The Globally Engaged University
Harvey Charles, UAlbany’s dean for International Education and vice president for Global Strategy, explains the importance of global engagement.
What is a globally engaged university?
A globally engaged university embraces internationalization by integrating an intercultural dimension into the core elements of its mission, teaching, research, and service. The accelerating interconnectedness and interdependence of nations through transportation, communication, and other technologies, and unprecedented threats to human survival, mean that the preparation students need to lead productive, successful lives is radically different than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Finding answers to climate change, pollution, migration, terrorism, and other increasingly global challenges will require an institution that is globally engaged and that collaborates with the best and brightest students and researchers from around the world.
What steps is UAlbany taking to become (more) globally engaged?
In addition to establishing internationalization as one of five strategic priorities, UAlbany is working to:
- offer a wide range of coursework and global academic experiences that help students to encounter global perspectives.
- support faculty engagement in international teaching and research experiences, and host international visiting scholars
- recruit the most qualified undergraduate and graduate students from around the world to directly support the University’s teaching and research mission while further diversifying our campus culture
What are the most exciting aspects of the University’s global future?
As a Research 1 university, UAlbany belongs to an elite collection of U.S. institutions that are leaders in research. Staple features of our global future will include faculty participation in global research, as well as international collaborations that promote new degree programs and other academic initiatives affording our students, and those from other institutions, novel educational opportunities. In setting the standard for a global university within the SUNY system and beyond, UAlbany will model a successful 21st-century public-research university. These are indeed exciting developments.
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