Recent years have witnessed a rise in the level of nationalism in many countries with tightened immigration policies and stronger governmental oversight of multinational research collaborations. At the same time, competition among countries and universities for international students has increased significantly, while the demographics of young populations in many countries are shifting. Now, the onset of an historic global pandemic, with its serious travel challenges and dramatic economic effects, raises yet another threat to the future of internationalization on U.S. campuses.
How can universities develop new policies and practices that respond to both problems and opportunities resulting from this unprecedented crisis?
You are invited to hear presentations by three outstandingly expert and highly experienced figures in the field of international higher education and join in a discussion of these important topics.
Panelists:
- Tim O’Brien is a Senior Vice President with INTO University Partnerships a private sector organization supporting the global recruitment and internationalization efforts of 23 universities in the US, UK and China. Based in Washington DC, Tim is responsible for developing the partnership network across North America and leads the collaborative production of international student data and analytics insight for higher education associations in the U.S., including APLU and NAFSA. With almost 30 years’ experience in international education, Tim also has held senior international leadership roles in several UK universities, responsible for internationalization and establishing presence across key recruitment markets in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. He blogs for INTO here.
- Rajika Bhandari is the President and CEO of the IC3 Institute, an integral part of the International Career and College Counseling (IC3) Movement. A nonprofit leader and scholar-practitioner, Dr. Bhandari previously spent over a decade at the Institute of International Education (IIE) where she led IIE’s thought leadership initiatives and its global research and impact studies focused on student and scholar, including the flagship Open Doors report on International Educational Exchange. Her other roles include ones at MPR Associates (now part of RTI); the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and at Teachers College, Columbia University. A global expert in international higher education, Dr. Bhandari is a frequent speaker and writer with several publications and books to her credit; she is also a nonfiction author and has recently completed her second book (due out in 2021) on the international student experience and immigration in the U.S. She has served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO and was also awarded an IIE Centennial Medal in 2019 during the Institute's 100th anniversary. She holds degrees from the University of Delhi in India and North Carolina State University in the U.S.
- Hans de Wit is a globally renowned scholar, whose field is the internationalization of higher education. His research focuses on national and institutional policies, internationalization strategies, misconceptions, and differentiators in postsecondary education around the world. Before joining the Lynch School at Boston College as a professor and Director of the Center for International Higher Education, de Wit was Director of the Center for Higher Education Internationalisation at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy and taught at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. He served as a founding member and president of the European Association for International Education and founding editor of the Journal of Studies in International Education. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the International Association of Universities (IAU).
Moderator:
Igor Chirikov is the Director of the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium and Senior Researcher at CSHE. SERU Consortium is an academic and policy research collaboration based at Center for Studies in Higher Education at the UC Berkeley working in partnership with the University of Minnesota, the International Graduate Insight Group (i-graduate) and member universities. The Consortium is a group of leading research-intensive universities who increase student success by generating and analyzing comparative data on the student experience. As SERU Consortium Director Igor Chirikov has broad responsibilities for overall SERU Consortium coordination, research and development. This includes coordinating the SERU North American and International Divisions, directing the SERU research priorities and development projects, and exploring new approaches to the use of data to assess the student experience.