Bringing Internationalization Home

While the Internet has narrowed the distances between the far-flung corners of the globe, one of the most common ways to bring the world to college and university campuses has its roots in analog videotapes sent through the mail.

Jon Rubin recalls returning to the State University of New York-Purchase (SUNY-Purchase) after a Fulbright fellowship in Belarus in 1999 and struggling to share his experiences with students at the New York institution. Then a professor of media arts, he showed his classes videos produced by their Belarusian counterparts. "I couldn't stop my students from asking questions," he recounts.

Cross-cultural video production led to online discussion boards linking students from both nations, and ultimately to the creation of a virtual exchange format termed Collaborative Online International Learning, or COIL. Virtual exchange grew steadily in the years that followed—and became the only avenue for global experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, solidifying the benefits of on-campus internationalization for many campus leaders.

"And the story goes on and on," says Rubin, who served as director of the SUNY COIL Center from 2006 to 2017 and was awarded NAFSA's inaugural John and Anne Hudzik Prize for Sustained Leadership in Higher Education Internationalization in 2026.

Framing the Conversation

That story represents what, during the past few decades, has become a larger part of the work of colleges and universities around the world. Backed by institutional strategies that prioritize global learning and by research demonstrating that campus-based opportunities foster students' intercultural competencies, international educators are fulfilling the decades-old aspiration of bringing the benefits of global learning to every student, not just those with the means and opportunity to travel abroad.

International educators need to "conceptualize [internationalization] as an amplifier—what we're doing in the classroom, cocurricularly, and in the community can all sing together to create transformational change," says Janelle S. Peifer, associate professor of psychology at the University of Richmond.

While the aspirations of comprehensive internationalization date back decades, the existential crises of higher education writ large are presenting new obstacles to creating integrated opportunities that serve greater numbers of students. And with senior leadership fighting to justify a wide range of activities during a time of retrenchment on many campuses, international educators must find new ways of articulating the benefits of their work.

"We use the wrong rhetoric. We say our role is to advance global learning and engagement. Our job is to support the mission of the university through global engagement. It's a very different angle," says Hilary Kahn, faculty member and former senior international officer at Indiana University (IU). "We need to do a better job of defining those values and creating new structures to move forward. In any crisis, there's opportunity. We are at a time when we can really rethink the field."

Fulfilling the Promise

While the spillover effects of global initiatives on domestic campuses have always been part of international education's DNA, the concept of comprehensive internationalization formally took root around the turn of the twenty-first century.

The term itself was coined by John Hudzik, then dean and vice president of international programs at Michigan State University, who called it "an institutional imperative, not just a desirable possibility."

Hudzik would later serve as NAFSA president in 2009, the year after the organization defined comprehensive internationalization as "the conscious effort to integrate and infuse international, intercultural, and global dimensions into the ethos and outcomes of postsecondary education."

Known as internationalization at home (IaH) in other countries, comprehensive internationalization spans a wide range of activities.

• Virtual exchange: offering online programs that foster global collaboration among students and faculty, programs that are distinct from—but just as academically rigorous as—mobility-based opportunities
• Curriculum internationalization: integrating global perspectives into a wide range of disciplines
• Cocurricular activities: providing internationally focused programming, community events, global lounges, language houses, and peer mentoring or other activities with international students
• Language education: cultivating cultural fluency and developing proficiency in foreign languages
• Community engagement: coordinating opportunities to work with local organizations and companies with global reach

At the same time, what internationalization looks like on any given campus is driven by the local context—and the students the institution serves. For example, San Diego State University (SDSU) has a large bilingual student population with an interest in global learning. It also has thousands of students who cross the border from Mexico to come to campus every day, prompting international leaders to think about how the transborder experience could enrich teaching and learning for everyone.

While SDSU has globe-spanning initiatives and programs across multiple continents, in recent years, it has also focused close to home. "We wondered what we could do to interest our students in the CaliBaja region," says Cristina Alfaro, associate vice president of international affairs.

"If you're going to become a global leader, you've got to know about your region first and integrate that with whatever your career is going to be," Alfaro adds.

In its eighth year, SDSU's annual RE:BORDER conference has grown to include more than 1,000 scholars, government officials, faculty, researchers, and students across the binational region, driving student and faculty research on issues such as water pollution that know no political boundaries.

SDSU is also a member of the recently launched CaliBaja Higher Education Consortium (CHEC), which brings together institutions from both sides of the border to develop articulated binational programs and joint projects to boost the region's competitiveness.

Another offering is SDSU's Life in the Borderlands courses, which cover multiple disciplines and allow students to travel to Tijuana or other nearby locales for a day or a week at a time. Other programs bring together students from institutions in both countries for collaborative learning opportunities.

Demonstrating Impact

Regardless of the specific approaches institutions take, new evidence demonstrates the impact of internationalization. A longitudinal study conducted by Peifer, Elaine Meyer-Lee of Goucher College, and Gita Taasoobshirazi of Kennesaw State University found that campus-based activities outperformed travel-based ones in some measures of intercultural competencies.

The study also found that campus-based global learning experiences contribute to increased diversity in students' peer relationships—which, in turn, further strengthens intercultural competency. Peifer speculates that this could be because of the long-term relationships forged in on-campus classes, learning communities, and friendships—and how these relationships drive students' sense of identity and skill development.

With on-campus experiences, "You have more opportunities to integrate that learning across social, educational, and cocurricular domains, and the opportunity to develop long-term relationships," she reflects. "There are a ton of experiences that can shape that in and outside of the classroom, and what you see is that cumulative effect over time."

To ensure that long-term commitment, global learning for all students is also now enshrined in many institutions' strategic plans and mission statements. SDSU's senior leadership, for example, is committed to making the institution "a premier binational university," Alfaro says. "My whole staff knows [our work] is aligned to the university's strategic plan. We're already conditioned to do that."

And the concept has gone global. In Brazil, for example, where internationalization is a part of many institutions' strategic plans, Dom Cabral University has made international reach one of just five strategies through 2030, according to Marcele Carneiro Gama Viana, associate dean of innovation and international development.

"We believe strongly [that] we can deliver global mindsets, critical thinking, and all the abilities we know that students should have even [if] they're not going abroad," she says.

Creating a Roadmap

There is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for internationalization. "You have to find a pathway that's palatable to your institutional culture," Rubin says. "If you're doing it in South Africa, it's not going to work the same way as in Iowa. The institutional cultures are different."

But key steps include coordinating a wide range of efforts and providing support and scale for disparate initiatives across campus. "It ends up being like a puzzle. You know where you need to end, you have all the pieces in front of you, and you're putting them together in different patterns to move towards this comprehensive approach," Kahn says.

Among the strategies:

Assess existing opportunities.

Since global learning is often driven by individual faculty or cocurricular activities, it's important to catalog the full suite of programming on campus. Peifer suggests holding listening sessions with faculty and staff and developing an in-house catalog. Doing so allows international offices to "raise the profile of opportunities that are really complementary and increase their impact," she relays.

Develop learning outcomes and goals.

International offices should also ensure clearly defined learning outcomes are developed. At SDSU, for example, global learning outcomes focus on linking global experiences, including COIL and transborder projects in the CaliBaja region, to courses and areas of study.

Once outcomes are defined, it's essential to assess them. "Being able to look at and be curious about what is contributing to change on your campus is critical," Peifer says.

One way to do this is to ask students directly. At Dom Cabral University, students conduct self-evaluations of their global mindset when they begin and again when they finish their programs of study. "You can see that and measure what they are leaving with," Carneiro Gama Viana says.

It's also important to define and track internal indicators such as key performance indicators (KPIs). "If you don't have these, it's really not feasible to implement something," Carneiro Gama Viana argues.

Use backwards design in planning.

A familiar skill set to faculty, this approach is also critical for developing internationalization initiatives. "It's not rocket science, but being able to define your goals and design your content to meet those expectations…[allows this work to] be used in a variety of ways," Kahn says.

Focusing first on goals also allows educators to develop a consistent approach to supporting the disparate strands of internationalization across campus. "It's good to have a framework, not just a technique or methodology," Rubin says.

Consistent frameworks also help ensure that individual efforts connect to broader goals. "Comprehensive internationalization is all about the big picture and making sure it is as [broad] as possible, but it's also about the minutiae—making sure whatever you're doing is supporting the respective units that are part of the greater good," Kahn explains. "The more you can say 'this connects to this, and this can serve this,' the more you are creating the connective tissue underneath what you are doing."

Make the case to all stakeholders.

International leaders must communicate the value of internationalization initiatives to several distinct audiences.

Support from university leaders is always essential in implementing innovative practices, and internationalization initiatives are no exception. Rubin notes that the leadership support that led to the creation of SUNY's COIL Center "gave it legitimacy. It wasn't just the activity of individual teachers, but a university-supported activity that [added] value."

Even though the centrality of global learning is codified in many institutions' strategic plans, it's still critical to continue highlighting its value.

"It's a very crowded playing field, and there are a lot of different initiatives vying for attention," Kahn says. "Demonstrate that internationalization is not yet another thing [university leaders] have to worry about, but something that can solve their problems."

Among the issues internationalization can help address: retention and enrollment. For public institutions, it also contributes to regional or statewide economic development.

When trying to get faculty on board, other faculty members often make the most effective case. SDSU's international affairs staff holds monthly lunch and learns, during which faculty share research projects and opportunities for students from their work with Mexico and Latin America. Emphasize the add-on benefits to pedagogy and learning, "which aren't always obvious," Rubin says. "It's going to force you to [foster] an interdisciplinary classroom, which is in itself a benefit."

And don't neglect the importance of making the case within the international office itself, where mobility-focused staff may see on-campus initiatives as a threat, Rubin cautions.

"Travel-based experiences tend to be instantly attractive to students. We see [campus-based] experiences as complementary, not either/or," Peifer explains. "It's about being able to communicate the outcomes, whether professional or personal, that make these activities relevant."

Identify entry points with the potential to scale.

For example, curriculum initiatives should involve the touchpoints all students encounter: faculty and advisers, Kahn notes. From there, identify programming that touches as many students as possible. At IU, for example, stakeholders quickly identified the freshman year seminar that all students are required to take as a key opportunity to weave in a global perspective.

Existing relationships beyond the campus can provide another entry point. At Dom Cabral University, the existing ecosystem of multinational companies, nongovernmental organizations, and private and public sector innovation hubs are critical to providing opportunities for domestic students, including internships. Relationships like these "open up our minds for everyone to think more internationally," Carneiro Gama Viana says.

And for staff in the international office, it's helpful to remember that on-campus activities often serve as an entry point to mobility. "At the end of the semester, my students would come up to me and ask if it was possible to study abroad," Rubin says. "These are students who never really thought about it, and many did study abroad."

Provide coordination—but prioritize collaboration.

Programs like virtual learning are often sparked by individual faculty interest, but they require a careful combination of coordination and collaboration to grow.

"Telling teachers to just do it doesn't work. You can't throw people together and say, 'let's collaborate'—most people will run away," Rubin says. At the same time, coordinating virtual exchange programs from the international office—something which nearly two-thirds of participating institutions do, according to a survey of the COIL Connect consortium—requires close collaboration with faculty or academic affairs leaders.

"When you appoint someone from the international office to manage COIL, they may not understand a lot about a syllabus," says Rubin, the consortium's director. "That's a lurking issue with [virtual exchange] as an all-of-campus initiative."

Addressing this gap requires working with faculty and "being open to whatever is the community interest," Peifer encourages. "It's really helpful to build relationships and get interested in what people are doing around campus." These relationships are key to developing a coalition on campus that can articulate the value of international competency to both leaders with decision-making authority and faculty peers, she says.

Those conversations can then be codified. At SDSU, global learning objectives were approved by the faculty senate, helping ensure their staying power, according to Alfaro.

Peifer adds that it's also critical to build partnerships across curricular and cocurricular activities. Civic engagement in the community—including collaboration with nonprofits that work with refugees, international schools, or multinational companies—can also be beneficial, she adds.

Develop the right kinds of faculty support.

Professional development is critical to ensuring that all faculty and staff involved in an internationalization initiative understand both the "why" and the "how," Kahn argues.

"You have to get beyond [preaching to] the choir and touch as many people as possible," she says. "Give them a toolbox that makes it as easy as possible."

Financial support can help supply these tools. At IU, for example, faculty receive a small financial incentive for writing up experiential global learning assignments that can be shared with peers.

"We're saying, 'you don't have to use this, but if you do, here are the assignments and rubrics,'" Kahn relays. In similar fashion, faculty at about 40 percent of U.S. institutions participating in COIL initiatives receive some kind of stipend, according to the COIL Connect survey.

Help students connect the dots.

As with mobility-based experiences, student reflection is a critical component for cementing global learning at home. This is even more important when students participate in multiple on-campus experiences, which they may not see as connected.

Some institutions make these experiences more tangible with so-called "passport" programs or certifications in intercultural competencies, which are awarded to students who participate in different global learning opportunities or who complete portfolios or reflections on their campus experiences. At SDSU, students can earn a university seal of biliteracy and cultural competence, a digital badge earned by participating in cultural and linguistic immersion experiences.

Capstone projects and portfolios present avenues for this kind of reflection, particularly when they link undergraduate global experiences to long-term career goals, according to Peifer. She recommends developmental projects that encourage students to take a broader, integrated view of their experience so they "don't just see the trees, but the forest."

"Building those bridges and connections . . . informs what's next for your students," she says.

Thinking Big

Comprehensive internationalization across an institution is an ambitious goal in itself—but some international educators are going even further.

For example, IU's freshman seminar has gone beyond its own campus. Through collaboration between institutions throughout the state, global learning is now a component of similar seminars at Indiana's Ivy Tech community college system and the University of Indianapolis. In similar fashion, Alfaro has held seminars for students—and soon for faculty—across the California State University system.

"I don't want to focus on a program, but a state system," Kahn says. "The bigger the better."

In the same spirit of innovation that drove Rubin's video exchanges and the development of COIL as a paradigm shift in the field, educators today are rethinking the potential bounds of campus-based initiatives. These efforts reflect the ultimate aspiration of comprehensive internationalization: providing all students with the opportunity to have global experiences. •