As Barnard attempts to increase its presence abroad, newly appointed Dean for International Programs Hilary Link has been charged with finding the college’s place overseas as well as at home at Columbia.
Link, who worked for two years as Barnard’s dean for study abroad, stepped into her roles as assistant provost and dean for international programs in July. Her appointment, as well as the creation of the administrative post, comes at a time when the college strives to augment its international programming and boost its recognition around the globe. During her tenure, Link seeks to effect that change by consolidating current curricular and extracurricular activities.
Link faces the challenge of helping define Barnard’s role as the small liberal arts school within Columbia’s “global university.” Lacking the University’s resources, Barnard will have to find its niche in creative programming.
“We are not a large research university that is going to go set up satellite campuses in the Middle East, but we have the potential—given our amazing faculty and our ever-growing international student body and our resources on staff—to do some really creative programmatic efforts,” Link said. “What we’re finding is how many of the students and the faculty and the staff have connections that ... we can build on as a college.”
Both Link and Barnard Provost Elizabeth Boylan see a double-barreled opportunity. On one hand, they want to provide current students and faculty the chance to work together in a research capacity abroad, and on the other, they hope to recruit more international students and diversify the campus.
“My strategy for Barnard is to look around the world to see where there are opportunities to forge partnerships and build upon the ... relationships we already have,” Boylan said. The intention, she explained, is not to “try to be everything to everybody, but to choose selectively and strategically a few of the many, many opportunities that are out there, and to build upon those in long-standing relationships.”
Boylan said she also hopes Barnard will be able to increase the amount of scholarship money available for international students, an effort that will require more fundraising.
Until then, she said, administrators are looking into partnerships with universities abroad that would allow for additions to the visiting students program that will begin next term.
This spring, Barnard plans to welcome a handful of international students to visit for the semester, an initiative Boylan said got off the ground more quickly than she had expected. The pilot group will be small—only four or five students for the spring of 2009—but Boylan said that the program may eventually have the capacity to bring in groups of 20 or 30. By then, she hopes the international program will have developed the kind of support services necessary to accommodate more students.
“The nice thing about this group of probably five is we’ll work out the kinks with that size group,” Boylan said.
But for now, Link is focused on bringing her experience as a dean to her new job in the provost’s office, where she aims to spread internationalism on a local scale.
“Not every student here at Barnard chooses to study abroad, or is able to study abroad,” Link said. “The goal would be to give every student whatever opportunity we can to have some sort of international experience.”
alix.pianin@columbiaspectator.com
