What is curriculum integration?
When the term "curriculum integration" is used by international education professionals, it refers to making our work more than an add-on to a college education, and making 'international' something that is integrated into the college curricular experience. Curriculum integration is implemented in many different forms such as:
- Developing study abroad programs that teach required major courses
- Cultivating a pedagogy in some or all disciplines that emphasizes international learning outcomes
- Altering degree requirements to include international learning outcomes
- Creating minors or certificates with requirements for international knowledge, skills, and/or experiences
What are some keys to success used by other institutions and organizations?
- Make international curriculum integration part of departmental /college-wide plans (not just part of larger institution and organization-wide strategic plans).
- Engage provost, deans, and department chairs.
- Recruit key faculty in as many disciplines as possible from the start (not just humanities and social science faculty). Choose faculty who are involved with undergraduate education if undergraduates are the target.
- Campus-wide initiatives must have flexibility across disciplines - e.g. , science vs. humanities vs. engineering/computing
- Make friends on the campus-wide curriculum committee.
- Plan to integrate programs or initiatives into the regular operations of academic departments and into the international office. Curriculum integration is not owned solely by a centralized international office, but is instead a collaboration between academic departments (faculty, advisers, administration) and offices.
- Develop desired outcomes as well as goals for the campus/organization and/or for each department. Plan assessment based on the learning outcomes that is sustainable.
Panelists
Amy Henry, Georgia Institute of Technology
Amy Henry is the Executive Director of International Education at the Georgia
Institute of Technology, a position she began in July 2008 following 14 years
of work with study abroad students and programs. She has degrees from the
College of William and Mary and Georgia Tech. She has served in various
advisory and leadership roles in international education including NAFSA:
Association of International Educators' Network Leader, Chair of the Business
International Studies Network, and Executive Committee of the Global
Engineering Education Exchange Consortium. She has extensive experience with
curriculum integration in study abroad as well as with Georgia Techss broader
curriculum integration initiative, the "International Plan."
Joe Hoff, University of Richmond
Joseph
Hoff is the Associate Dean of International Education at the University of
Richmond. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative and International Development
Education from the University of Minnesota and has an M.A. in International
Administration from the School for International Training and an M.A. in
Spanish from Saint Louis University. He has over 20 years experience in the
international education field, previously working as Director of the
International Degree and Education Abroad office at Oregon State University,
Assistant Director of the Office of International Programs at Brown
University. In addition to having studied abroad in Spain, he taught English
on the Japan Exchange and Teaching program in Shizuoka, Japan and completed an
internship in Lugano, Switzerland.
Gabriele Weber-Bosley, Bellarmine University
Gabriele Weber-Bosley is Director of International Programs and Associate
Professor of Global Languages and Cultures at Bellarmine University. She
received her graduate and post graduate degrees in foreign language
education/ESL and German Studies from the University of Paderborn and the
University of Louisville. Her research interests include twentieth-century
German women's literature, foreign language acquisition, curricular
development, and intercultural education. She designed and implemented
Bellarmine's trans-curricular Foreign Languages and International Studies
degree in 1998, a minor in International Studies in 2006, and has lead a
variety of campus-wide curricular initiatives. She is the founding chair of
the Global Languages and Cultures Department which she chaired from 1998 to
2008, as well as the founding Director of Bellarmine's International Programs
Office, and has served in that capacity since 1995. Gabriele is the recipient
of several regional and national awards, has assisted the university in
securing over $6 million in grant funding, has published on the topic of
intercultural education, is a regular presenter at conferences in the U.S. and
abroad, and currently serves on numerous boards at local, state, national and
international levels.