Sharon Witherell, IIE Public Affairs Director, shares handpicked Open Doors news stories, beyond the top-line news in major media. More than 1,000 news reports across the country and around the world announced the latest statistics and trends. "This kind of widespread media coverage brings international education to the forefront," writes Witherell, "and it spurs policy discussions on topics such as skilled immigration, student recruitment, national scholarship programs, and the impact on higher education in the United States and around the world."

The print edition of Open Doors 2014: Report on International Educational Exchange is now available for pre-order. Produced with support from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Open Doors provides a longstanding, comprehensive statistical analysis of academic mobility between the United States and the nations of the world. 

 

The Open Doors report features graphic displays, especially data maps, tables, figures, and to-the-point policy-oriented analysis. A complete set of tables in this book is the essential resource for those concerned with the explosive growth in the worldwide movement of students around the globe. 

 

The new Open Doors data was released online during International Education Week; for more information, visit www.iie.org/opendoors. A complimentary print copy of Open Doors 2014 is sent automatically to the survey respondent on each campus who provided data on international student flows, and to the international student designee of IIENetwork member campuses, as a benefit of your IIENetwork membership.

The Complete Open Doors Package offers every issue of the report since its inception in 1948. The package consists of the most recent Open Doors CD-ROM, which includes all issues of the Open Doors Report from 1948–2008 in fully searchable PDF format, along with printed copies of the report from 2009–2014.

The Complete Open Doors Package is the essential resource for researchers, international educators, and those concerned with tracing the explosive growth in the worldwide movement of students around the globe over the past sixty years. 

As an added bonus, the package includes a free copy of Student Mobility and the Internationalization of Higher Education. A major publication of Project Atlas, a collaborative research and data sharing initiative supported by the U.S. Department of State, this book is a compilation of reports on student mobility trends and internationalization policies in six key world regions. 

Eric Justian writes in Triple Pundit about Alcoa Foundation’s Global Internships for Unemployed Youth program administered by IIE. The program aims to increase the employability of youth in the manufacturing sector and to increase the pool of talent available to small- and medium-sized manufacturing companies. "Sixteen to 24 are the prime years when people would receive the training and experience to become productive, well-established citizens," writes Justian. "The tragedy is: Young people are missing that window."

Rachel Glickhouse’s blog post in Christian Science Monitor discusses new mobility trends between Brazil and the United States, based on data from Open Doors 2014. Partially a result of the Brazil Scientific Mobility Program, "Brazil is now number 10 in the world of countries that send students to the U.S., with a 22.2 percent increase from the previous year," writes Glickhouse.

A feature by Elisabeth Redden in Inside Higher Ed provides a faculty perspective about the challenges and benefits of the recent increase of international students on U.S. campuses (72 percent since 2000, according to Open Doors 2014). "The thinking goes that if colleges want to prepare students for a globalized world, their classrooms should be globalized too," writes Redden. "But many colleges are only starting to grapple with the implications of increases in international students for classroom dynamics and practices."

An article by Simona Chiose in The Globe and Mail looks at Canada’s outbound student mobility in the context of other national initiatives to increase those numbers, including Generation Study Abroad to double outbound numbers in the United States and Germany’s target of 50 percent from its current 30 percent. A new report argues that Canada’s 3 percent needs to increase fivefold to successfully navigate global markets. To reach 15 percent, "the country will have to change a culture that values international education experience among its business students, but undervalues it in most other disciplines," writes Chiose.

Katherine Mangan’s article in the Chronicle of Higher Education looks at what colleges can expect after Obama’s plan to extend limited legal status to up to five million of the nation’s 11.4 million immigrants. She answers key questions about new higher education benefits, who they will (and will not) apply to, and whether any changes will affect college graduates.

Yojana Sharma’s article in University World News looks at new licensing restrictions for China-based agents for overseas universities. "The sector [has been] sullied in recent years by allegations of falsified documentation and ‘conveyor belt’ essays produced as part of the application process to universities in Britain, the United States, Australia and other countries," writes Sharma.

In this photo from the cover of the 1988 IIE Annual Report, two participants (upper left and center) in a five-week youth exchange project on U.S. culture and society throw pots with the teacher's assistant (right) and a student at Boy's Harbor, an after-school day care/enrichment facility in NYC's Harlem. The 15 program participants from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean were all beginning teaching careers in subjects that involved some aspect of U.S. history, language, literature, and culture.

View IIE’s complete archive of annual reports since 1919.

IIE is pleased to partner with CollegeWeekLive to host Africa Day on January 28th, 2015. This virtual fair is an excellent opportunity to connect with students across Africa.

Benefits of Participating:

• Engage students from across Africa—reach students from multiple African countries without leaving campus.
• Create a new channel for communication—reach students when and wherever they are, on their device of choice, enabling live chat interactions online at their convenience.
• Increase exposure—distribute information more efficiently to a wider audience.

The 13th Washington International Education Conference is the original conference providing the latest information on the recruitment of international students. Meet Embassy officials and sponsoring agencies responsible for the placement of students. Confirmed distinguished speakers include Pamela Barrett on Risky Business: Understanding Risk and Reward in International Enrolment Management and Neil G. Ruiz with his ground breaking research on The Geography of International Students in U.S. Higher Education: Origins and Destinations, as well as the latest information from IIE on Open Doors. The event will take place at the University of California Washington, DC Center, and Embassies and sponsoring organizations throughout Washington on January 26th and 27th, 2015.

The Internationalization Collaborative, "Global Competence, Local Challenges: Building an International Curriculum for Everyone," is a one-day conference designed for those who are leading internationalization on their campuses, including administrators, staff and faculty. The 2015 meeting will focus on strengthening the international curriculum, with a special emphasis on creating international learning opportunities for all students. 

Designed to complement the themes of the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) Annual Conference, the agenda will address several questions:

• How do I develop a consensus on learning goals at my institution, including broad agreement on such terms as "international," "global" and "intercultural?"  
• What are the opportunities and challenges of an approach that focuses on the internationalization of the general education curriculum?
• How do we develop the international expertise of our faculty, while mobilizing the support of faculty who already are engaged in international teaching and learning?

NAFSA is accepting poster proposals for its 67th Annual Conference & Expo, in Boston, Massachusetts, May 24-29, 2015. Posters are visual presentations displayed on tables and bulletin boards organized in fairs focused on a particular theme. 

Fourteen poster fair themes will be organized for 2015 including:

• Internationalizing the Curriculum and Campus
• Increasing Diversity Outreach and Support in International Education
• Uses of Technology and Social Media in International Education
• International Education Research
• Career and Professional Development for International Educators

The 2015 World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) Awards will celebrate six innovative educational projects for their excellence and positive contribution to education and society. The Awards highlight initiatives found to be most creative and effective in finding solutions to education challenges at any level and in all environments. Representatives of projects working at any education level are invited to submit applications to demonstrate the nature and reach of their activities. Past winning projects have addressed a wide range of concerns and pursuits, including access to quality education, life-long learning opportunities, and the use of technology. To date, a total of 36 projects have been recognized for their innovative, transformative impact.

Betty Castor makes the case in the Huffington Post that international exchange is an investment in global security and development. "Indeed, today the strength of the Fulbright Program remains its commitment to immersion through which participants form lasting international connections, gain a deep understanding of other countries and cultures, and work collaboratively to find solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges," writes Castor.

IIE’s Center for International Partnerships in Higher Education invites U.S. university and college representatives to join an informational webinar on Friday, December 12th from 2:00-2:30pm on current trends in Colombian higher education and opportunities for U.S.-Colombia university partnerships. The webinar will address the present partnership landscape and opportunities for further engagement between U.S. and Colombian institutions, and will feature presentations by Executive Director of the Colombian Fulbright Commission, Ann Mason, as well as IIE staff. Institutions interested in initiating or furthering partnership activities with counterparts in Colombia are invited to attend the webinar.

Please contact the Center for International Partnerships program staff (cip@iie.org) with any inquiries.

Are you responsible for international partnerships at your institution? If so, please take a few minutes to participate in a new survey conducted by the Institute of International Education in cooperation with Freie Universität Berlin. 

Strategic international partnerships are a relatively new but growing phenomenon in the higher education sector. This global survey seeks to assess the nature and dynamics of such transnational arrangements between higher education institutions in various countries and regions. The responses collected from this survey will provide the higher education community with the latest trends on strategic international partnerships from a multitude of perspectives, and contribute to the growing body of empirical data on this topic. The results will also be synthesized into a chapter in the upcoming IIE/DAAD publication, Global Perspectives on Strategic International Partnerships (May 2015).

If you have questions about the survey, please contact cip@iie.org.

The Institute of International Education (IIE) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) invite you to propose a chapter for an upcoming publication, Global Perspectives on Strategic International Partnerships. The upcoming volume will draw from the expertise of professionals from around the world to discuss new trends, models, and best practices surrounding strategic partnership building. 

PIE News looks at the growth of internships abroad and offers warnings and recommendations to assure mutual benefits for businesses and students. According to PIE, "the appeal of a work placement is growing, along with the rise of commercial companies offering to set up an internship ... Education providers, businesses and governments will need to move quickly to cater for this burgeoning market. Collaboration will be key."

The Forum on Education Abroad is offering another opportunity for Generation Study Abroad Commitment Partners to participate in The Forum's Education Abroad Capacity Review. Offered in support of IIE's Generation Study Abroad initiative, this customized QUIP review focuses on assessing and expanding education abroad capacity at all types of institutions and organizations. The processes and exercises of this Education Abroad Capacity Review are designed to evaluate the organization’s mission and goals and assess enabling conditions and challenges in light of The Forum’s Standards and the best practices in the education abroad field.

This program is exclusively for Generation Study Abroad Commitment Partners, and an application and fee is required to participate.

The U.S. Department of State’s Gilman International Scholarship Program is pleased to announce the awards offered to U.S. undergraduates for the spring 2015 term. Notifications have been sent via email to all applicants. The Gilman Scholarship Program received more than 2,700 applications and over 800 outstanding students were offered awards to study abroad and participate in career-oriented internships eligible for academic credit in countries all around the world starting this spring. We would like to send a special thank you to the selection panelists from around the U.S. who came to the Institute of International Education’s Houston office to review the applications, and to all the educators who continue to support their students and education abroad.  

The Gilman International Scholarship Program is a congressionally funded program sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) at the U.S. Department of State and is administered by the Institute of International Education (IIE). The Gilman Scholarship Program offers U.S. undergraduate students of high financial need grants of up to $5,000 to participate in a study abroad program or career-oriented international internships eligible for academic credit. Students studying a critical need language could be eligible to receive an $8,000 grant. The Gilman Program aims to diversify the kinds of students who study and intern abroad and the countries and regions where they go by supporting U.S. undergraduates who might otherwise not consider these opportunities due to financial constraints.

Geoff Maslen writes in University World News about five Australian universities that have become Generation Study Abroad commitment partners. "The Western Australian university announced last week that it intended to double the number of US students on its campus in Perth by establishing 10 new partnerships with American universities and would try to attract 400 students a year," writes Maslen.

Richard Stengel, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, addresses in Huffington Post common perceptions about study abroad and offers interesting statistics and personal stories to give a more accurate picture of the challenges and benefits of going abroad. "What I've heard over and over is not only how the experience of studying abroad has made them global citizens, but how it has changed their lives."

Aisha Labi’s article in the New York Times (originally Chronicle of Higher Education) makes the case that the dangers facing intellectual dissidents and universities in troubled regions have reached a crisis point. "To a greater extent than in previous wars and conflicts, scholars are now specifically attacked, and centers of learning have gone from being incidental victims to battlegrounds," remarks IIE President and CEO, Allan Goodman, interviewed for the article.