The Dean and International Relations: A One-Day ACAD Workshop

Monday, June 28, 2004
Bunn Intercultural Center, Georgetown University
Washington, DC

About the ACAD One-Day Workshop

About the Program

While chairs, deans and chief academic officers have become increasingly involved in supporting international programs, globalizing the curriculum, and managing crises related to both, they do not often get to benefit from international exchange themselves. In this workshop, participants will discuss how deans can become involved more effectively in international programming. A key component of the discussion will focus on strategies for connecting with international counterparts, both as a tool for supporting international programs and as an important dimension of professional development and global citizenship.

Program Schedule and Structure

The workshop will begin with a panel discussion session, which will include ample time for a Q&A session. It will be followed with a box lunch at which we hope to have remarks from Mamphela Ramphele, Managing Director of the World Bank. (Dr. Ramphele has not yet confirmed whether she will be able to participate.) After lunch, workshop participants will adjoin into facilitated breakout sessions in which they will be able to discuss in more detail the challenges to and strategies for developing, enhancing, and sustaining such programs. A concluding plenary will allow all the participants to share and synthesize the day’s discussions.

Opening Plenary Panel: 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Panelists: Gary Bittner, USAID; Michael Collins, Dean Emeritus, Georgetown University;Ruben Doboin, University Administrators Support Program at IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board); Russ Meyer, Alliance of Universities for Democracy (AUDEM); Christa Olson, Transatlantic Dialogue Program at ACE (American Council on Education)

The opening panel is intended to establish the context for the day’s program and identify key questions that can be addressed in more detail during the afternoon facilitated breakout sessions.

In our preliminary planning for this workshop we have worked with several assumptions that are based on discussions with our members, with visiting academic administrators, and with development experts who work regularly with higher education:

1 There seem to be very few opportunities for academic leaders at the level of department chair, dean, or chief academic officer to engage in substantive dialogue and/or collaboration with counterparts in other countries. Programs that do exist are specialized either according to region (i.e., Eastern Europe) or function (i.e., administration) but are not as well known as they could be to potential participants or supporters.

2. It is not entirely clear to academic leaders in the US why a program supporting dialogue and collaboration among international colleagues at the level of dean, chair, or chief academic officer could be of benefit to the work that they do or to their own professional development. It is much more evident to academic leaders outside the US that such contact could be mutually beneficial.

3. Those academic leaders in the US who do see value in faculty and administrator exchange recognize that a major obstacle to the development of such programs is lack of funding (or lack of knowledge about how to access existing funding sources) and/or lack of expertise in negotiating the necessary administrative processes that would make the programs possible and effective.

The opening panel will address these assumptions and/or the following questions:

Is there a need to initiate (or further develop) international dialogue at the level of academic leadership, including chairs, deans, and chief academic officers? Why?

What kinds of programs currently exist, how were they developed, and how are they structured and funded?

What has been learned from existing programs?

In what other ways can deans and other academic administrators work more effectively with international programs counterparts and funders to support and develop international programming?

Box Lunch: 12:30 – 1:30

Afternoon Breakout Sessions: 1:30 – 3:00 pm

At the breakout sessions following lunch, participants will have the opportunity to explore one or more of the key questions raised by the opening session in more detail. Depending on the number of attendees, each breakout session will address one or more of the following topics:
Articulating the Need;
Identifying (or Creating) the Right Program; and
Funding Sources and Strategies.

Concluding Session: 3:30 – 5:00 pm

In the concluding session, participants will come together to share insights gained from the preceding discussions and to devise an “action agenda” to address: how to continue discussion and networking; what kind of follow-up event might be planned (i.e., another workshop or conference); and how best to frame efforts to secure funding for these activities specifically and/or more generally for international programs that include opportunities for international faculty and administrator connection. This session will be led by Vera Zdravkovich.

Context for This Workshop
The rationale for "The Dean and International Relations" has evolved over the last couple of years as a response to two events. The first was a meeting two years ago between ACAD members and staff and some visiting deans (or their equivalents) from countries outside of the US, including Mexico, El Salvador, South Africa and Slovakia. In that meeting and several that followed, ACAD was often asked how deans might organize their own versions of ACAD in their home countries. There was also much interest in trying to initiate and sustain dialogue among international colleagues since there are so many issues of common interest, including governance, curriculum, management of international programs, and professional development.

The second event to spur ACAD to move forward on this front was the keynote address at our January 2003 Annual Meeting in Seattle. Mamphela Ramphele, currently Managing Director of the World Bank and former provost at the University of Capetown and a leading anti-apartheid activist, challenged US academic leaders to reach out to international colleagues as a way to help address the problem of "access to quality tertiary education," which she identified as a key component of global development. Ramphele went on to suggest that international dialogue among academic administrators is one way to begin to accomplish this goal. The traditional concept of academic service, she asserted, "must be broadened to include the service that one educational system can do to strengthen another. This must take place at many levels – students, professors, administrators, institutions, the state and regional university associations, national organizations such as this one."

Schedule at a Glance
The ACAD One-Day Workshop will take place at the Bunn Intercultural Center at Georgetown University (37th and O Streets, NW) in Washington DC.

8:00 am Registration opens
9:30 – 12:30 Morning Plenary
Panelists: Michael Collins, Dean Emeritus, Georgetown University; Gary Bittner, USAID; Ruben Doboin, University Administrators Support Program at IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board);Russ Meyer, Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Colorado State University-Pueblo and American Vice President, Alliance of Universities for Democracy (AUDEM); Christa Olson, Transatlantic Dialogue Program at ACE American Council on Education)

12:30 – 1:30 Box Lunch

1:30 - 3:00) Facilitated Breakout Sessions

3:30 - 5:00 pm Concluding Plenary
Vera Zdravkovich, Vice President for Instruction,
Prince George's Community College and Member, ACAD
Board of Directors