Internationalization takes shape in report
Michael Skocpol
Issue date: 9/10/07 Section: Campus News
Aiming to establish Brown among the world's top universities, a report released today calls for the University to invest significantly over the next several years in a spate of new initiatives designed to highlight its international strengths.
The wide-ranging report of Brown's Internationalization Committee provides guidance for plans to raise Brown's global profile, highlighting potential projects ranging from a new global health institute to an expansion of the University's existing International Writers Program, which provides a haven for persecuted writers from around the world.
The report represents the first major step in the larger internationalization effort that President Ruth Simmons put at the top of the University's agenda last fall. Likely to guide University policy for the next several years, internationalization will shape everything from faculty hires to new academic partnerships.
"The best universities in the United States in the future are going to be judged in good part by their standing not simply in this country, but in the world," Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98 wrote in a campus-wide e-mail sent today announcing the report's release. "This means having a world-class faculty and the world-renowned graduate programs and research that go with them, as well as a world-class undergraduate program. Brown must be one of the major meeting-grounds of the world's greatest scholars and intellectuals."
The 21-page report represents the conclusions of the Internationalization Committee created in October 2006 and chaired by Kertzer. Charged with investigating ways Brown could improve the international quality of its education and become a more significant player in global higher education, the committee stopped short of prioritizing its proposals or presenting a detailed blueprint for executing its goals. That task will fall to a new vice president for international affairs, whom University Hall officials expect to introduce within the next several weeks. The new vice president is expected to take office Jan. 1.
The wide-ranging report of Brown's Internationalization Committee provides guidance for plans to raise Brown's global profile, highlighting potential projects ranging from a new global health institute to an expansion of the University's existing International Writers Program, which provides a haven for persecuted writers from around the world.
The report represents the first major step in the larger internationalization effort that President Ruth Simmons put at the top of the University's agenda last fall. Likely to guide University policy for the next several years, internationalization will shape everything from faculty hires to new academic partnerships.
"The best universities in the United States in the future are going to be judged in good part by their standing not simply in this country, but in the world," Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98 wrote in a campus-wide e-mail sent today announcing the report's release. "This means having a world-class faculty and the world-renowned graduate programs and research that go with them, as well as a world-class undergraduate program. Brown must be one of the major meeting-grounds of the world's greatest scholars and intellectuals."
The 21-page report represents the conclusions of the Internationalization Committee created in October 2006 and chaired by Kertzer. Charged with investigating ways Brown could improve the international quality of its education and become a more significant player in global higher education, the committee stopped short of prioritizing its proposals or presenting a detailed blueprint for executing its goals. That task will fall to a new vice president for international affairs, whom University Hall officials expect to introduce within the next several weeks. The new vice president is expected to take office Jan. 1.