CU Touts Three Methods of Globalization

If University President Lee Bollinger got a nickel every time he said “global,” he might be able to fund all of the global projects he has in mind.

Beginning with his inauguration, in his many public addresses since taking over as head of the University, Bollinger has often turned to the theme of an ever-shrinking “global society,” one that encourages a “global conversation” and produces a “global marketplace of ideas.” With that comes the need for a place that not only prepares students to develop this international community but trains them to lead it.

While many administrators refer to initiatives as still in the “idea” stage, a few themes appear to preside over Columbia’s general vision. Bollinger defined three different manners of potentially embracing globalization as a University: bolstering a foundation of diversity within the campus and the curriculum, increasing the quantity and quality of institutional connections worldwide, and building satellite schools outside of the United States.

Under the first level, the school has, for instance, sought to increase international enrollment. The number of international students has increased since 1992 by 62 percent, and in 2006, Columbia had the largest percentage of international students of any American university, and was second only to the University of Southern California in having the largest overall international student population. But some still complain that until Columbia offers foreign students better financial aid, the international student body will only represent the elite classes at the top and will lack socioeconomic diversity.

Provost Alan Brinkley acknowledged the inherent flaw in the system, particularly for undergraduates.

“This is one of our goals for the next decade or so—to bring in a significantly larger number of international students,” he said in an interview last week. “That would require us ... to increase financial aid, ideally equalize financial aid for international students. It means that the roughly nine percent of international undergraduates who are already represented here ... would have to be fully funded.”

“Some of that expansion would come at the expense to American students,” he added.
Another solution, Brinkley continued, would be “to actually expand the size of the college,” a topic broached by many high-level administrators.

While working to draw more foreign students into the campus, the University hopes to send more undergraduates abroad. Brinkley attributes the school’s comparatively dismal study -broad rate to the density of the curriculum, which makes it difficult for students to take a “break” from their coursework.

“We should start considering programs that aren’t semester programs,” such as those that take place during the summer or even shorter breaks, Brinkley said. “I don’t want the University to be a travel agent, but I think there are academically valuable experiences that people could have in a couple weeks.”

The dense curriculum, however, is also frequently criticized for not being a thorough depiction of the diverse world community.

Unlike many graduate or Ph.D. students, who are older and whose studies are often more closely tied to traveling abroad, undergraduates may have to forego certain opportunities as they grapple with their curricular requirements. The Task Force on Undergraduate Education has a subcommittee devoted to globalization that, Brinkley said, is examining “how to think about undergraduate education in global terms,” and might examine such issues as the Core Curriculum, study abroad, and international students.

Columbia has become famous for the faces of the world it brings to campus. But such events also draw regular complaints from students who do not register in time for the events. Often, a certain percentage of seats are reserved for non-students, and many do not learn of the event until after registration has closed.

For example, in one of the most “global” moments in Columbia’s recent history, 80 percent of the seats at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit were set aside for students—a comparatively large portion—but many complained that the administration had not notified them sooner before the registration period, which closed in about 90 minutes. General Studies students were first notified about the event via e-mail two days after registration closed.

The second level of global initiatives Bollinger delineated regards individual schools’, departments’, and faculty members’ talents for building scholarly relationships abroad. “A lot has been happening just spontaneously within schools and departments,” Brinkley said. “A lot of schools have developed programs with universities in other parts of the world.” This is a long-term goal of the Committee on Global Thought, which is working to facilitate research while reaching out to other campuses and organizations overseas.

“Because we come from such diverse backgrounds, the research is going to be enhanced because it doesn’t come from one specific school of thought,” said Rebekkah Hogan, the committee’s program coordinator.

Columbia’s most concrete alliances are University-wide relationships with the London School of Economics and three Paris universities—Science Po, Paris I, and Ecole Polytechnique. Citing a recent reception in Paris that brought in over 600 alumni and the leaders of the three partner schools, Brinkley said. “I just feel that we’ve gone a long way in developing a really rich relationship with these schools,” adding that there are plans for more relationships.

But further down the chain, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify these relationships. Brinkley has tried more than once to compile a comprehensive list of the school’s outreach efforts in other areas of the world, but there is, as of yet, no such list.
“We’re trying to figure out what they [Columbia’s relationships] all are—they’re often done in a school and nobody else knows about them,” said Nicholas Dirks, vice president for Arts and Sciences. He said that these relationships would allow Columbia to “not just draw everything into this one hub—but would in effect use some of these other centers as other kinds of hubs ... that themselves will then afford networking power for collaborative research.”

In contrast, the Web site of Yale University features a comprehensive map of the world that users can click on to access the school’s various efforts in a particular region.
“It’s just another example of our decentralization,” Brinkley said of the current system, noting both the benefits of autonomy and spontaneity as well as the drawbacks of lacking an information repository on such initiatives. “It’s just the way Columbia has evolved. There are benefits and drawbacks of any structure in a university, and I think there are a lot of drawbacks to how decentralized we are.”

“I don’t think there’ll ever be the point where there’s a czar of international activities,” he added.

He explained that at all levels of the University, there are different degrees of formality and types of affiliations. “A lot of it would depend on what you would consider an actual presence in some part of the world,” Brinkley said. “If we had a faculty member that met every year with colleagues in Heidelberg ... would that be something that you would define as a real relationship?”

Tanya Domi, a Columbia public affairs officer who often works with the School of International and Public Affairs, stressed that these foreign relationships, small or large, are intrinsically linked to initiatives on campus. She credited the faculty’s outside relationships for initiatives like the World Leaders Forum, during which Columbia was able to invite leaders from nations including Iran and Turkmenistan. “Those [forums] don’t just happen out of thin air,” Domi said. “They happen because faculty members form relationships through their research and teaching.”

Developing for-profit satellite campuses, Bollinger’s third point, is far from a viable goal so far—as a relatively new model, Columbia is tentatively observing how other schools fare at implementing such ideas. Brinkley pointed out that for financial or “other reasons,” some universities now regret their choice to build satellite schools.
“There’s been a mixed record of how successful these overseas ventures have been. ... We want to wait until we know more,” he said. “We may never build one.”

Instead, he said the University is considering the construction of foreign non-profit research and recruitment facilities similar to Reid Hall in Paris. He said these would start out as offices but could grow into larger facilities. Brinkley said that, with the proper support, such a research center could be built in the next few years.

Whatever the school’s decision, those nickels would certainly come in handy. The main challenges facing Columbia’s initiatives will likely be the lack of proven existing models and the significant cost.

“The idea of a global university means a lot of different things,” Brinkley said. “Almost all major universities are engaging in the same query about what globalization means for them. So we’re not alone in taking on these challenges. I think that the whole idea of globalizing the University begins with the belief that the world is changing so fast and so profoundly that none of us understands what the world ... will be like.”

Lien Hoang can be reached at lien.hoang@columbiaspectator.com.