Post Author: Rebecca Staple
This exhibit will try to look at internationalism at James Madison during the 1970s. The concept of internationalization has been advocated by higher education institutions beginning from the early 1970s, the way that this has been defined has been in two main ways by numerous authors (Hans De Wit, Aigner and Knight) when looking at internationalization of higher education .
- The first being internationalisation of action this would generally involve study abroad programmes, having an international student body and organisations, as well as the recruitment of international academic staff. This has been described as the activity approach, Zha Qiang states that “the activity approach was synonymous with the term of international education in the 1970s”.
- The second being a broadening of the curriculum and trying to instil an awareness of different values and ideas, this second understanding of internationalisation is the more modern of the two, and has been labelled at the competency approach.
However the two ideas are not mutually exclusive and work best when used in combination. Both of these can be seen to be occurring to a degree at James Madison. For the activity approach the development of the study abroad program in London will be looked at, as well as the international student presence on campus. For the competency approach the response to international events will be examined particularly through reporting in The Breeze and course offerings at James Madison.
Works Cited
Zha Qiang, “Internationalization of Higher Education: Towards a Conceptual Framework”, Policy Futures in Education, 1(2), 248 – 270