Document(s) 7 of 16

The context outlined in Chapter 1 describes the many factors presently affecting the institution of the university, an institution that has been preserved and has survived almost uniquely over many centuries. However, survival has only been possible because of a willingness to change, sometimes reluctantly, in response to the pressures of a changing external world. In this chapter, I am concerned with institutional structures and decision-making processes as they relate to internationalization, the ways in which they have developed, and the changes that may be needed to ensure their success. But first, we need to understand how the Canadian university has changed over the last 40 to 50 years and how its present state reflects both internal and external conditions.

As the introductory chapter demonstrates, Canadian universities have much to be proud of; indeed, as a group, they rank among the world’s best. However, close examination of these universities reveals a number of features that largely result from their remarkable transformation over the last 40 to 50 years.

Size and coherence

First, the nature of the institution has changed fundamentally, as a result of the growth in size of all Canadian universities. The University of Western Ontario (UWO) today, with a full-time student body of 18 000, bears little structural similarity to the small college it was in 1950, when it had about 2 500 students. The latter rightly considered itself a distinct community, with considerable coherence; people knew each other and shared the successes and problems of the community. With few exceptions, the much larger Canadian university has very little sense of community; faculty members and students know colleagues in their own departments and perhaps in some related departments but know little about the rest of the institution. Instead of a single community that can agree, perhaps with difficulty, on common goals and objectives, each Canadian university is a multiuniversity, comprising a set of separate, isolated minicommu-nities, whose interests and goals may be quite different and may even conflict.

Diversity

A further contributor to the loss of community in Canadian universities is the much greater diversity found in the institution. The range of subject matter covered by the many departments and schools is enormous, from philosophy, to geology, to women’s studies, to engineering, to management, to a wide variety of other professional schools. It is obviously difficult to establish a common intellectual ground across such diversity — a diversity not found in universities in the 1930s. Both the faculty and student bodies are much less homogeneous in terms of ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds, reflecting profound changes in Canadian society over the past 50 years. In contrast, a notable feature of Canadian universities in recent years has been the decline in the percentages of international students, to less than 5% in 1995. This contrasts with the experience of other countries, such as Australia and the United States, where the percentages of international students have continued to rise quite sharply.

Financial

Today’s university resembles that of the early 1950s in at least one important respect: the lack of adequate financial resources severely restricts the institution. In the early 1950s, finances were still

constrained after World War II, despite the considerable influx of veterans into the universities. In the 1990s, the need to balance government budgets and eliminate debt led to severe reductions in funding. However, it should not be forgotten that in the intervening years, both federal and provincial governments poured vast amounts of tax dollars into the universities; and, of course, generous funding in the late 1950s and 1960s contributed significantly to the government’s current debt problems! But it remains a fact that, in absolute terms, the Canadian universities have enormous financial resources available to them and are very well endowed relative to those of most other countries.

Human resources

A factor seriously affecting Canadian universities, at present, relates to the age distribution of faculty members. Especially during the 1960s and 1970s, when the rate of university expansion was greatest, the universities made large numbers of faculty appointments. This large cohort of faculty dominates the age profile of the total professorate in Canada, as it does in many other countries. But this cohort is now aged between 50 and 65 years, and its members are fast approaching retirement. They are also now struggling with much heavier teaching loads and have less time for research and reflection. Although it may be an overstatement, some would claim that this has resulted in an erosion of intellectual vigour in the universities. As mentioned in Chapter 2, an increasing number in this cohort are opting for early retirement in response to generous early-retirement packages that many universities have introduced to reduce costs. And this significant loss of experienced and skilled faculty members must weaken the university, even if only temporarily.

Although retirements are occurring rapidly, the number of replacement appointments that institutions are able to finance is very small. Nevertheless, the proportion of able, young, and enthusiastic new faculty is now steadily increasing, and their influence on the university, now only just being felt, will become dominant over the next 10 years. Canadian universities are currently undergoing a major transition. At the moment, perhaps, they are somewhat weakened intellectually and less proactive than in the 1970s, but their considerable potential for revitalization is becoming evident.

Governance

The governance of today’s Canadian university is also very different from that of 1950. At that time, presidents and deans had considerable authority and, often — in some cases, perhaps, all too often — made decisions with little or no consultation. Today, through intricate committee structures at the departmental and faculty levels, through full control of the academic senate or its equivalent, through membership on boards of governors, faculty members and the students as well, to a lesser extent, have very substantial governing powers. The scope of a university president’s authority is limited to a degree that is surprising to the business community and the general public, and this is also the case for the governing powers of boards of governors, which have been substantially eroded. Governance is achieved by consensus, usually formalized in senates and boards in voting procedures. Given the diversity within the institution, along with the many different and often conflicting interests, consensus can be extremely difficult to achieve. Some would argue that this is appropriate for an academic institution, where, without consensus, no action should be taken. But all too often this means that decisions are taken by default; in a rapidly changing world, the university is seen as reactionary and out of touch with reality.

With decision-making thus constrained, the task of leadership is both frustrating and extremely challenging, especially when it comes to setting institutional priorities. This is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that institutions only very rarely concede that they are less than excellent in any subject area or suggest that specific programs be dropped to allow the institution to concentrate on its recognized strengths. Even now, when essentially all universities are vocal about the inadequacy of funding, proposals for new academic programs are still being approved, but consensus is only extremely rarely reached on proposals that an existing program should be terminated. In such a climate, institutional leaders can ensure that internationalization is a strategic objective for the institution, but to put an operational plan in place to achieve this objective is a far greater challenge, as competing vested interests can frustrate leadership and make decision-making almost impossible. Still more important is the fact that a major institutional initiative can only succeed at the grass-roots level if faculty members can see that the reward system recognizes and values participation in that initiative. Nevertheless, smaller initiatives can be, and are, successfully undertaken at the departmental and faculty levels. They do not require institutional approval or

support, and they often proceed with little recognition from the institution; indeed, it is not unknown for people at the senior levels of the university to know nothing whatsoever about such a new activity! The structures and decision-making processes of today’s Canadian universities thus allow for incremental growth, largely from the grass roots, often unplanned, and certainly not institutionally coordinated. But major changes such as institutional internationalization are extremely difficult to initiate.

External pressures

In addition to having to deal with reduced levels of government funding, Canadian universities have experienced pressures from many other agencies over the past 50 years that have brought about changes in attitudes and policies. Very significant relationships have been those with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The former has been the principal source of funding for many of the universities’ international involvements. Consequently, changes in Canadian foreign policy and in its development aid programs brought changes within the universities. The increased CIDA emphasis on project management in the 1970s led to the creation of international-program offices in universities, which had significant managerial responsibilities. With the policy change in CIDA’s University Partnerships in Cooperation and Development (UPCD) program, it has shifted the emphasis to longer term, multidisciplinary, cooperative projects that are institutionally based and managed. IDRC, on the other hand, has played a very significant role, although with far fewer resources, in encouraging development research within the universities.

Of particular importance in the 1950s, 1960s, and into the 1970s were the relationships between the universities and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO) and the World University Service of Canada (WUSC). These were of course initially student organizations, and through students’ enthusiastic support for them and students’ international participation through them, a great deal of the Canadian universities’ commitment to international development emerged. These relationships are still very important. Moreover, although they are usually unofficial, they still provide excellent opportunities for students to gain international experience. Certainly, such relationships

have had an enormous influence on attitudes in Canadian universities.

A further influence over the past 50 years has been the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC); this voluntary organization, to which all of the about 90 universities and colleges in Canada belong, went through a major restructuring in the early 1970s and became a very effective voice in Ottawa for the universities. Also, in the 1980s, AUCC formed an international division, owing in part to encouragement from CIDA. This division was developed to undertake international projects funded by CIDA and other international agencies on behalf of the Canadian universities. At first, it was — as some correctly saw — acting as a direct competitor of individual institutions. But the division has come to play a very important role as the policies of CIDA and other agencies have evolved. For example, CIDA has steadily placed more emphasis on country-to-country programs, and the AUCC division has been highly effective in developing the relationships between Canadian and Chinese universities and now manages an extensive China program. It has, in this case, helped to focus Canadian universities’ interest on China, which would not have occurred otherwise, and has also encouraged the universities to work together more cooperatively.

With these comments in mind, let us now turn to the central issues of this chapter: How can the university as an institution provide intellectual leadership in the new global society? What changes are needed to internal structures and decision-making processes so that the institution can be genuinely internationalized? I make three major assumptions in addressing these issues. First, the definition of internationalization is only intellectually and morally valid if it means that the universities show a greater concern for the entire global society. It is not intellectually or morally valid to define internationalization only in terms of linkages with people and institutions in the already developed world; it must also include linkages with, and growing knowledge of, developing societies, such as those in Asia and the underdeveloped areas of Africa and Latin America. Also, it must not be based on the automatic acceptance of the Western capitalistic socioeconomic view of the world. The urge to internationalize must come from the university’s basic intellectual mission: to search for truth on a genuinely global basis. Second, resources have to be allocated to achieve internationalization, and this is essentially an internal issue, not just one of the universities’ waiting for external bodies to provide additional funds. Third, I assume that the university can successfully address internationalization on an institutional basis and

that an uncoordinated, piecemeal approach by faculties and departments can only cause confusion and create problems. However, an institutional approach may not be possible; if it is not, then this raises troubling questions about the future feasibility of any of the universities’ institutional initiatives.

The threefold mission of the university consists of education, research, and outreach, or service. In terms of internationalization, the university needs first to consider possible changes to the structures and decision-making processes for each of these functions.

Education

The universities in Canada and elsewhere are under great external pressure, and rightly so, to produce genuinely “internationalized” graduates, ones who are globally knowledgeable and ready to be citizens of the world. This requires internationalization of the entire curriculum for all students. But the institution does not generally control or manage the curriculum. In most Canadian universities, control of the curriculum and its content lies almost entirely in the hands of individual faculty members, or perhaps individual departments. This is at the heart of academic freedom — the right of faculty members to determine what they will teach — but it means that few mechanisms are in place to encourage faculty members to give the curriculum a greater international perspective.

It would be wrong to suggest, however, that very significant changes have not already occurred. In the 1950s, the university curriculum was traditional and Eurocentric and seriously recognized only Western culture. This is no longer the case: new programs now reflect a diversity of cultures; a much increased range of languages is offered; and the content of many courses has become more international, albeit to widely differing degrees. And, in a few instances, there are also structural means to achieving greater internationalization more quickly. At least one Canadian university requires a detailed institutional review of the nature and content of all courses as they are introduced or changed; in this way, it is possible to directly insist on greater international content.

However, Canadian universities have not yet begun to address the issue of evaluation: To what extent has the curriculum been internationalized in recent years? What evidence is there that today’s graduates are indeed more internationalized than those of the 1950s? How can the effect of future curricular changes best be evaluated? These

issues are much more fully discussed in Chapter 9. It is important to stress here that the lack of interest that is presently shown by Canadian universities in questions of institutional evaluation stands in stark contrast to the situation in other Western countries. In Australia, Europe, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, universities are undertaking not only discussion on an institutional basis but also substantial action to assess, monitor, and improve the level of internationalization, usually at the insistence of the governments of these countries.

Numerous specifically institutional initiatives can be taken to advance internationalization, including the following:

• Area studies — Programs that focus on a particular country, geographic region, or international theme can now be found in virtually every Canadian university. Although most of these programs certainly produce graduates with genuine international awareness, the numbers of students enrolled in such programs tends to be small and both the program and its students often form nonmainstream enclaves outside the traditional departmental and discipline-oriented boundaries, as in many other small nontraditional programs.
• Student exchange programs — These probably offer the best and most direct approach to the internationalization of undergraduate students, as students actually live and study for a time in another country and culture. Such opportunities are usually an outcome of an exchange agreement between a Canadian university and a sister institution overseas. The number of these agreements is growing so rapidly that some universities now claim to have well more than 100 of them in place. However, for these agreements to be effective over the long term, the university must structure itself to meet its responsibilities to students. Key requirements include the following:
  • Institutional review and approval of all new agreements;
  • An effective monitoring system to determine periodically whether each agreement is operating effectively;
  • A willingness and ability to meet special student needs (special counseling. assistance with housing, adequate language training, etc.); and
  • Genuinely interested and involved faculty members, willing to spend time at both institutions.
  
  
  To meet such requirements, a specific structure needs to be in place. Although there is further discussion of student exchange programs elsewhere in this book (Chapter 9), I will describe a suitable university structure later in this chapter. At this point, I only need to point out that at present, in many universities, exchange agreements can be the responsibility of separate faculties or departments, with little if any coordination or institutional monitoring. In a minority of cases, however, institutional responsibility for all exchange agreements is in the hands of a single administrative office.
• Common courses and shared degree programs — The possibilities for Canadian and overseas universities to share courses, particularly at the postgraduate level, and whole degree programs are enormous. Such arrangements do, however, require a well-established relationship between two institutions, to the extent that they each understand the other’s academic culture and standards. Again, however, such arrangements should be formalized on an institutional basis and not left to uncoordinated departmental or faculty initiatives.

  There is also the possibility of “twinning,” whereby two universities (Canadian and overseas) agree that a complete program will be shared, along with the authorization of the final degree. For example, undergraduates might take their first 2 years of an undergraduate degree program at a Malaysian university and the last 2 years at a Canadian institution. The University of Calgary, among others, is much involved in twinning. Again, the institutional requirements are considerable, and special needs must be met for students to succeed in such programs; the institution is responsible for ensuring that all of the necessary arrangements are in place.

• Cooperation with the private sector — Many consider university cooperation with the private sector to have great potential for establishing connections and internationalizing Canadian universities. Several Canadian business schools, including those at McGill and the University of British Columbia (UBC), are already active in Asia, offering business programs, usually drawing on the support of major Canadian corporations already operating in Asia. Formal cooperation between businesses and universities would be valuable in the case of major Canadian development projects or investments that have significant educational or training components. Such linkages
  
  between business and academia require a considerable degree of trust and understanding and, very important, a joint long-term commitment. Additionally, the universities will need to be more entrepreneurial and will require an appropriately structured management unit to link comfortably with business.
• Marketing of education — The marketing of places in programs, at full cost, especially professional programs, is one proactive method to enhance the international dimension of an institution. As discussed later, however, it can only be one component of an overall strategy for internationalization. Universities in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom have undertaken such marketing very successfully; in Australia, marketing has raised the proportion of foreign students to more than 8% over a period during which the comparable Canadian figure actually declined to less than 5%. Moreover, although both Australian and Canadian universities have suffered severe reductions in government funding in recent years, in Australia revenues generated from full-cost-paying international students have covered much, if not all, of the shortfall.

The success of the universities in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom has not come just from the superior marketing skills of individual institutions; rather, the ability to establish a single, national marketing body, with offices in various countries and strong government support, has been the decisive factor. The offices in targeted countries can then provide information about the universities individually and collectively, aggressively market, and encourage and quickly send on applications for admission. The creation of these offices and their continuing work has the support and official encouragement of the national government. Canada has had very much more difficulty creating a coherent policy, as constitutionally the federal government has no direct role to play in education, which is exclusively a provincial responsibility. Until recently, it was assumed that education marketing would therefore have to be done on a provincial basis or that each university would have to do it independently; either approach is difficult, impossibly inefficient, and very unlikely to succeed in competition with the well-organized approach of, say, Australia. Not surprisingly, therefore, Canadian universities have until now been almost inactive in marketing of education.

Very recently, however, the federal government has increasingly come to see education as a trade commodity, and because it is viewed as an export, there is constitutional room for a federal initiative. Accordingly, 14 Canadian Education Centres have been created at Canadian missions around the world, although mainly in Asia, and the intent is to have 25 of these in operation by 2000. Although they provide information on Canadian universities in response to inquiries from prospective students, their actual marketing activities are limited, at present, by their small staff; it will be difficult to overcome the 15-year lead of Australian universities, unless staffing is increased to allow aggressive marketing.

Research

Many in the university community, faced with the strategic objective to make the institution more international, will immediately assert that it is already international. This assertion is based on the fact that the research community is international and that many faculty members regularly and frequently communicate with colleagues in other countries. This is, of course, true, and indeed the movement of graduate students from country to country and faculty exchanges and sabbatical arrangements often occur through such links. There can also be no doubt that the major portion of any university’s international involvement stems directly from the research interests of its faculty members and that these can bring greater international recognition to a university.

Although these linkages usually arise from the initiatives of individual faculty members, the institution itself can develop new linkages to enhance its efforts to internationalize. A notable recent trend is the creation of the first multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, and multicountry research programs. Even before the era of modern telecommunications, Canada was a world leader in the creation of such networks; for the past 25 years, IDRC has managed a number of very successful networks of this type. Now, with modern telecommunications, we are developing large research groups scattered over many sites in a number of countries with considerable success. Canada again leads in the creation of such networks, through both the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the more recent Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCEs), supported by the three national research councils. As will be seen later, an institution’s

strategy for internationalization might well include substantial involvement in several such international research networks. However, difficult structural and governance issues for the individual researcher, the university, and the network need to be resolved, not the least of which is the question of ownership of intellectual property.

Most Canadian universities at present handle all such administrative issues relating to research through an office for research, often headed by a dean, although, in more recent appointments, it is headed by a vice president. Little distinction is made between domestic and international research, and some adjustments would be necessary with any increase in the institution’s emphasis on internationalization, at least in terms of specific job responsibilities.

Outreach

Outreach is the third aspect of the university’s mission, and in terms of internationalization it has been well discussed in Chapter 2. In many Canadian universities, outreach in the form of continuing (or distance) education has been assigned to separate organizational units, usually a faculty or school of continuing education. The central academic faculties have therefore had little involvement, and the function of outreach has not been seen as being as important as teaching and especially not as important as research. Important exceptions are found, however, in universities such as Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which have solid agricultural bases and have traditionally seen outreach to the agricultural community as central to their missions. Even better examples are found in the United States, where outreach was the basis for the creation and continuing mission of the land-grant universities, as well as of the major roles they played in the global green revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1990s, outreach is regarded as increasingly important in the universities, although it tends to be equated with creating stronger links with the business community and the hope of generating new sources of funding to replace declining government support.

Clearly, the internationalization of universities must affect their attitudes and emphasis on outreach. Canadian universities have abundant international opportunities for outreach, and participation in them would help internationalize our institutions.

Institutional leadership and decision-making

Although, as described earlier, the governance of today’s universities is difficult, the challenge must still be faced, and the central key to success will be effective leadership. All Canadian universities have responded in recent years to external pressures for accountability, usually by preparing a mission statement and providing strategic planning. But in an institution with numerous competing interests and factions and with decision-making based on the majority view, mission statements are all too often vague and unspecific. Nearly all such statements emphasize internationalization as a high-priority objective, but few emphasize how it will be achieved or describe the administrative office to be responsible for it. In some cases, it has been an end in itself to prepare a mission statement, with little real follow-up. In view of the short terms of appointment and consequent rapid turnover of senior university administrators, this should not be surprising.

There is at present, however, a great need for presidents, vice presidents, and deans to once again become academic leaders and to afford this role an importance ahead of, or at least equal to, that of their other administrative duties. All senior university officers, not just the president, must be key players in ensuring that the mission statement includes specific, explicitly defined institutional objectives and spells out a clear process for achieving these objectives within a realistic time frame. These senior officers must be actively and continually reminding the academic community of the strategic importance of internationalization; they must be actively seeking new international opportunities; and, above all and especially at the dean’s level, they must seize every opportunity to persuade faculty members that greater internationalization of the curriculum is both necessary and desirable. For good academic reasons, faculty members cannot be ordered to change what they teach, but they are usually open to persuasion. What is needed is continual and consistent pressure well applied by the academic leaders of the institution; such pressure can achieve substantial curriculum change.

However, the difficulties should not be minimized. As Jane Knight (1995) pointed out from survey data, 72% of respondents stated that their institution’s mission statement referred to the international dimension of teaching, research, and service; 67% indicated that strategic planning included internationalization; 51% stated that there had been a recent review of policies and practices to assess the status of internationalization; only 23% indicated their institution

Box 1

The University of Calgary

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As a major Canadian university, the University of Calgary has been very active in CIDA-funded projects and other international activities for many years. The president and his predecessor have placed great emphasis on internationalization as an objective, and for some 8 years the University of Calgary has had a university-wide committee to address internationalization. The Faculty of Medicine was recently asked how this objective might be achieved. This faculty has already had extensive involvement in international development projects, and the senior officers of the faculty have fully recognized the importance of internationalization. In fact, this faculty would be viewed by many across Canada as a leader in international activities. Yet, after some considerable discussion with senior officers, it was frankly stated that the real difficulty, one yet to be solved, was to persuade the rank and file faculty members to buy into internationalization. This was fully confirmed by the chair of the university committee. The major barrier to new initiatives such as internationalization is the failure of leaders and mission statements to relate to the academic culture in which the average faculty member is embedded.

had faculty-level policy statements; and only 15% indicated that the departments undertook any action on internationalization. These results suggest that the leadership may be there, but the faculty at the grass-roots level have not yet fully “bought into” the importance of internationalization.

Such buy-in can clearly take considerable time. Although the amount of time can undoubtedly be greatly reduced by strong and consistent leadership, it remains to be seen whether the required change in attitudes and orientation can occur rapidly enough to catch up with global change. Later in this chapter, there will be further discussion of the existing Canadian academic culture; at this point, it is worth leaving the reader with the comment that change has been much more substantial and rapid in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, where it has been brought about by government decree, rather than by the institutions themselves.

Institutional support and structures

Just as the Canadian universities have changed over the last four decades, so have their means of structuring the organization and financing their international activities. Because to a considerable degree these activities have been funded or subsidized by CIDA, the structural changes have also often reflected changes in Canadian foreign policy or CIDA’s policies. Many of these changes were fully

described in Chapter 1 and will be only briefly summarized here. In the period 1950–80, Canada’s foreign policy greatly emphasized foreign aid to Third World countries, with CIDA functioning as the principal delivery arm for that aid. Initially, the universities were heavily involved in projects that originated from the contacts individual faculty members made with colleagues elsewhere. At that time, funding was relatively easily obtained from CIDA, usually with an overhead component to cover what were referred to as the indirect costs of the university. Although the many activities that developed were undoubtedly beneficial to Canadian universities, the fact that the projects were a product of Canadian generosity and fully paid for by CIDA led to the perception in the universities that international development activities represent aid extended by a “donor” to a “recipient,” that they are peripheral to the university’s mission, and that they should only be undertaken if full funding comes from an external agency. At the present time, this perception still clouds much university thinking about internationalization. The view is widely held that serious internationalization activities will only be possible with additional government funding. Many have not yet realized that if the internationalization of the university is a significant strategic objective, then appropriate resource allocations must be made from the university’s own resources.

Lest there be academic howls of outrage at some of the above statements, consider the following points. First, universities have often welcomed participation in CIDA-funded projects, not because of their academic relevance, but more because of the financial benefits they bring in the form of funding for overhead or indirect costs. Some current approaches to marketing educational programs are generating enthusiasm because of the prospect for new funding, not because of the role they play in an internationalization strategy. Again, despite the identification of internationalization as an important institutional objective, few universities have modified their budgets to allocate significant resources to it. Second, few Canadian institutions have consistently attempted to integrate the academic outcomes of CIDA-funded projects into their teaching and research programs. They have been seen as “extras” and peripheral to the university’s mission. Third, and directly reflecting this latter remark, at almost every Canadian university some faculty members have suffered in their careers because of their participation in international projects. Departmental and faculty tenure and promotion committees have all too often placed little or no value on such involvements; they have not been valued as scholarly contributions; and if they are

recognized as outreach, that, in turn, is given less recognition than teaching and research. Even where the university’s official policy statements require recognition of international involvements when tenure and promotion are considered, these policy statements have in many cases been totally ignored. For the faculty in general, international activities per se have been regarded as peripheral, even where participation in international research conferences and membership on editorial boards of international research journals, normally seen as part of research, have been valued highly. It is fair, then, to conclude that, in the past, financial or other institutional support for international involvements has been at best lukewarm and in some respects nonexistent.

In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Canadian universities began to establish separate offices for international activities. Their mandates varied widely; initially, their role was to coordinate, but with the growth of CIDA activities, these offices became the official

Box 2

International Cooperation Offices

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In 1995, AUCC (1995b) listed the following as the core functions of its International Cooperation Offices: receiving foreign delegations, negotiating contracts, acting as a clearinghouse, providing information about project opportunities, and liaising with national or international institutions on international activities. Some of these offices prepared cooperation agreements and managed at least the policies dealing with student exchanges and community participation in international activities.

In July 1998, a sample of universities responded to a questionnaire about the evolution of their roles and responsibilities with respect to international work on campus (AUCC data). Some of the findings relating to structural arrangements may be highlighted:

• The International Cooperation Offices primarily reported to a vice president research or vice president academic, indicating a relatively close relationship with the university’s senior management.
• Nearly half of the respondents were directly involved in recruitment of foreign students. In 1995, this was a new responsibility, as almost none of the International Cooperation Offices mentioned recruitment as part of their mandate. This aspect of internationalization is assigned to the registrar’s office, an office for foreign students, or a special unit with a broad mandate for national and international student recruitment.
• Nearly 75% of the respondents indicated they had to generate revenue if the university was funding at least the infrastructural costs of the office. Most offices had a mandate to negotiate contracts and sometimes to manage them. Contractual activities were clearly a strong rationale for the creation of International Cooperation Offices and still represent a very significant part of their activities, although data on the value of contracts year over year were difficult to access.

institutional channels to CIDA and later to IDRC. Although over time such offices played an increasing role as resource centres — for example, in providing library information and materials on international development to both faculty and students — they tended to be regarded as administrative or, at best, as academic-support units; only in rare cases did they acquire an academic mandate. This also meant that such offices usually had little direct authority over faculty activities, except by way of moral suasion, even in matters such as the legal need for compliance with CIDA’s contract requirements. After all, the faculty members were the ones who would be designing and delivering the project itself, and to faculty members administrative concerns are secondary. The director of such an international office, therefore, had to act as the go-between for the faculty and CIDA, trying at the same time to ensure that the institution’s welfare was safeguarded. He or she might report to a dean of graduate studies or research, but this reporting relationship was often quite tenuous, and the institution showed very little interest in these activities.

In the mid- to late 1970s, it was recognized that changes were necessary. Although many projects had been quite successful, even under such loose management, there had been a sufficient number of problems for CIDA to question the adequacy of that management, especially at a time when the scope of CIDA’s programs was growing substantially, along with the number of more specifically oriented projects. Provided the faculty member was seen as a university employee, agencies such as CIDA, IDRC, and the World Bank could not legally contract with the individual faculty member. Contracts were therefore negotiated between the agency and the faculty member’s institution. The director of the international office thus had to have increased authority, not only to meet the increasingly bureaucratic requirements of CIDA, but also to ensure that in a period of steadily declining university funding, the interests of the institution were fully protected.

This was the era of project management by the universities; it was not an era warmly welcomed by many faculty members, at least not by comparison with the more laissez-faire period that had preceded it. It was all too easy for faculty members, acting as independent consultants rather than as university employees, to avoid such administrative complexities. University terms of employment usually allow each faculty member to engage in such consulting, so it has been quite permissable for a faculty member to undertake a consulting subcontract with a private-sector company in, for example, a CIDA-funded international development project. Under these circumstances, the

university’s name and reputation inevitably become associated with that project, either directly or indirectly, but the institution itself receives neither recompense nor recognition. It is on such grounds that many Canadian universities object strongly to current CIDA policy, which prevents them from competing for development projects outside of the programs but allows the private sector to remain free to recruit and financially benefit from the universities’ human resources.

Project management

The university is not a management company. It is governed by principles of academic freedom, and it reaches decisions by consensus or majority rule. As a result, the university can encounter great difficulty in meeting its legal obligations in a contractual relationship. In practice, the difficulties have been surprisingly few, and the great majority of contracts with CIDA and other agencies have been satisfactorily completed. But, as an example, the quite reasonable CIDA requirement that the final report for a project be provided within a specified time by the project director, who is usually a faculty member, has caused problems. If the project director refuses, or just doesn’t bother to provide such a report, the university suffers financially, as CIDA, rightfully, withholds the final contract payment. Such cases have certainly occurred in the universities but would not be tolerated in the private sector. The university’s governance structure is not well suited to providing effective project delivery and management

In the 1990s, with further change in CIDA policies, the emphasis on project management has been greatly reduced. As indicated previously, the universities are now involved in only the UPCD program, which has a Tier 1 (long-term thematic partnerships) and a Tier 2 (short-term focused projects). The success of this new program cannot yet be assessed, but, along with the pressure on the university to internationalize, the program represents yet another change in the role of the international office in each university. This office is now often viewed as being responsible for internationalization, not just for international development activities; in some cases, the change in mandate is occurring by a natural evolution, whereas in others it is occurring as a result of a conscious decision to rewrite the mandate. In universities with very strong leadership and a firm commitment to internationalization, moves are under way to appoint a vice president international or perhaps an associate vice president to be responsible not only for the international office but also for the entire range of the institution’s internationalization strategies.

Tensions

From the above, it will be clear that significant tensions are at play in the university and that these must be taken into account if the institution is to internationalize.

Leadership

The importance of institutional leadership was stated above, along with the frustration of many senior university officers who have attempted to provide it. The need for leadership in the institution is severe, and leadership is certainly not to be equated with dictatorial management. But real tension exists between the need to provide leadership and the general faculty insistence on independence and academic freedom. A very fine balance is required, and not all institutions are capable of achieving this. It is, however, essential for internationalization.

In the late 1960s, under CIDA’s UPCD, partnerships with the University of Ghana were negotiated separately by the University of Guelph in agriculture and home economics and by UWO in economics. Guelph’s very first step was to have its president and the two deans of the involved faculties visit the University of Ghana, as a clear indication of Guelph’s commitment to the partnership. A very strong relationship developed, which continues today, now without CIDA support, of course, but to the benefit of both institutions. The expression of commitment from UWO was not as strong, and the relationship has been much less productive.

Tensions with external agencies

Although Canadian universities have achieved considerable success in their international activities, they have had to do so despite perceived weaknesses. CIDA, for example, has continued to show scepticism about the ability of the universities to manage projects, although there has been no objective evidence that universities deliver projects any less successfully than the private sector. CIDA has also been sceptical about the extent to which the institution, rather than the project leader, actually “own” the project. Well-justified doubt is also raised regarding the ability of the governance structure of the university to make project decisions expeditiously.

There is indeed a serious mismatch between academic governance and project delivery.

Box 3

University governance and project delivery

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Many Canadian universities have required that major CIDA projects receive institutional approval through the senate and perhaps the board of governors, or their equivalents. Some have also required periodic reports on the project. This can mean that a professor of chemistry might be a member of the senate voting on a project but probably has little knowledge of the environmental policies that might be appropriate for Indonesia, for example, and even less understanding of the social, economic, and environmental circumstances of that country. Discussion and voting in the senate, therefore, may bear little relation to either the subject matter or the management of such a development project but have more to do with the internal politics of the university. In the early 1980s, the University of Guelph undertook a CIDA-funded project in rural development in the Indonesian state of Sulawesi. At the outset, full discussion occurred in the senate, which then approved the project. Some 10 years later, when the project was about to enter a third phase of funding, it came before senate again. Fierce opposition to any continuation of the project was voiced through the senate by a relatively small number of faculty members and students, none of whom had taken part in the original debate or had participated in the project. Their opposition was based on human-rights issues in Indonesia, not on specific criticisms of the project itself. Although there may well have been other factors involved in the political decision at the time, the publicity generated by the university’s opposition to the presence of the project in Indonesia was a significant factor in the Indonesian government’s later decision to expel the Guelph project staff.

There are also significant tensions between AUCC and individual institutions as they work to internationalize. The creation and role of the international division of AUCC were described earlier, but the continuing tension, despite the accomplishments of the division, reflects the fact that AUCC is indeed a voluntary body and can therefore only act when it has the support of a substantive majority of the membership. For example, the Canadian backwardness in marketing university education has already been described, as well as the constitutional problem that causes it. It theoretically would be possible for AUCC to become, or to create, a national marketing agency, but agreement among the universities on such a solution is not possible, as each university has to consider its relationship with its own provincial government.

The academic reward system

The slowness of change in the academic culture, especially in the university reward system, is by far the greatest impediment to internationalization. Examples have already been given of how difficult it is

to persuade faculty to buy into such new initiatives, and the difficulty stems in turn from the perception that faculty members have of the internal reward system. Although many disclaimers will be offered, it is just a fact that in all universities in Canada, as well as in those in most other countries, academics believe research and research-related activities are the ones that bring rewards in academia (salary increases, tenure, promotion). This does not mean that teaching is neglected or is inadequate — it is not. It does mean, however, that in most parts of the university outreach is seen as unimportant and that constant, powerful persuasion is certainly required to convince faculty members of the rewards of participating in internationalization initiatives. Some concrete specific examples are needed to help university presidents begin to make the case for a new attitude and culture. At present, there is considerable tension between the university leaders who see the need for globalization and an academic community embedded to a considerable extent in a culture that is outdated and resistant to change.

At this point, let me briefly summarize some of the chief issues before proceeding to discuss some specific steps a university might take to internationalize. First, the structures Canadian universities currently have for dealing with international development activities are not well suited to advancing internationalization. The existing international offices are largely administrative and have no academic mandate; consequently, they can exert little influence on the content or shape of academic programs. Nor are they really structured to function as management units and manage a variety of international activities. Second, there is little sign that the academic culture of Canadian universities has changed from that of the 1950s: the greatest value is still placed on research, and there is, as yet, little willingness to recognize and reward the valuable contributions faculty make in internationalization, outreach, or other new institutional initiatives. Third, the universities need to recognize that if internationalization is one of their primary objectives, then they must devote some of their own financial resources to it. At a time of serious funding reductions, this may seem difficult, if not impossible, but it really calls for the courage to make hard priority decisions that directly reflect the institution’s long-term strategy. Without the commitment of institutional resources, strategic plans that assign a priority to internationalization are likely to be little more than paper exercises.

Developing a strategy

Internationalization as an institutional initiative requires, first, that the university thoughtfully develop an integrated and comprehensive plan, which should be uniquely suited to each institution. Some would argue that this plan should be highly decentralized to accommodate the wide diversity of interests within the university; however, this would further weaken the coherence of the institution, and, on this point, I continue to maintain that internationalization must be addressed institutionally and not in a fragmented and decentralized fashion. Regardless of its detailed structure, any plan must have institutional leadership as its essential component. The senior officers’ deep commitment to internationalization must be continually evident in both words and actions. In today’s global society, the president and his or her senior colleagues need to devote as much time and effort to creating and nurturing international linkages as they do to encouraging research or obtaining external funding.

Strategic elements of the plan might include the following:

• International experiences for undergraduate students — This is by far the most important and direct route to internationalization, but the university must then accept responsibility for ensuring that such experiences are well managed. This must be done on an institutional basis and should not be left to individual departments or faculties. Even in purely legal terms, it can only be the institution that bears this responsibility. Ideally, the institution should have some specific but realistic targets for such undergraduate participation; for example, one university might have as part of its strategy the goal of having 20% of its undergraduate students gain international experience by 2005. This might be achieved through a number of carefully managed exchange programs and semester-abroad arrangements. These initiatives might also be used to recruit international students to the Canadian home institutions, and the involvement of Canadian faculty members in exchanges may result in substantial further benefit. Their teaching is likely to reflect their enhanced international experience to the benefit of Canadian students remaining at home.
• Marketing of educational programs — This issue was mentioned previously in this chapter and is discussed elsewhere in this book. The point that needs to be made forcefully here is that well-planned marketing of selected educational programs can
  
  be an important and valid component of a university’s strategy for internationalization. Through such marketing, a university can significantly increase its international student population and thereby considerably enhance the university’s diversity, cosmopolitan atmosphere, global alumni connections, and internal culture. As well, the experience of universities such as Dalhousie shows that there can be other significant benefits. First, by bringing in international students, professional programs, such as medicine or dentistry, can be kept above the minimum critical size and be more cost efficient. Second, international students’ payment of the full cost of their studies to the university is a considerable financial benefit to Canada. Third, classes in these programs — which at Dalhousie, for example, would otherwise only have students from Atlantic Canada — are now more heterogeneous, which helps to internationalize Canadian students.
• International development activities — A major assumption of this chapter is that an institution’s interpretation of internationalization must be intellectually and morally valid and must show concern for the entire global society. It should be part of the university’s moral and intellectual responsibility to examine and address the total condition of the human species in all parts of the world. An internationalization strategy without links to less-developed countries would be morally and intellectually lacking. Although CIDA and IDRC have substantially reduced their funding to the universities in recent years, Canadian universities seem certain to continue to be involved in development projects. Indeed, it is difficult to see how Canada can maintain an aid program without drawing on the expertise in the universities. Canadian universities also have considerable potential to be involved in projects funded by the World Bank or by other international agencies.

  As independent institutions, however, Canadian universities also need to recognize that in developing countries, many of these international agencies are seen as advocates of the Western economic-growth model and free-market ideology. The universities should not only be committing some of their own resources to creating linkages with sister institutions in developing countries but also be seeking other partners without this ideological stamp. They can probably best be found among the NGOs, with whom partnerships can be particularly effective in areas such as the provision of undergraduate
  
  student placements, continuing education, and outreach. In the recent past, CIDA and a small number of other agencies have encouraged such partnerships, but only a few have developed. Yet, many of the Canadian universities’ international undertakings over the past 40–50 years stem directly from individual involvements in organizations such as CUSO and WUSC. It is time to rebuild these links more formally as genuine, mutually beneficial, institutionalized partnerships.

• Creation of international research consortia and networks — At least some research-intensive Canadian universities are well placed to initiate development of international research consortia and networks. One such network already links the faculties of engineering at UBC and the National University of Singapore. However, a particularly suitable model for new networks might be the Canadian NCEs. Under this model, one or perhaps several Canadian universities would identify a well-defined multidisciplinary theme in which the institution or institutions have internationally recognized expertise. Through the identification of similar intellectually outstanding groups or individuals internationally, a consortium or network might be created. Following the NCE model, the network should have specific objectives and should initially be created for a set period. It should have a formal constitution, be managed by an external body, and be subject to periodic evaluation by an independent body of international experts.

  An international research program like this can achieve a number of goals. First, it can bring enormous expertise to bear on complex, multifaceted issues: a single university does not have the same intellectual resources, and its rigid disciplinary structure inhibits interdisciplinary research. Second, an international network can provide a “globalized” form of postgraduate education, in which students can benefit from association with leading researchers from several countries, as well as being internationalized themselves through conducting their research and living in a number of countries.

A comprehensive strategy for a specific university might therefore include the following elements: (1) 12–15 student exchange programs providing international experience for 15% of the undergraduate students; (2) marketing of a number of programs, probably professional in nature; (3) participation in a number of international development projects with governments, international agencies, and

NGOs; and (4) creation of, or participation in, several international research consortia or networks. A well-managed strategy with these elements can achieve a significant degree of internationalization of the undergraduate and postgraduate students of a faculty while increasing the number of international students on campus. A strategy may include other elements in areas such as continuing education, but the point to be emphasized is that it is important for a university to have a detailed and carefully prepared strategic plan for its internationalization.

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