ICIS Strategic Plan 2004

August, 2004

Strategic Plan for International and Comparative Studies:

Global Citizenship in a Plural World

The strategic mission of international and comparative studies at Emory College is to promote global citizenship in a plural world (Features and principles of global citizenship are delineated in Appendix A). This mission entails scholarship and outreach to understand civil society and to help reduce inequality and injustice across the world and in our international community at home. It entails recognition of and interchange with foreign scholars, students, and immigrants as well as the promotion of international scholarship and foreign experience among Emory faculty and students. Through targeted strategic growth, Emory will exert nationally recognized excellence by combining rigorous understanding of cultural and social diversity with experiential application and comparative analysis. This initiative links student training directly with faculty research and international collaboration. Strategic focus on global citizenship will make Emory a destination university for future generations of students and faculty.

Emory's commitment to ethical understanding of international diversity is reflected in faculty strength across a full range of humanistic and social scientific perspectives. The College has a mid-sized faculty who are devoted to both research excellence and undergraduate teaching; this underscores the opportunity for collaborative work that involves students and international scholars from diverse world areas and across disciplinary boundaries. Emory’s area studies programs, study abroad initiatives, and foreign language training are strong and robust. The Institute for Comparative and International Studies (ICIS) provides an effective structure for linking their initiatives together.

Weaknesses include a received lack of larger direction in international studies and a paucity of comparative study within ICIS. Existing programs require strategic coordination and planning to promote the larger goal of global citizenship in a plural world.

Program themes

New programs in international studies should draw upon existing strengths and coordinate them with the larger goal of promoting global citizenship. The following potential program themes are particularly germane:

“civility and society” (the organization and politics of civil society and global citizenship)
“globalization and its discontents” (international environment, economics, and health)
“geopolitics and world economy” (international market forces and political power)
“appreciating ‘Others’” (subaltern experience, marginality, gender, and empowerment)
“inter / national imagination” (international and national media, art, and identity)
“language across borders” (linguistic change, language learning, and communication)
“global nomads” (migration, ethnicity, and transnational identity)

Program themes will not supplant existing programs but will be selectively initiated and rotated over time to stimulate wide-ranging student and faculty interest. Existing strengths in area studies, study abroad, and comparative social science will be cross-fertilized and integrated by targeted support for curricular development, theme-related faculty research, and practical outreach. Promoting global citizenship in specific areas of teaching, scholarship, and outreach both at home and abroad will make Emory nationally recognized for international studies that are ethically informed, collaborative, and of the highest and most forward-reaching academic caliber.

Larger context

Emory’s potential for national leadership in international studies is thrown into relief by tensions at most colleges and universities between mainstream scholarship and marginalized or diasporic experience, on the one hand, and between humanistic perspectives that stress cultural relativity and social scientific perspectives that stress comparative explanation, on the other. These tensions resonate with the structure of large universities B in which international perspectives are often enclaved into separate or competing scholarly communities B and also with smaller universities and colleges, where bridging conversations often develop in the absence of cutting-edge research. Given its history and its strengths, Emory College is poised to transcend these divisions and establish itself as a national leader in promoting global citizenship through research and teaching; these will be directly linked through ethically informed dialogue across borders and boundaries of social, cultural, and politico-economic difference. College emphasis on global citizenship is both at the cutting edge of international studies and morally vital to the future of Emory College.

A recent study by the American Council on Education (2003) has emphasized both the increased need for graduates with international skills and the deficiencies of U.S. universities and colleges in language training, cross-cultural understanding, and comparative comprehension. Existing deficiencies are abetted by A a low level of commitment to internationalization, as evidenced by the low percentage of institutions that included internationalization in their mission statement or as a priority in their strategic plan” (p. viii). A deeper reason for this lack of commitment is contention within the academy concerning the methods, ethics, and ultimate purpose of international scholarship, especially from the respective perspectives of poorer versus richer nations and peoples. Against this background, the strengths and potentials of international studies at Emory deserve signature status and prime specification in strategic planning.

The Institute for Comparative and International Studies (ICIS) provides Emory College a strong institutional structure for international studies. Facilities include a dedicated building, a full time staff of approximately 23 employees, and a substantial budget informed by the tuition success of the Institute’s undergraduate study abroad programs. The divisions and programs of ICIS include diverse world area studies, a language center, a community outreach program, study abroad programs that presently services approximately 40% of Emory undergraduates, an internationally oriented student residential program, and funding support for faculty and student travel and research abroad. Approximately 50 faculty are members of ICIS advisory committees, and 112 Emory college faculty (23%) are formally affiliated with one of the College’s area studies programs.

Amid these strengths, ICIS faces significant challenges. Its programs have grown like individual flowers in an unkempt garden. With strategic coherence and targeted support, ICIS has the potential, the challenge, and the ability to be a top-ten center of international research and student training. Coordination, synergy, and co-development are needed between the divisions, curricula, and new programs of ICIS. Undergraduate course requirements in non-Western and international studies need to be enhanced. Further support is needed for language instruction. Growth of faculty expertise is needed concerning contemporary China and Southeast Asia, both of which are underrepresented and of key and increasing contemporary significance. Faculty expertise in Europe needs to be congealed in a European Studies Program.

To achieve its strategic goals, international studies at Emory should emphasize:

coherent themes (such as those listed above) that promote global citizenship in specific areas
greater linkage between undergraduate curricula, faculty research, and outreach
greater engagement with the international Atlanta community
greater collaboration with and support for foreign scholars
cross-cutting seminars, workshops, team-teaching, and discussion groups
faculty growth and support in specific areas that promote the larger goal of global citizenship in a plural world

Resources and commitments

To effectively promote global citizenship in international and comparative studies, Emory College needs the following resources and commitments:

Faculty research and undergraduate teaching

Five endowed Professorships of Global Citizenship (four regular appointments and one rotating visiting professorship). Global Citizenship Professors would have diverse area studies and comparative specializations (“Global Citizenship Professor of X, Y . . .) but would hold in common a special ability to galvanize inter-areal and inter-disciplinary scholarship, teaching, and outreach relevant to global citizenship in a plural world. Appointments would be tenured and would be joint between ICIS and departments or area studies programs. Global Citizenship Professors would divide their teaching between a home department and program theme courses and seminars supported by ICIS.

Strategic contribution : cutting-edge scholarly, curricular, and experiential development of program themes in relation to global citizenship. These Professorships will bridge existing academic strengths and provide influential new models of interdisciplinary and inter-areal understanding.

Senior Associate Faculty Director of ICIS . Half-time course release and research support will enable an existing faculty member of Emory College to be a Senior Associate Director of ICIS for a rotating three-year term. The faculty member will have an office at ICIS. Each year, she or he will teach one undergraduate and one graduate course related to inter-areal and/or inter-disciplinary training.

Strategic contribution : The research and teaching of the faculty Senior Associate Director will focus on a specific theme program that promotes global citizenship (e.g., “civility and political society,” “global nomads,” “language across borders,” etc.).

A support fund for co-teaching in international studies by pairs of Emory faculty who have complementary disciplinary and/or world area perspectives.

Strategic contribution : Facilitate inter-areal and interdisciplinary study in relation to program themes.

Funding and staff support for visiting foreign scholars, writers, and activists , including dedicated lodging for foreign visitors of the Clairmont campus.

Strategic contribution : Facilitate collaboration with international scholars, international programs and research, and international student scholarship and field research, extend the global citizenship of Emory’s academic community.

Two academic-year residential fellowships in international studies for Emory faculty to pursue research in program themes related to global citizenship.

Strategic contribution : Modeled on CHI faculty fellowships, participating faculty fellows will participate in and help lead ICIS theme seminars as well as conduct relevant research.

Targeted support for faculty research .

Strategic contribution : A dedicated support fund should be established for international faculty research that foregrounds inter-areal and interdisciplinary connections and the plural promotion of global citizenship

Faculty directorship and dedicated staff support for European Studies .

Strategic contribution : Emory has significant strength in comparative, social scientific scholarship pertaining to Europe. However, this strength is presently disjoined from area studies programs and from ICIS. Establishing a program in European Studies will cohere existing strength in this area, promote connections between social scientific and humanites-based dimensions of international study, and will extend the area studies programs at Emory to include all major world areas outside the U.S.

Undergraduate training

Change the General Education Requirement : instead of requiring undergraduates to take one course in either a world culture area or international studies, require all students to take courses in two of the following three areas: (i) a non-Western world culture or culture area; (ii) international studies; (iii) a course gained through credit in study abroad

Strategic contribution : (a) expands curricular emphasis on international studies and internationalization; (b) creates curricular linkage between campus curriculum and study abroad programs (all of which are vetted and approved at Emory by faculty committees); (c) more accurately reflects the statistical fact that undergraduate students in U.S. universities presently take an average of at least two courses related to internationalization; (d) signals the curricular commitment of Emory College to internationalization and to global citizenship in particular

A dedicated ICIS-CIPA staff member to develop and expand an undergraduate Program in Global Citizenship .

Strategic contribution : Integrate study abroad courses with the curriculum of undergraduate majors and minors – make global citizenship relevant to disciplinary tracks. Develop and promote criteria for a Certificate and an Honors Program in Global Citizenship. This program will articulate study abroad with special training and coursework at Emory for students both prior to the foreign experience and afterwards. Write-up seminars will encourage students to draw on their foreign experience in major research papers and Honors’ theses during their final year/s at Emory. The program will promote global citizenship as an intellectual and professional ideal among an increasing number of Emory’s best students.

Fifteen undergraduate Global Citizenship research scholarships @ $3,000 each . These will be competitive awards for independent undergraduate research dedicated to international studies and research in alternative world areas, including summer field research abroad.

Strategic contribution : Before conducting their funded research, funded undergraduates will take a required preparatory ICIS undergraduate training course that is inter-areal and interdisciplinary in nature. After their research abroad, the cohort of funded undergraduates will write up their individual results in an ICIS undergraduate write-up course. In many cases, this will dovetail with the completion of a student’s honors thesis based upon his or her own funded research in a foreign culture or concerning internationalization.

Language instruction

Six new language lecturership lines .

Strategic contribution : Emory College has adopted a robust requirement whereby undergraduates must take two courses in a non-natal language or one course beyond 4 or 5 level Advanced Placement in a foreign language. As a direct and salutary result, language course enrollments in Emory College have increased 98% between Fall 1998 (prior to the new requirement) and Fall 2002. However, this has resulted in the oversubscription of many language courses and a great shortage of language lectureships. This problem needs to be addressed by the addition of new language lecturer lines.

Promotion of meritorious language lecturers in Emory College to new positions of Senior Language Lecturer and Distinguished Language Lecturer .

Strategic contribution : The learning of non-natal languages is vital to global citizenship and to international understanding. The dedication and effectiveness of our meritorious language lecturers needs to be reflected in graded promotions within the lecturer track. This will help reduce the substantial and sometimes difficult gap between the status of our lecturers and those of regular faculty.

A Senior or Distinguished Lecturer in non-standard language learning

Strategic contribution : There is presently little support in Emory College for students who wish to learn one of the many world languages that are not supported in our regular curriculum. A dedicated lecturer with expertise in field linguistics could (a) teach students to recognize and practice aspects of phonetics, phonology, and grammar that are different between English and the language in question; (b) locate relevant on-line, cassette, and printed materials; (c) establish tutorials for students with native speakers of non-standard languages who live in the Atlanta area; (d) advise students on language-learning resources elsewhere.

Technical support

A dedicated information technology staff position for international education

Strategic contribution : The ability of Emory students and faculty to be global citizens is directly related to their ability to collaborate and communicate through new avenues of electronic communication, specialized on-line resources, weblogs, video conferencing, and web page development. A staff position dedicated to support internationalization of information technology in Emory is greatly needed.

Post-doctoral (support to be split between the College and the GSAS)

Two 2-year ICIS post-doctoral fellowships in Global Citzenship

Strategic contribution : Post-doctoral fellows will be recruited in national competition in alternating years to combine research and program development concerning specific themes that promote global citizenship (see the list of themes on p. 1 above). Each post-doctoral fellow will teach one cross-listed undergraduate course per semester and participate in one ICIS graduate or graduate/faculty seminar. Post-doctoral fellows will directly articulate curricular development and research with strategic goals of internationalization in Emory College.

Graduate training [to be supported by the GSAS]

Twelve 1-year graduate supplementary fellowships in Global Citizenship ($15,000 apiece) for international and comparative study.

Strategic contribution : Modeled on the preceding and very successful Crossing Borders Graduate Fellowship Program, graduate supplementary fellowships in international studies will be awarded competitively to second and third-year graduate students at Emory. Fellowship funds will support students to undertake doctoral pilot studies abroad and advanced language training during the summer. Annual cohorts of graduate fellows will collectively take a 4-credit hour interdisciplinary and inter-areal training seminar taught by an ICIS-affiliated faculty member. In the preceding Crossing Borders programs, the external doctoral research grants that fellows obtained following their training exceeded their fellowship funds by 144%.

Graduate teaching assistantship and training opportunity (TATTO) in international studies and global citizenship .

Strategic contribution : Graduate students to be engaged for one semester or one year in TA, teaching, or undergraduate mentoring responsibilities in relation to international studies, global citizenship, and the local international community.

Concluding note

Many of the above initiatives can be funded and implemented in complementary fashion through combined support from private donors, major foundations, government grants, tuition surpluses generated by Emory study abroad initiatives, Emory College, the GSAS, and the Emory capital campaign. To effectively assume its own role as a global citizen, however, Emory must dedicate significant support for internationalization in its strategic plan.

Appendix A: Global Citizenship*

A global citizen is defined as a person who:

is aware of the wider world and has a sense of her or his own role as a world citizen;
respects and values diversity;
has an understanding of how the world works economically, politically, socially, culturally, technologically and environmentally;
explores and promotes solutions to social injustice;
participates in and contributes to the community at a range of levels from local to global;
is willing to act to make the world a more humane, equitable, and sustainable place;
takes international responsibility for his or her actions.

Principles of global citizenship:

Valuing and interacting with people from different social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds
Analyzing and combating social inequality in formal and informal settings
Cultivating ethically progressive values, attitudes, and education
Learning from the experiences of others around the world
Actively engaging and responding to local and global problems
Developing and affirming a sense of broad understanding and identity
Ethical holism: A progressive ethical sensibility that crosses diverse aspects of life

* Modified from the Oxfam Statement on Global Citizenship