Gauging Disciplinary Engagement with Internationalization: A Survey of Geographers in the United States

Abstract

As higher education institutions worldwide seek to internationalize academic programmes, questions arise as to how institutions can effectively involve and support faculty in that process. The present study rests on the premise that professional development can play a decisive role in advancing two important components of internationalization—specifically international collaboration and the teaching of global perspectives by geography faculty. To explore this proposition, the AAG conducted a survey to determine how and why American geography professors have (a) pursued international collaboration in their work, and (b) incorporated global learning outcomes into the undergraduate geography curriculum. The analysis presented shows that faculty members who practise international collaboration and support global perspectives in their courses are more likely to do so when those practices are perceived to enhance the quality of teaching and research. Geographers who practice international collaboration also benefit from access to international networks and professional development activities that offer opportunities to gain experience in collaborative teaching and research. It was also found that departments and institutions play an important role in creating an academic climate that provides incentives for faculty to participate as agents in internationalization.

Keywords:

• International collaboration
• global learning outcomes
• professional development
• academic climate

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the American Council on Education (ACE). The National Science Foundation and the Association of American Geographers provided travel grant funding for the pilot study of this research performed in Glasgow, Scotland. Colin Arrowsmith, Sarah Bednarz, Ken Foote, Doug Gamble, Iain Hay, Mick Healey, Gil Latz, Antoni Luna, Jan Monk, Osvaldo Muñiz, Kavita Pandit, David Rutherford, Neil Smith, Patricia Solis, and Maria Villanueva provided helpful suggestions for improving an earlier draft of this paper. Anonymous Journal of Geography in Higher Education reviewers provided instructive comments for manuscript revisions. In addition, more than two dozen faculty and graduate students provided feedback on early drafts of the survey instrument and website. Finally, the authors wish to acknowledge Gayathri Gopiram for programming the online survey and Kelly Haggard for preparing mailings.

Notes

¹ For examples of historical collaboration see Kropotkin (1885), Harris (1965) and Lawson (2005). Fortuijn (2002), Haigh (2002, 2003), Kaviola (2003), Hartmann (2004), Martin (2004) and Pandit & Alderman (2004) discuss strategies for international curriculum development. The development of international networks for teaching and learning is discussed by Healey (1998), Hay et al. (2000), Shepherd et al. (2000) and Donert (2003). For critiques of a Western bias in internationalization see Garcia-Ramon & Monk (1997) and Jackson (2003). Several authors address the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) and distance learning in the internationalization process (Warf et al., 1999; Reeve et al., 2000; Mendler et al., 2002; Jain & Getis, 2003; Solem et al., 2003; Brooks & Morgan, 2004; Fox & Assmo, 2004; See et al., 2004; Solem et al., 2006).

² Recent international education projects include EUROGAME (Beckers et al., 2000), YoungNet (Brooks & Morgan, 2004), Geographic Inquiry into Global Issues (Hill, 1994), and the AAG's My Community, Our Earth, ARGWorld, and Online Center for Global Geography Education projects (AAG, 2005). Related initiatives outside geography include Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE, 2005), the Global SchoolNet networks (GSN, 2005), the Shared Futures programme at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (Hovland, 2005), and the American Council on Education's Leadership Network on International Education, the Internationalization Collaborative, the Global Learning for All project, and the Internationalization Laboratory (ACE, 2004).