Internationalization

As I write this, I’m flying home from three weeks in Paris—two of those weeks spent with 14 undergraduate students examining how we think of food and our agricultural systems in the United States compared to France and the European Union. I am thinking again of what a profound experience it is to step outside your comfort zone, as many of those young people did in taking this trip. I’m reminded of this feeling often—my career seems to have become an opportunity to move from activities and perspectives with which I’m comfortable into new challenges, challenges from which I invariably learn and grow.

International experiences literally open that door to new possibilities. Over the past two decades, I have come to believe that we have a responsibility to not only open this door for the next generation, but to nudge them through it. Many of us, in our professional activities, have discovered the importance of international experience and collaboration for our own growth and success. Have we helped the students we train—both the next generation of scholars who will follow us and the next generation of informed citizens who will support us—to attain these same benefits?

We have a responsibility to continue the tradition of the College of Agricultural Sciences as leaders in infusing an international perspective into our work and our educational programs. I would like us to commit to increasing opportunities for our students to experience the world—formally or informally, for weeks or for a semester, in the classroom or in the community. We have grown in a few years from less than one percent of our students with such an opportunity to double digits, but we have further to go. I suggest we set a target of 25 percent of our students gaining some sort of international experience. Part of my goal within the next five years is to have 50 percent of our students engaged in some combination of international, service learning, research, or internship activity. Employers of our graduates ask for this experience, and they reward our alumni with excellent job offers. Graduate schools recruiting our students remark upon the breadth of perspective in candidates that comes with international exposure.

By committing to a continued emphasis on internationalizing our curriculum—not only by bringing an international view to our classrooms but also by sending our students into the world—we also internationalize our college. Our faculty, educators, and staff also must have the opportunity to experience the world. Their (your!) enthusiasm will communicate much to our students.

And those 14 students with whom I shared the past two weeks? Those were their voices you heard in the quotes that began this essay. Being with them, seeing the world through their eyes, changed my life. Again.