WMU joins Internationalization Laboratory
of the American Council on Education
 Dr. Steve Malcolm, Dr. Barbara Hil, and Dean McCloud
kicked off the 2-year program October 23
A campus-wide “laboratory” to advance comprehensive internationalization of the University’s undergraduate curriculum has been launched by the International Education Council of the Faculty Senate and the Haenicke Institute for Global Education. Dr. Barbara Hill, a senior associate of ACE’s Internationalization Initiatives, visited campus October 22 and 23 to host informational meetings for members of the IEC, its working groups, college-based international committees and the University’s administrators, deans and chairs.
Western has committed to participate in the American Council on Education’s Internationalization Laboratory, a two-year program of assessment and planning aimed at strengthening the international education components of undergraduate curriculum. Over the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years, WMU faculty will engage in an array of activities guided by the ACE Laboratory format to develop, assess and implement strategies.
 “All of our students must have the tools to know and judge the world around them whether they exercise those judgments in conjunction with business or other assignments abroad, whether they continue within the academy to study the great issues that globalization raises, or whether they simply venture into the voting booth in Kalamazoo or New York City, or anywhere in between,” said Haenicke Institute Dean Dr. Donald G. McCloud. “Through the internationalization laboratory, our faculty will play an important role in reexamining our community and what we teach to ensure our graduates carry with them the needed perspectives and understandings to function in the contemporary world which we so readily label as “globalized.”
Both McCloud and Dr. Stephen B. Malcolm, chair of the faculty senate’s International Education Council, will lead the campus activities that will be developed during membership of the current laboratory cohort. Malcolm considers that our membership “is in perfect alignment with the mission of Western Michigan University and is a wholly constructive and persuasive means of more strongly integrating international and intercultural dimensions into the teaching, research, and service activities of our institution. The interface between students and faculty is key to the success and dynamism of WMU and enhanced “internationalization” facilitates our intent to make this interface within our university community truly “universal” and “collegial.”
Western is one of seven universities and colleges ACE invited to host a laboratory this year to build on the data already collected from the 80 institutions that have participated since the program began in 2003. The University’s nationwide “lab partners” are Central Connecticut State University, Pacific University, Purdue University, Saint Mary’s College, Temple University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. The “textbook” for the lab is “A Handbook for Advancing Comprehensive Internationalization: What Institutions Can Do and What Students Should Learn,” published by the ACE.
For more information, contact Bill Woods, executive director of international programs, Haenicke Institute, at (269) 387-5890, w.woods@wmich.edu .
Click here to read periodic updates on WMU’s Internationalization Laboratory ACE Internationalization Laboratory Web site |
