American universities have been internationalizing for decades, and their leaders often contend they must engage globally to stay relevant and prepare students adequately for a rapidly changing work environment. Faculty members, as keepers of the curricula and pivotal university actors, are critical to global engagement efforts on their campuses. However, many university leaders have yet to engage individual professors in ways that have resulted in securing their sustainable support for comprehensive internationalization (CI). A similar weakness of CI related research to date has been its failure to include a broad group of voices when investigating faculty engagement in internationalization. Following Childress’ framework (2010), this study explored the meaning-making, motivations, and perceptions attached to CI through individual interviews with a sample from all ranks of U.S. civil and environmental engineering faculty members from three Land Grant universities. Interviewees highlighted a variety of barriers and motivations linked to internationalization including, historical constructs, personal and professional values, and perceptions of potential outcomes of CI engagement. The analysis highlights and explores these factors and their connections to the international outlook ranking for interviewees’ institutions. / Ph.D. / American universities have been addressing global concerns and challenges for decades. Their faculties have for just as long sought palliatives and solutions to those issues. One element of that work is efforts to prepare students to work in an internationally connected world. University professors who design classes for students and conduct research are critical to all of these initiatives. However, university leaders have not been able to find ways to involve a sufficient and sustainable group of professors to make globally focused research and teaching efforts a central priority. Past studies investigating faculty involvement in internationalization have not yet researched a full range of professorial perceptions of such efforts. This study sought to understand what a sample of civil and environmental engineering faculty members at three American Land Grant universities perceived concerning internationalization initiatives at their institutions. I chose this group for study because their views have not been examined systematically and because there are more students studying engineering and in this one field within engineering than ever before. Those I interviewed included faculty members of all ranks and they also exhibited a wide range of levels of engagement in globally focused research and teaching. Interviewee responses highlighted a diverse array of motivations for international engagement and as many disincentives for faculty to do so. Professors’ work histories, values, and personal and professional perspectives all mediate their involvement in globally relevant issues. This analysis identified a list of concerns that university leaders can address to encourage their faculties to pursue internationalization. It also examined the connection between university reputations and faculty engagement with international concerns.

A major focus of many U.S. higher-education institutions is to increase internationalization of their campus through, in part, the promotion of study abroad experiences among domestic students and to recruit and retain international students to their institution. This study explored the effects of certain factors on various domains of the Global Engagement Measurement Scale (GEMS) – Cultural Engagement, Ambiguity Tolerance, Knowledge of Host Site, and Diversity Openness – among U.S. students who have studied abroad and international exchange students who have studied in the U.S. There was a particular focus, on determining whether U.S. study abroad students, compared to international students, rate differently on GEMS scales, after controlling for other possible confounding variables. Participants were recruited from three Southeastern, public, 4-year universities and were eligible if they were enrolled at any of those universities in the last five years. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed several factors significantly affected each of the various outcomes on the GEMS. Cultural Engagement and Ambiguity Tolerance were both predicted by the institution of study and the type of student (U.S. study abroad versus international exchange). Knowledge of Host Site was predicted by whether or not the trip was government sponsored, pre-trip familiarity with the host culture, and type of student. The overall regression model for Diversity Openness was not significant. These results provide insights into key factors that affect the overall global engagement of college students and can be used to inform university faculty and staff about features they can add to improve campus internationalization efforts.

This interactive session provides opportunities (1) to share ideas for infusing global perspectives and goals into CAPCSD projects, conferences, and the work of committees and task forces; (2) to discuss ways to collaborate in an ongoing global engagement projects and help include content for 2017 conference; and (3) to create how-to guides for ethical and culturally attuned translational research, and clinical education, and service learning.