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Internationalizing Academia

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Recently, I served as a Principal Investigator on a grant that led a Purdue team to recruit some of the brightest students from China and India. Our department has had a long history of international presence, and I hope that this recruiting effort enriches further our internationalizing agenda.

As we seek to internationalize academia, there are a few questions that I wonder about. What are the purposes behind internationalizing efforts? Whom does internationalization serve? Do we really create opportunities for dialogue and exchange through internationalization processes, or are these more reflective of our top-down agendas in global affairs? I wonder about these questions even as I reflect upon my experiences as an international student in academia. I don't consider myself introverted, and yet there were many times when I felt I couldn't speak, many times when I felt I didn't really belong, many times when I was confronted with my alienness. When I reflect upon these experiences, I wonder if we have really created a climate of support and belonging for our international graduate students? Even as we speak of reaching out to other countries to recruit the best and brightest students, what initiatives do we currently have in place that are responsive to the needs of international students? What kinds of infrastructures have we created for international students? What social support do we offer our international students? What are the experiences of international students as they confront a rational universalist model that often does violence by simply taking-for-granted the contested nature of knowledge claims? What avenues have we created for international students for expression, participation and dialogue?
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