by Ken Carpenter
Daily Lobo guest columnist
Although it is not well known, UNM faculty and students are involved in a remarkable array of international activities in virtually every part of the globe.
Bob Glew from Health Sciences has been taking undergraduate students to remote areas in Nigeria for many years to research health, nutrition and medical problems. Alok Bohara from economics is working with students to set up a virtual Nepal study center. Celia Lopez-Chavez and Ursula Shepherd of the Honors College have teamed up to take students to Argentina to study biodiversity. The Latin American and Iberian Institute sponsors summer language programs in several countries. A new interdisciplinary study program will be opening in Rome for the spring semester, and another in Germany is in the planning stages. Three UNM students left this fall for our first international exchange program in Japan, and 60 students are studying at more than 25 universities in other parts of the world.
These are only a few of the international activities taking place every semester. There is a long tradition of internationalization at UNM. But until recently, faculty and students often had to develop their own international programs and experiences with little support from the University itself. Faculty applied for international grants, took students on field-study courses or developed global curricula for their classes, often on their own time and using their own money, because they believed it was important for students. With scarce resources and many other problems to deal with, internationalization was not a priority of the administration.
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The result is that UNM has fallen behind most of its peer universities in providing international opportunities. For example, 500 to 600 UNM students spend some time each year studying or working outside the U.S., most of them on short-term, faculty-led study tours. Most state research universities send many times more students to many more places. Our international student population is about 3 percent, while the average for similar institutions is around 10 percent. The chances of a UNM freshman sitting next to an international student in class is small. We are the only major state university in the Southwest without an associate provost or vice president for international affairs. We have no international research office to help faculty find grant funds. I still frequently meet students and faculty who don't know there is an Office of International Programs and Studies, that there are opportunities for student exchanges in 75 countries and scholarships available to study Arabic, Chinese, Russian or other languages.
Everyone knows we live in a global economy. But many students may not understand that means they could be competing for good jobs with a University of Arizona student who speaks Mandarin or a Texas A&M student who studied European business in Brussels.
Most of us - whether engineers, social workers, advertising executives or nurses - are going to be working in a multinational, multicultural environment where we need to be able to understand and work effectively with people from every part of the world. International experience, foreign language skills and cultural adaptability are not luxuries any more - they are necessities. New Mexico's economic development is increasingly dependent on worldwide contacts. Giving our students an international education and having the best and brightest international students from around the world on our campus stimulates, educates and challenges our New Mexico students and prepares them for the global workplace. We are shortchanging students if we don't expose them to the realities of an interdependent world.
In the past two years, UNM has begun efforts to increase international programs and opportunities, and the administration has helped lay the groundwork for several new initiatives, such as the Rome study center. Last year, the Board of Regents created a scholarship fund for students to participate in international programs, and the New Mexico Legislature provided funds to develop new programs and infrastructure. But we have a long way to go to catch up with other universities in the Southwest and the nation. We have a new president, a new interim provost and new opportunities to build on the hard work many of us have been doing in the past. President David Schmidly has made it clear he is keenly aware of the importance of internationalizing the campus, and he has set out goals for doing that in his recent vision statement.
If we can add the element of strong support and leadership
from top administrators to the creativity and energy of our faculty, staff and students, we have the opportunity to create a truly world-class education for New Mexico.
Ken Carpenter is a Study Abroad adviser at UNM.
