student support services. Institutions wishing to ready themselves for the post-globalization world – a world in which the interconnectedness of nations and peoples is so pervasive as to be no longer noticeable – must think beyond the piecemeal approach to collaborations and partnerships characteristic of the pre-globalization world. They must devise an institutional strategy which links their students, faculty, and administration to institutions in other countries, and embeds an international ethos into their operations, services, and academic delivery.


References
Altbach, P. G. (2000). The Crisis in Multinational Higher Education. International Higher Education, Fall 2000.
Altbach, P. G. (2004). Higher Education Crosses Borders. Change, March-April 2004.
Altbach, P. G., & Knight, J. (2006). The Internationalization of Higher
Education: Motivations and Realities
NEA 2006 Almanac of Higher Education Retrieved March 22, 2010, from http://www.nea.org/home/32833.htm
American Council on Education. (2000). Internationalization of U.S. Higher Education: Preliminary Status Report 2000. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.
Andringa, R. C. (2001). The Internationalization of Higher Education: Can the American Experience Advance Peace and Learning in the World? Paper presented at the Symposium at Peking University. Retrieved 3.29.10, from http://www.cccu.org/professional_development/resource_library/paper_the_internationalization_of_higher_education_can_the_american_experience_advance_peace_and_learning_in_the_world
BBC News. (2010, 1.25.10). Minister warns universities of reduced funding. Retrieved March 31, 2010, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8476136.stm
Boston University. (2006). Subcommittee on International Partnerships. Retrieved March 23, 2010, from http://www.bu.edu/globalfuture/news/PICInternationalPartnershipsReport.pdf
CIES. Fulbright. Retrieved April 1, 2010, from http://www.cies.org/Fulbright/
Curry, J. (2008). As high school grad decline looms, colleges seek new strategies. Retrieved March 31, 2010, from http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2008/02/04/story5.html
de Wit, H. (1999). Changing Rationales for the Internationalization of Higher Education. International Higher Education, 15, Spring 1999.
Dubai International Academic City. (2010). DIAC Leading Education Service Provider According to UNESCO Report on Universities in Arab Countries. Retrieved 4.1.10, 2010, from http://www.diacedu.ae/media-room.php/DIAC/9
Europa. (2009). Frequently Asked Questions: the Bologna process. Retrieved January 27, 2010, from http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/170&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
European Commission. (2010, 2.4.10). Erasmus Mundus - Scholarships and Academic Cooperation. Retrieved March 31, 2010, from http://ec.europa.eu/education/external-relation-programmes/doc72_en.htm
Fischer, K. (2010). British Council Calls on British and American Universities to Collaborate More. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://chronicle.com/article/British-Council-Calls-on/64449/
Friedman, T. (2005). The World is Flat. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
Gladwell, M. (2002). The Tipping Point. Boston: Back Bay Books.
INTO. (2010). INTO - Your best route to university success. Retrieved April 2, 2010, from http://www.intohigher.com/?sc_lang=en
Kaplan International Colleges. (2010). Global Pathways. Retrieved April 2, 2010, from http://www.global-pathways.com/
KAUST. (2010a). Global Collaborative Research. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://www.kaust.edu.sa/research/grc/grc.html
KAUST. (2010b). Vision and Mission. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://www.kaust.edu.sa/about/vision_mission.html
Knight, J. (2003). Updating the Definition of Internationalization. International Higher Education, Fall 2003.
Kussalanant, C. (2007). ASU Meets Global Challenges. Retrieved April 2, 2010, from http://asunews.asu.edu/20080104_GlobalEngagement
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Navitas. (2010). Navitas. Retrieved April 2, 2010, from http://www.navitas.com/
Northeastern University. (2010). Northeastern recognized for international initiatives. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://northeastern.edu/news/stories/2010/03/campus_internationalization.html
Spencer, D. (2008). UK: Fears Over Privatization. Retrieved March 23, 2010, from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20080710160335483
SRI International. (2010). Impact of U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program Evaluated by SRI International. Retrieved April 2, 2010, from http://www.sri.com/news/releases/09-10-02.html
Sutton, S. B. (2010). Partnerships as the Driving Force of Campus Internationalization. Retrieved April 1, 2010, from http://www.iienetwork.org/page/102100/
The Yomiuri Shimbun. (2010). Japan, China, S. Korea mull academic credit system. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20100301TDY02304.htm
Trapp, R. (1993). US business school is Barcelona bound: The University of Chicago is taking its MBA credentials to Europe with a part-time course starting next July The Independent. Retrieved 3.19.2010, from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/us-business-school-is-barcelona-bound-the-university-of-chicago-is-taking-its-mba-credentials-to-europe-with-a-parttime-course-starting-next-july-1465497.html
UK/US Study Group. (2009). Higher Education and Collaboration in Global Context: Building a Global Civil Society. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from http://www.international.ac.uk/resources/Final%20Report.pdf
Wentworth Institute of Technology. (2010). Wentworth Architecture - Study Abroad Programs. Retrieved 4.2.10, 2010, from http://www.wit.edu/arch/wit_web_site/programs_study_abroad.html

Who Benefits from Global Free Trade in Higher Education?

Created under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, and including all 144 economies of the WTO, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) provides a framework for talks on liberalizing international trade in services. The aim of GATS is to “expand free trade in services, open markets, and facilitate economic growth” in twelve service sectors, including all levels of education; in the field of higher education the goals include “removing restrictions on market access and barriers to competition.” (American Council on Education, 2008) These restrictions include national legislation that is prejudicial to foreign providers, licensing, accreditation, and other requirements required only of foreign providers, and customs duties on educational material that crosses borders. (ibid)

Laws that prohibit foreign ownership of educational establishments or put in place burdensome visa restrictions on students (Blinn, 2009) are targeted by GATS. GATS participants take on two levels of obligation, general and specific. Among the general obligations, the ‘most favored nations treatment’ requires that nations offer equal treatment to suppliers in other participant nations; specific commitments address obligations required of individual nations in market access (American Council on Education, 2008).

Should GATS succeed in liberalizing the higher education market, the likely result would be an increase in cross-border supply of education services (such as distance education), consumption of education abroad by students traveling for education, commercial presence of institutions in foreign countries through the setting up of branch campuses, and faculty and administrators working in foreign locations. (American Council on Education, 2008)

However, the benefits of such liberalization may not be shared by all nations wishing to participate in the global higher education market. In a 2003 editorial, Philip Altbach argued that the U.S. would not become a market for foreign higher education providers (Altbach, 2003), and expressed skepticism that a higher education market resulting from GATS would be free. The lack of mutuality would be caused by certain in-built advantages in the American higher education system, notably the following:

• The highly developed nature and level of complexity of the U.S. higher education market makes it difficult for outsiders to penetrate.
• The U.S. enjoys not only the largest and most diverse higher education market – one that satisfies every market niche - but one that is widely perceived to be the world’s best.
• The U.S. leads in ancillary services such as “testing, specialized training, the control of knowledge networks (such as Lexus-Nexus) and others.” (Altbach, 2003)
• Education takes place in English, the global language of commerce, science, and technology, and a language that is learned throughout the world.
• The high quality of facilities of U.S. institutions makes competing with them very expensive for a supplier hoping to enter the market.

I generally agree with Altbach’s analysis. U.S. higher education has operated in a free market environment for many years, and the wide variety of institutions is capable of satisfying most of the demand from the U.S. market and much of the international market. Additionally, as the Open University found when it tried to establish a U.S. operation (American Council on Education, 2008), the official approval process takes place state-by-state and can be challenging, time-consuming, and expensive. Any GATS-inspired challenge to states’ rights to approve foreign players would likely meet with resistance from the states themselves. Not only is the U.S. market difficult to penetrate, but to large numbers of Americans seeking an education, there are unlikely to be compelling reasons for choosing a foreign provider. Concerns about the quality of institutions, about foreign language requirements, and about the recognition of foreign credits or degrees would likely deter sufficient numbers of students as to make the possibility of mass market penetrability difficult. A further effect of GATS would likely be to further ease the mobility of faculty, and one can predict that faculty would tend to move to situations with better working conditions – those in the developed countries such as the U.S., especially if increased demand for U.S. higher education resulted in a greater need for teachers and active recruitment of teachers from other countries by the U.S. (American Council on Education, 2008) The effect might be to increase brain drain in developing countries.

While I concur with Altbach that U.S education would be the prime beneficiary of a more liberal global higher education market, I believe his conclusions need to be modified. First, U.S. higher education is expensive, and indeed many American providers may strategically target international students because they do not qualify for scholarships and pay full tuition. Although the U.S. continues to attract the largest number of international students, its share of the international student market is decreasing, and this may be as a result of students finding what they perceive to be better value educational experiences in other parts of the world. (This could result in for-profit U.S. providers becoming more successful in international markets if they can price their services competitively.) Additionally, geopolitical changes, coupled with the difficulty many U.S. public universities are experiencing obtaining funding, and the injection of finance and other resources into higher education in other parts of the world such as mainland China and Hong Kong, may make other locations more attractive for study abroad in the future. (Clark & Sedgwick, 2005; Fischer, 2009)

A wider issue that Altbach does not address is the dominance not only of the U.S. in higher education, but of other major English-speaking countries too. In Australia, education is the third largest service export, and in New Zealand it is the fourth. (Blinn, 2009) Britain is also a major exporter of educational services. Along with the U.S., these countries are most actively attracting students to their campuses and establishing campus branches in other countries. (ibid) Hence, although Altbach focuses on the potential benefit to the U.S. of a liberalized higher education market, the bigger picture appears to be one of developed English-speaking countries benefiting at the expense of developing and non-English-speaking countries.

On the other hand, although Altbach characterizes the predicted liberalized education market as “a free market that is not free” because of America’s presumed dominance in the field, one might counter that in global free markets there are bound to be nations that specialize in certain fields. Thus, some countries dominate in oil exports, some in automobiles, others in food products, and so on. The whole point of trade is that one party can produce a good or service more effectively or more efficiently than another. Thus it should not be surprising that some nations are more successful than others at creating and exporting educational services. The U.S. can export higher education, but needs to import oil; this is natural. When Altbach complains that the global higher education market “is not free,” I feel he is missing this broader perspective on international trade.


Altbach, P. G. (2003). Why the United States Will Not Be a Market for Foreign Higher Education Products: A Case against GATS. Retrieved March 11, 2010, from http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/News31/text003.htm

American Council on Education. (2008, 9.28.2008). GATS - General Agreement on Trade in Services. Retrieved March 10, 2010, from http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Topics&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=5851

Blinn, H.-J. (2009). The Role of European Regions in the Higher Education Process of the EU. In C. F. Bonser (Ed.), Adapting Universities to the Global Society - A Transatlantic Perspective. Berlin: Lit Verlag.

Clark, N., & Sedgwick, R. (2005). International Students: It's a Buyer's Market. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://www.wes.org/eWENR/05july/feature.htm

Fischer, K. (2009). America Falling: Longtime Dominance in Education Erodes. Retrieved March 12, 2010, from http://chronicle.com/article/America-Falling-Longtime/48683/

A Leadership Model for Internationalization

Where does theory reside? In textbooks and research papers, certainly, but I would argue that there are few social science theories that fit the complex data of specific situations very neatly. Practitioners such as teachers may not articulate their theory of teaching very often, but their theory of what works and what doesn’t, what is appropriate in a given situation and what is not, is manifest in their practice. And rarely if ever does a teacher apply a theory of teaching or learning its pure form; the messiness and specificity of the daily teaching situation calls for a more nuanced, personal theory which addresses the exigencies of that situation. Here, in the thoughts of practitioners, is where theory is created and brought to life.

Similarly, there is no single theory of leadership that is likely to be applicable to the challenges, the environment, and the players in a particular situation. Determining what leadership model is appropriate involves understanding that situation and then turning to the “textbook theories” for ideas. To illustrate, in this essay I take the example of the challenge of a rapidly internationalizing college, the College of Professional Studies at Northeastern University. First I describe what I see as the main challenges presented by an increasingly international student body; then I draw on published theories in an attempt to craft a leadership model that I believe will be needed to bring about the needed changes in the college.

The recruitment of international students to the College of Professional Studies is not a choice: given a rapidly growing international demand for a practical education from a U.S. institution, internationalization is an imperative strategic decision made to ensure that the college can survive and grow in the 21st century. This international orientation brings with it a number of administrative and academic challenges, among them:

• Re-designing marketing and recruitment plans, procedures, and publications to reach the international market
• Adapting the college infrastructure and systems so that they serve international students
• Ensuring that curriculum and instruction are modified to take advantage of a larger number of international students in the college’s classrooms
• Providing academic, counseling, and administrative support services geared toward international students during both the application period and the students’ time in the college
• Orienting and advising faculty and staff , and persuading them to embrace the coming changes
• Dealing with the messiness that accompanies any kind of cultural change, as well as the anxiety, fear, and confusion that some staff and faculty may feel (Fullan, 2001)

What types of leadership are required in order to meet these challenges? I believe the answer can be found in a mix of “classical” or “one leader” theory (Doyle & Smith, 2001) and distributed leadership (Elmore, cited in Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005), mediated by theory which focuses on leadership style as a response to the particular situation. (Doyle & Smith, 2001)

The first element of leadership that I consider crucial in facing the challenge of college internationalization is what I would call the ‘heroic’ style: metaphorically, the army general or the captain of the ship. This type of leader understands the ‘bigger picture,’ reads the situation well, and plans a strategy. Fullan (2001) argues that such a visionary leader is needed, “when there is an urgent problem and people are at sea.” (p. 174) I would argue that in a highly competitive higher education market, in which the survival of institutions, along with the livelihoods of their employees, depends on fast and purposeful responses to changing demographics, economics, and educational needs, perceptive and decisive leadership in ‘steering the ship’ is indeed urgent.

There are numerous views on the characteristics such a leader needs to have – so-called ‘trait’ theories of leadership. Fullan (2001) argues that “enthusiasm, self-confidence, optimism, and clarity of vision” (p. 176) are helpful in inspiring others. Collins (2001) describes what he calls “the level 5 leader” as one who “blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will” (p. 30) but who is also, “fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results.” (p. 48) Murphy (1968) describes the ‘heroic’ leader as one who possesses vision, is knowledgeable, strong, powerful, communicates well and takes charge, but also is a good listener. (p. 52) While the individual characteristics preferred by writers may vary, they generally agree that strength, drive, and vision are essential. I would add that the ability to discern what is happening in the environment, to determine what response is required, and to translate this into a strategy is also crucial.

Other writers in the ‘heroic leader’ tradition have focused on the kinds of behaviors the leader needs to display. Again, there are varying views, depending on the writer. For example, Kouzes and Posner’s (2002) “practices of exemplary leadership” characterize leaders as modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart. Kotter’s process for leading change from the top has eight stages, including “establishing a sense of urgency,” “creating a guiding coalition,” and “developing a strategy and vision.” (Fullan, 2001)

I am a little skeptical of these attempts to define in isolation from specific situations good leadership as comprising specific behaviors. Such descriptions tend to assume stasis and homogeneity, that is, they imply that the particular behaviors are good for all situations and for all time. Of greater interest are categorizations of approaches that a leader might adopt, depending on the situation. Daniel Goleman, for example, has identified the following six leadership styles: coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and coaching. (Goleman, cited in Fullan, 2001). In this scheme, the strong leader remains at the helm, but ideally adopts, from a repertoire, varying styles of leadership appropriate to the various situations confronted: at times the enforcer who lays on the line the changes that are needed; at other times the democrat who listens to the views of others and folds them into the institutional strategy; at still others, the coach, who helps and empowers employees to achieve and become leaders in their own areas; and so on. But no matter what style the leader adopts, it is still he or she who sets the leadership agenda, deciding what approach is needed, for which groups, at what times, sometimes rolling out responsibilities to individuals in the organization, at other times pulling back and taking a firmer hold of the reins, depending on his or her take on how well or poorly the necessary changes are being implemented. To summarize, the first element of leadership which I believe is crucial as the College of Professional Studies becomes internationalized, is a perceptive and powerful leader who is able adopt varying approaches appropriate to the circumstances.

Overwhelmingly, however, I believe that it is imperative for this leader to develop buy-in among all faculty and staff, for two reasons. First and most obvious is that no single person can bring about institutional change, which requires everyone to pull in the direction of the change. Issuing orders from above will not result in their being enacted, except in an extremely coercive (such as a military or dictatorial) environment, or in one in which the cost of failure is high (such as loss of jobs or the survival of the organization). Second, the role of the leader at the College of Professional Studies is to bring about lasting change, change which will continue beyond the tenure of the leader. This corresponds with Collins’ (2001) suggestion about Level 5 leaders, who, “want to see the company even more successful in the next generation, comfortable with the idea that most people won’t even know that the roots of that success trace back to their efforts.” (p. 36) This parallels the leadership of former Northeastern president Richard Freeland, who transformed Northeastern into a residential university and moved the university up the national rankings. ("Northeastern's Choice," 2006) Those new to the university in 2010 are unlikely to be aware of the fact that the way the university looks and operates today is in large measure due to Freeland’s leadership. The changes he led were taken on by university employees at all levels, and this will sustain the changes for many years to come. What Freeland had to do, and what the leader of the College of Professional Studies has to do, is depend on others to bring about the needed changes. (Murphy, 1968) This means that the leader must persuade college employees about the need for change, and empower them to act to implement the changes in their own areas, as well as collaborate with those in other areas. In effect, the leader needs to develop leaders throughout the organization to ensure that leadership and initiative are exercised in every department and at every level. This is what Elmore calls a distributed model of leadership (Marzano et al., 2005). Buckingham and Clifton provide what I consider to be a compelling approach to developing distributed leadership: in their words, “a leader should spend a great deal of time selecting the right people up front, (and) legislate outcomes as opposed to the style or manner in which outcomes are accomplished.” (Marzano et al., 2005, p. 20) Relying on the leadership of others does not absolve the leader of his or her responsibility for overall leadership. Leaders exercising a distributed model of leadership need to make their reports accountable, but in turn such leaders are accountable to those they report to for the success of the enterprise they oversee.

The leadership model I have proposed for the College of Professional Studies as its international student body increases is, then, one in which a strong leader reads the competitive environment, decides on a response, and implements a strategy by bringing on board everyone in the college. The level of force with which the leader needs to do this will depend on the level of buy-in by college employees, the urgency with which tasks need to be accomplished, and an ongoing assessment of how well the necessary changes are being implemented. Leadership approach cannot be determined in advance and in isolation from its situation.



References

Collins, J. (2001). Level 5 Leadership. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Doyle, M. E., & Smith, M. K. (2001, June 18, 2009). Classical Leadership. Retrieved July 26, 2009

Fullan, M. (2001). Understanding Change. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Gardner, J. W. (1990). The Nature of Leadership. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2002). The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Marzano, R. J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. A. (2005). School Leadership that Works. Alexandria, Va.

Murphy, J. T. (1968). The Unheroic Side of Leadership. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Northeastern's Choice. (2006). Retrieved August 1, 2009, from http://www.northeastern.edu/president/news4.html

Vygotskyan Theory and Adult Second Language Acquisition Research

What happens when we take a theory from the context of its origination and development and attempt to use it in another? Can it still be used, and is its use still meaningful? I am compelled to ask these questions when considering the work of Lev Vygotsky, whose theoretical constructs have been appropriated by researchers in a field I am familiar with, adult second language acquisition. In this post I briefly summarize some important aspects of Vygotsky’s theory of developmental psychology, then describe how researchers have grounded their own research in them. I then raise questions about the problems involved with applying theory to new contexts brought to light by these examples. My goal is to examine the relevance of Vygotsky to adult second language learners.

Essentially, Vygotsky believed that that children’s cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interaction, that individual knowledge is derived from knowledge co-constructed through interaction with another or others, and that language is the key psychological tool for learning. The most obvious example is the situation in which a more knowledgeable or skillful parent or caregiver and a child are engaged in a dialogue. Vygotsky postulated that externally articulated dialogue becomes internalized by the child and thus becomes new knowledge or learning. In Miller’s (2002) phrasing, “The intermental becomes the intramental; interpersonal communication becomes intrapersonal communication. (p. 389)

I believe that Vygotsky’s appeal to educators lies in the fact that not only did he present a theory of development – what has come to be called sociocultural theory - but also a teaching/learning concept teachers can relate to, and a technique or mechanism by which they perceive they can make learning happen. The concept – the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - is a metaphor for the difference between a skill or knowledge area the child currently has mastery of and the skill knowledge area the child can attain with help from a more skilled or more knowledgeable other.

The ZPD is not simply the gap between what the child knows and what she needs to know; rather it is the gap between current knowledge or skill and what the child is capable of coming to know or do as a result of collaborative talk with an adult or more skilled or more knowledgeable other. Given the child’s current level of knowledge or skill, she cannot be made to learn just anything; she must be ready to advance to the new level of knowledge, traversing the Zone of Proximal Development.

The mechanism by which the child is brought to the new level of knowledge or skill has come to be called scaffolding, the second factor in Vygotsky’s appeal to educators, and a term widely used by teachers when they talk about classroom practice. Scaffolding is a metaphor, typically (because Vygotsky’s definition of the scaffolding environment included work, play, and other activities (Miller, 2002)) for the supporting language provided by an adult in conversation with a child in which the child’s development or learning is “under construction,” as it were. The child who has a broader ZPD to traverse is considered to require more scaffolding; when the ZPD is relatively narrow, less scaffolding is needed. When the child has achieved mastery of this knowledge or skill and no longer needs adult scaffolding, she is considered to have reached a new stage of development.

The two metaphors of the ZPD, and particularly, the scaffold provide educators with the basis of a “story” they can tell about in-class teaching and learning; they are terms teachers can use to describe their interaction with students and the perceived resulting effect on learning. The frequent use of the term ‘scaffold’ among the ESL teachers I am in regular contact convinces me that they find the term useful in describing classroom practice, and that they implicitly share a definition of the term.

Although Vygotskyan theory has not entered the mainstream of adult second language acquisition study, a number of researchers have grounded their work in aspects of Vygotskyan theory, and Mitchell and Myles (2004) devote a chapter of their book on second language acquisition theories to sociocultural theory. Here I briefly review some of these studies.

McCafferty (described in Mitchell and Myles (2004, pp. 202 - 204)) paid attention to the private speech of adult learners in a second language situation in which they were asked to re-tell a story. He found that the number of private utterances (such as “What do I see?” and “Ah. OK.”) the students incorporated into their speech while telling the story increased with the difficulty of the task. McCafferty concluded that this private speech was an example of the learners “self-regulating” – as opposed to being “other-regulated” – on the way to complete internalization of new knowledge. Other studies described by Mitchell and Myles, such as those of Anton and DiCamilla, and Ohta, observed adult learners engaging in private speech during class. In all these studies, students’ private speech was interpreted in Vygotskyan terms: it was regarded as being a transitional stage between the external speech of dialogue and the inner speech of individual knowledge.

The most striking studies, though, have focused on scaffolding and use transcribed classroom conversations between and among adults as their data. For example, in one of Hatch’s examples, a non-native English speaker elicits the phrase “last year” from her native-speaker interlocutor:
Rafaela: Excuse me…
This is the…
October 24.
The how you say…
The … (writes ‘1974’)
year, ah?
NS: 1974. Last year.
R: Ah! Last years!
NS: One. (Correction of plural form.)
R: Last year.
Last year a friend gave it to me.
(Mitchell & Myles, 2004, pp. 209 - 210)

Some studies have involved ESL tutors “scaffolding” adult learners through errors in their writing, with the researchers recording the apparent internalization of language forms over time; others, such as Ohta, have adapted the concept of scaffolding and applied it to the co-construction of language knowledge through the collaboration of language-learner peers rather than a more knowledgeable other, and she suggested that the cognitive load of producing spoken language represented a burden that learners sought to mitigate through collaboration. (Mitchell & Myles, 2004, p. 214) Donato, also studying scaffolding through peer collaboration, concluded that, “peer scaffolding results in linguistic development within the individual.” (Mitchell & Myles, 2004, p. 217) In a further peer-scaffolding study, Ko, Schallert, and Walters (2003) had learners tell a story to a group of peers, who then, guided by an instructor, asked clarifying questions and engaged in a feedback dialogue with the learner about the story. The learner then told the story to another group of peers, and the difference in the two tellings was recorded. The authors rated the quality of the group question and feedback sessions and found 1) that higher quality scaffolding in these sessions resulted in a more detailed and linguistically complex re-telling; and 2), that the level of engagement in the response of the learner to the questions was directly related to the quality of the re-telling. The teacher and peers were critical players, but the involvement of the learner was more important. The authors concluded that the learner plays an active role in the scaffolding process, even driving the process through his or her level of engagement in the dialogue.

What are we to make of these adult second language acquisition studies that claim to ground themselves in Vygotskyan theory? Based on my (admittedly limited) survey, I have some concerns:
• They draw on Vygotskyan theory without offering any critical evaluation of it: the reader is expected to assume that Vygotskyan theory is accepted.
• They lack a clear rationale for assuming that Vygotsky’s theory, which addressed psychological development in children, can be applied to adult learning and specifically to second language acquisition.
• When they describe peer scaffolding, they appear to be describing mechanisms of learning that are not especially Vygotskyan: the easing of the cognitive load that Ohta describes may or may not have anything to do with getting the student to traverse the Zone of Proximal Development through scaffolding.

I am left wanting more information on what makes Vygotsky’s ideas on psychological development in children relevant to the task of second language acquisition in adults. In particular, I am concerned that some of Vygotsky’s ideas – particularly the ZPD and scaffolding – have been uprooted from their original context and used in a superficial way to lend credibility to a research study; and that the definition of these terms, in particular that of scaffolding, has been extended beyond its original meaning to make it appear to be applicable to a researcher’s agenda. What I take from this is that as I begin to learn the rationale for grounding my own research in theory, is that I need to be comfortable that I can justify the theoretical area I select. I could in principle seek to locate my current intended area of research – cultural adaptation among international students and/or their instructors – in Vygotskyan theory, for example by analyzing classroom conversations between teachers and students which result in greater mutual cultural understanding. This might be an innovative field in which to apply Vygotskyan theory, and might be considered original; on the other hand, I can also imagine challenges to this use of Vygotskyan theory, and my own challenge therefore would be to build my case for appropriating it. Useful guidance is provided by Miller (2002): “It is not necessarily wrong to selectively assimilate a theory. Scientific progress often comes from taking only what is most useful from a theory. But it should be recognized that Vygotsky’s theory is often misunderstood.” (pp. 416 - 417) Incorporating a theory into my own research will require that I thoroughly understand that theory and am aware of its strengths and shortcomings in relation to my research area.

This short essay has raised more questions for me than given answers, but I have at least begun thinking in new ways about theory and its applicability to research.




References
Ko, J., Schallert, D. L., & Walters, K. (2003). Rethinking Scaffolding: Examining Negotiation of Meaning in an ESL Storytelling Task TESOL Quarterly, 37(2), 303 - 324.

Miller, P. H. (2002). Theories of Developmental Psychology. New York, NY: Worth.

Mitchell, R., & Myles, F. (2004). Second Language Learning Theories (2 ed.). London: Hodder Arnold.