Liberal arts colleges that typify CIC’s membership are “more nimble, more willing to experiment, less tyrannized by entrenched disciplinary borders and curricular orthodoxies,” and therefore more likely to be leaders in new trends for global education, said Foundation Conversation speaker Jonathan F. Fanton, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Fanton and other presenters at CIC’s 18th Annual Foundation Conversation addressed the theme of “The Campus and the Globe: Building Resources to Internationalize Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship.” More than 100 college and university presidents and nearly two dozen foundation officers attended the October 10, 2006 event at TIAA-CREF’s Clifton Wharton Auditorium in New York City.

In his opening address, “Guiding Students toward Global Citizenship,” Fanton urged that four elements be included in any complete approach to this challenge: (1) a curriculum so international that “a student can’t escape”; (2) “a way of thinking about the world that is not U.S.-centered”; (3) finding ways to nurture comfort with difference, and (4) attention to the importance of “the practical ability to work in radically different cultures.” Fanton encouraged presidents to seek dialogues with the international program committees at umbrella organizations such as the Independent Sector and the Council on Foundations.

Panelists Pauline Yu, president of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and Mary Ellen Lane, executive director of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) discussed “Focus on Faculty—Enriching the Global Dimension of Teaching and Scholarship.” Yu emphasized the importance of thinking about international programs not just in terms of making the U.S. competitive in the global marketplace, but even more to “understand the world around it” and in the process “be enriched, imaginative, responsive, and ‘competitive’ in the highest sense.” Lane urged colleges and universities to affiliate formally with one or two overseas research centers as a way to benefit from the presence in other countries of these exemplars of international cooperation.

The concluding panel featured Ulrich Grothus, director of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) New York, and Terrill Lautz, vice president and secretary of the Henry Luce Foundation. Their topic was “Focus on Academic Programs—Opportunities in Asia and Europe for Enriching the Global Dimension of Learning.” Lautz pointed out that there is more to know about Asia than can be found in China alone and in partnerships with Chinese universities. Grothus forecast that student and scholar mobility patterns in the U.S. and Europe would look more similar in the future. He especially encouraged CIC member institutions to nominate able students for participation in DAAD’s Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE).

More information about this program, as well as other presentations and resources from the Foundation Conversation, are available here on CIC’s website.