Hans de Wit. Foreword, 9-12
Bernhard Streitwieser, Anthony C. Ogden International Higher Education’s Scholar-Practitioners: bridging research and practice, 13-17
INTRODUCING THE SCHOLAR-PRACTITIONER
Bernhard Streitwieser, Anthony C. Ogden Heralding the Scholar-Practitioner in International Higher Education, 19-38
John K. Hudzik Internationalization Practitioners and Scholarship: dichotomies and crosswalks, 39-54
John D. Heyl The Emergence of the Scholar-Practitioner Identity in International Education: a 25-year review, 55-71
David Comp A Historical Overview of International Education Scholarship and the Role of the Scholar-Practitioner, 73-91
VIEWS FROM THE PROFESSION
Donna Scarboro The Benefits and Limits of Scholarship and Self-expression among International Education Professionals, 93-101
Giselda Beaudin, Louis Berends The Education Abroad Practitioner as Transdisciplinary Scholar, 103-113
David B. Austell Scholar-Practitioners and the ISSS Professional, 115-127
Mandy Reinig The Small/One-person Office: the challenge of being both practitioner and scholar, 129-141
Rosalind Latiner Raby Studying Community Colleges: administrator, practitioner and scholar voices promoting international education, 143-158
Brian Whalen The Scholar-Practitioner’s Role in Advancing Education Abroad Quality Assurance, 159-167
VIEWS FROM THE FIELD
Bruce La Brack The Interplay and Co-evolution of Theory and Practice in Preparing Students for International Education Experiences: a retrospective analysis, 169-182
Elizabeth Brewer Lessons from a Late-blooming International Education Scholar-Practitioner for Combining Practice with Scholarship, 183-194
Richard Slimbach Deschooling International Education: toward an alternative paradigm of practice, 195-209
Michael Woolf An Unholy Trinity: conservative dynamics and the scholar-practitioner, 211-223
Gregory Light Blind Spots, Troublesome Narratives and Arrested Fields: towards the scholar-practitioner, 225-234
Jane Edwards The Scholar-Practitioner and Translating Research into Working Practice, 235-245
LEVERAGING THE SCHOLAR-PRACTITIONER: EDUCATION, RESEARCH, AND FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
Darla K. Deardorff Key Theoretical Frameworks Guiding the Scholar-Practitioner in International Education, 247-263
Taylor C. Woodman, Katherine N. Punteney Graduate Education in Context: preparing scholar-practitioners as future international education leaders, 265-279
Tamar Breslauer A Librarian’s Lens: thoughts for scholar-practitioners, 281-295
Fiona Hunter, Laura E. Rumbley Exploring a Possible Future for the Scholar-Practitioner, 297-308
All contributors Pathways of the Scholar-Practitioner, 309-333
Notes on Contributors, 335-340
Hans de Wit. Foreword
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International Higher Education’s Scholar-Practitioners: bridging research and practice
Bernhard Streitwieser, Anthony C. Ogden
Preface
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INTRODUCING THE SCHOLAR-PRACTITIONER
Heralding the Scholar-Practitioner in International Higher Education
Bernhard Streitwieser, Anthony C. Ogden
US higher education institutions are generally staffed by two categories of professional employees: the scholars, or faculty, who analyze, write, and teach about a particular area of study and its implications, and the administrators, who manage the education enterprise and make scholarship and instruction possible. This has also been the pattern in the large and growing profession of international higher education, which includes education abroad, international student exchange, and institutional internationalization among other activities increasingly important in a context of domestic and global competition. In many cases, however, this perceived division is misleading. A hybrid group of scholar-practitioners now exists that works primarily in administrative capacities but also contributes important analysis and reflection on the nature and impact of their practice through disseminating scholarship in the field. This chapter reviews the development of the scholar-practitioner, situates this hybrid professional in today’s higher education context, and proposes a model and definition for the scholar-practitioner’s role in international higher education. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the academic and administrative structures governing higher education today should reimagine the unique potential of these hybrid professionals as international higher education develops as a profession and an important area of scholarship.
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Internationalization Practitioners and Scholarship: dichotomies and crosswalks
John K. Hudzik
The scholar-practitioner discussion in internationalization is shaped considerably by three overarching factors: the historical but evolving notion of what counts for scholarly stature and utility within the higher education enterprise; the diversifying state of scholarship and practice in higher education internationalization; and considerations of who can conduct legitimate internationally oriented research and scholarship. These three factors interact. The chapter grounds discussion in the literature and experience of engaged scholarship and the scientist-practitioner model used in clinical and applied psychology for over seventy years, and in other professions. Ernest Boyer’s typology of scholarship provides a way to think about the widening diversity of internationalization scholarship and roles for both practitioners and scholars. The terms ‘practitioner’ and ‘scholar’ are often used in a way that creates a false dichotomy. There are both intellectual and practical reasons for breaking down the artificial dichotomy when applied to internationalization scholarship. Following discussion of the meaning of ‘practitioner’ in internationalization, attention shifts to developing job expectations and skill sets of so-called practitioners in order to conduct research and scholarship under the models of engaged scholarship and Boyer’s typology. An action agenda to start the process is outlined.
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The Emergence of the Scholar-Practitioner Identity in International Education: a 25-year review
John D. Heyl
International educators have struggled over the years with how to develop their field as an academic discipline – and thus with identifying an appropriate research and methodological agenda – and with how to inform their scholarship with the diverse range of actual practice of international programs on campus, through provider organizations or professional networks. Despite this tension – or perhaps cause of it – a growing cohort of international education (IE) professionals see scholarly contributions as part of their professional responsibilities. This chapter identifies a group of international educators – some offering more personal statements, some social science–based studies, some compilations of institutional research – who helped shape the scholar-practitioner identity in the field over the past twenty-five years.
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A Historical Overview of International Education Scholarship and the Role of the Scholar-Practitioner
David Comp
Knowledge production within the field of international education in the United States has increased significantly since the end of World War II. This chapter identifies key events and ideas throughout this history when research and other scholarly pursuits have been discussed and debated to demonstrate the growth and development of the scholar-practitioner within the field of international education. The approach taken in this historical overview with regard to the definition of ‘research’ and the role of the scholar-practitioner within the field of international education involves numerous activities towards the goal of advancing knowledge in both practical and theoretical ways. This chapter predominately highlights scholarship on academic mobility both to and from the United States, especially in the early decades after World War II, but it should be noted that there are many other areas of focus within the field where scholar-practitioners focus their scholarship, such as on foreign credential evaluation and methodology, foreign higher education systems, intercultural competency, comprehensive campus internationalization, branch campuses, strategic international partnerships, and the economic impact of international education.
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VIEWS FROM THE PROFESSION
The Benefits and Limits of Scholarship and Self-expression among International Education Professionals
Donna Scarboro
Among the most contested and significant issues in the field of international education is how best to prepare future professionals and leaders for the field. Among the skills and characteristics typically assumed to come with hiring a professor into an administrative role are academic strengths, such as the ability to mount research to determine the best answer to a question, the ability to convince others about the policies or activities indicated by the answer, the ability to organize and present complex information for non-experts, and a concern for issues affecting society. Whether and how individuals who exhibited such traits and abilities in academic life drew on them when adapting to their roles as managers is debated. This chapter explores how much effacement of the academic persona and how much adoption of the managerial persona are appropriate. But does specific, professional, graduate education narrowly aimed at specific skills of higher education or international education management attract and form the leaders we need? Or is the deep dive into a traditional academic subject? Do we now need to reverse-engineer international education managers to be more scholarly, as we have previously reverse-engineered academics into managers?
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The Education Abroad Practitioner as Transdisciplinary Scholar
Giselda Beaudin, Louis Berends
A transdisciplinary approach seeks to address complex global problems through dialogue and synthesis between and beyond disciplines. This in-between space represents the potentiality of transformation and can become a focal point for societal, cultural or pedagogical change. Education abroad practitioners in the United States are uniquely situated in a transdisciplinary space between practice and scholarship, and internal and external constituencies. Some practitioners, or rather scholar-practitioners, take advantage of this ambiguous role and actively produce scholarship while still engaging in the practice of education abroad. Since education abroad is itself transdisciplinary and much of the work is academic in nature, education abroad scholar-practitioners (EASPs) are extremely well positioned to steward the field of education abroad, develop lasting relationships with faculty and external partners, and imagine new solutions to evolving issues. However, there are many complex barriers preventing practitioners from becoming and remaining EASPs, from limited resources to limited venues for scholarship. Despite these challenges the EASP is perfectly positioned to thrive in spaces of transdisciplinarity and be a conduit between academic and administrative silos. This chapter argues that given the power inherent in a transdisciplinary approach, more education abroad practitioners should be encouraged and supported to become and remain education abroad scholar-practitioners.
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Scholar-Practitioners and the ISSS Professional
David B. Austell
The scholar‐practitioner is an ideal which is enormously difficult for the international student and scholar services (ISSS) professional to aspire to, even among those who have been trained as doctoral‐level academics. There are many significant impediments which force research and writing to the end of the ISSS professional’s priority list. Among these are impediments which go to the very heart of what it is to be an ISSS professional – how these talented individuals are perceived by their institutions and by the government of the United States, and how they are prepared, academically and professionally, for their tasks as ISSS practitioners. The work of ISSS professionals is intense, time-consuming and relentless. Approximately 90 95% of their work currently focuses on the arcana of federal immigration regulatory compliance, endeavors that occur within a politically charged homeland security environment that is entirely unforgiving of compliance mistakes. Despite their effectiveness in dealing with the multi-task frenzy of these work realities, ISSS professionals on the front lines of service provision have not often been able additionally to embrace the role of the scholar-practitioner in any systematically effective way reflective of a comprehensive ISSS research agenda. This chapter focuses on the work demands and challenges which often forestall the inclusion of ‘scholar-practitioner’ in the typical ISSS professional’s job description. Perceptions and identities of ISSS professionals are examined to explore goodness-of-fit with the scholar-practitioner ideal. Factors that impede the development of ISSS professionals into scholar-practitioners are identified, and means of overcoming these impediments are presented.
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The Small/One-person Office: the challenge of being both practitioner and scholar
Mandy Reinig
In these ever-changing economic times it becomes challenging for those who manage small/one-person international education offices to keep pace with the increased demands being placed on them and to be both a practitioner and a scholar. Those leading small/one-person international education offices (here, defined as three full-time staff or fewer) may go by many titles; however, all of these individuals carry out a variety of duties that run the gamut of the international education field. One important objective of this chapter is to illustrate the vastness of the duties that are completed by one or a couple of people and how these duties impact their ability to be both a practitioner and a scholar. A recent study revealed that the majority of those managing their office have been given the title of director. However, they are not conducting research as part of their jobs. Instead they must turn their attention to completing the practitioner’s tasks required to maintain the office’s status quo. This has also resulted in a majority of the directors in small/one-person international education offices believing they are more practitioners than scholars. It is easy to assume that those leading international education offices would be able to be both practitioner and scholar. However, at this level the many challenges presented by working within a smaller environment, but having the same responsibilities as those working for larger organizations, mean that for most directors being a scholar is not easily within reach. However, this chapter ends with potential avenues the field can pursue to increase the role that the scholar plays within their career.
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Studying Community Colleges: administrator, practitioner and scholar voices promoting international education
Rosalind Latiner Raby
International education at community colleges includes reflections on practice, application of theory, and use of assessment to confirm findings. This combination profiles a diversity that challenges a stereotype of community colleges as being solely practitioner oriented. A focus on author lived experiences illustrates a wide range of voices that have, and that continue to, set the tone that advances discourse on community college internationalization efforts. The combination of scholars, practitioners and others who have published on community college internationalization, and who continue to do so, epitomizes a new form of scholarship. The authors of these publications include a combination of senior administrators who are not involved in international program management, practitioners who are involved in international program management, university faculty and graduate students who have former employment with community colleges, and representatives of national and non-profit organizations. Together, this range of voices illustrates how theory is used to inspire practice which anchors advocacy for change as these individuals work together to (a) advocate for internationalization to be seen as an important component of the community college mission; (b) develop strategies for campus support services and professionalization of the field; and (c) assess programs and student outcomes.
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The Scholar-Practitioner’s Role in Advancing Education Abroad Quality Assurance
Brian Whalen
This chapter describes and analyzes an emerging type of scholar-practitioner at the forefront of quality assurance in international education: the education abroad scholar-practitioner (EASP). The EASP engages in scholarly activity thorough researching and becoming grounded in the field’s standards, best practices, data and terminology, and research studies on a wide range of education abroad topics. There has emerged a foundational knowledge that is expected to be known and understood among EASPs, and this scholarly activity is not limited to researching information: it includes also improving education abroad based on the research results in order to advance the mission and goals of the EASP’s institution or organization. This chapter describes how EASPs are trained through the Forum on Education Abroad’s professional certification and quality improvement programs, and how they play a critical role in helping quality assurance at their institution or organization. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the future of education abroad will be shaped by professionals who embrace the scholar-practitioner role in order to meet both the expectations and the challenges for education abroad.
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VIEWS FROM THE FIELD
The Interplay and Co-evolution of Theory and Practice in Preparing Students for International Education Experiences: a retrospective analysis
Bruce La Brack
This chapter will critically analyze the nearly forty-year historical and intellectual evolution of the University of the Pacific’s integrated orientation and re-entry courses. It will concentrate on explicating the core elements and pedagogical approaches that are believed to have contributed the most to the success of the program, including a consideration of how those elements might be applied and adapted by educators engaged in similar pursuits. It will provide an account of how these linked, credit-bearing training courses grew and co-evolved with the growing sophistication of both the international education field as well as the theoretical underpinnings of the discipline of intercultural communication. The author briefly discusses how his roles as a scholar-practitioner underwent several transformations beginning with the inception phase of the process through its eventual maturation, with the intention of providing other practitioners with (1) an understanding of what practices and procedures worked best for the orientation and re-entry courses at Pacific; (2) how the program incrementally evolved; (3) how program effectiveness was measured; and (4) how other trainers/teachers might adopt these ideas for their own purposes. The chapter concludes with some reflections and advice about administrative impediments that remain to establishing such programs elsewhere.
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Lessons from a Late-blooming International Education Scholar-Practitioner for Combining Practice with Scholarship
Elizabeth Brewer
In the USA, any number of graduate programs teach theory and provide opportunities to apply it outside the classroom, with the aim of preparing graduates to combine scholarship with practice in careers as international educators. Such training is relatively new. In fact, only recently did a discipline of international education emerge. Those who came before often had PhDs in other disciplines, and became international educators more by chance than by design. Some transitioned into international education in response to calls from their institutions to help them internationalize. Against this background, this chapter is informed by the experiences of a practitioner who received her graduate training in one field but later moved into international education without the grounding of many of today’s newcomers. At first primarily focused on practice, she began engaging in scholarship when institutional needs demanded that she acquire greater historical and theoretical perspectives on internationalization, student development, and assessment. Her trajectory was aided by the emergence of a more robust literature on international education and of educational associations devoted to the field. The chapter offers advice for newcomers entering the profession, and suggestions for negotiating one’s place within a particular institution and the discipline itself.
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Deschooling International Education: toward an alternative paradigm of practice
Richard Slimbach
Despite its aspiration to leaven the world with ‘global souls’ formed through transformative intercultural experiences, the field of global education has thus far failed to escape the runaway costs, the marginal learning, and the absence of an ultimate why that bedevils American higher education. Indeed, hundreds of consumerist organizations and commoditized educational products only reinforce the instrumental value of foreign peoples and places, and that for a tiny global elite. ‘Market realities’ rule, pressuring students and institutions alike to narrow their commitments from the broader social good to the ‘needs of industry’. What does the role of ‘scholar-practitioner’ look like in the light of these realities? This chapter puts a spotlight on three factors – educative experience, conceptual mentoring and active experimentation – to help us imagine an alternative (‘deschooled’) paradigm of international education: one that is radically affordable and accessible, more personalized and self-directed, more community-driven, and ultimately more relevant to the challenges faced by the majority of people on the planet.
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An Unholy Trinity: conservative dynamics and the scholar-practitioner
Michael Woolf
Education abroad is a curious profession. The contrasting roles of administrator and educator, and practitioner and scholar create tensions that are sometimes paradoxical and ambiguous. The holy trinity of curriculum integration, cross-cultural learning and benchmarking creates a conservative ethos which subverts creativity and innovation. Curriculum integration is the principle by which universities create, select and endorse courses abroad that most resemble those that they teach at home. That objective restricts radical revision through the imperative of alignment with what already exists. Another conservative dynamic derives from the fact that the perceived benefit of study abroad resides, in part, in the assumption that other countries are different from the USA. Almost by unspoken consensus, that difference has been defined in terms of ‘culture’: an idea that derives from a core misconception – the belief that political and cultural borders are in some kind of alignment. The notion of benchmarking is a further conservative restraint in that future development is measured against pre-existing standards. Collectively, these factors enforce an innate conservatism that the educator and the scholar ought to find profoundly unsatisfactory.
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Blind Spots, Troublesome Narratives and Arrested Fields: towards the scholar-practitioner
Gregory Light
This chapter is a critical reflection looking at the practice of international education (commonly promoted through study abroad offices) from the perspective of a parallel academic practice focused on promoting innovative learning and teaching in the university (typically promoted in teaching centers). It takes as its point of departure the fluctuating relationship between these two academic practices at a Midwest research-intensive university. On the face of it they are very close – in location, personal relationships and university structure – but in reality they are deeply separate practices. The chapter argues that this separation is grounded in a lack of a culture of scholarship between the two practices. The author then draws on his long experience in the practice of learning and teaching to explore the individual and institutional conditions and barriers preventing the robust development of the research and inquiry culture and narratives essential for the practitioner-scholar to thrive. He argues that practices that fail to engage in scholarly work but remain primarily arrested at the basic practitioner level of their field undermine their own ability to make important theoretical and practical connections to other practices or even to innovations within their own field. The chapter then argues that current national initiatives provide the opportunity to develop scholarship in these fields more forcefully. It concludes by describing one such research project which bridged the gulf between learning and teaching and international education practices.
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The Scholar-Practitioner and Translating Research into Working Practice
Jane Edwards
The frantic pace and many agendas of campus internationalization can push us to react rather than plan. Utilizing research to guide our work can help us to be both more analytical and more applied to topics of significance to international educators, to illustrate the essential connections between scholarship and practice in international education.
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LEVERAGING THE SCHOLAR-PRACTITIONER: EDUCATION, RESEARCH, AND FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
Key Theoretical Frameworks Guiding the Scholar-Practitioner in International Education
Darla K. Deardorff
This chapter synthesizes several integral theoretical frameworks for intercultural development and learning which are essential for scholar-practitioners in international education. This chapter highlights several theories that are vital for more fully understanding intercultural practice, including a discussion of the first researched-based framework of intercultural competence by Deardorff with updated research on this framework. Other relevant theories, such as Bennett’s developmental model of intercultural sensitivity, Sanford’s challenge-support, Allport’s contact hypothesis and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, are synthesized in relation to intercultural development. In addition, some non-western concepts around intercultural competence are discussed, in more fully understanding this key concept and its application in international education. Theories from other disciplines are also highlighted as they pertain to practice and research in international education.
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Graduate Education in Context: preparing scholar-practitioners as future international education leaders
Taylor C. Woodman, Katherine N. Punteney
This chapter examines international higher education graduate programs in the United States. Using this analysis as a foundation, the authors explore characteristics unique to each of six types of graduate programs in international higher education. The chapter introduces the tensions between the theoretical foundations that guide the work of international education practitioners and the increasing pressure from students and stakeholders to provide relevant, practical experience. In their exploration of these program types and current tensions facing these programs, the authors identify possible ways to shape international education curricula to prepare students to be scholar-practitioners. Through cases studies of their respective graduate programs, the authors examine two programs that combine the application of theory with applied programming in order to develop scholar-practitioners. One of the programs features client-based courses and practica, while the other program incorporates an experiential international program within an education abroad course. From these examples, the authors share their recommendations for how graduate programs can prepare scholar-practitioners to be the future leaders in international education.
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A Librarian’s Lens: thoughts for scholar-practitioners
Tamar Breslauer
Even before conducting their own research, scholar-practitioners inform their practice by locating existing work. But what is the landscape of international higher education? In a field that includes topics as diverse as higher education policy, comparative education, student learning assessment and organizational change, as well as research approaches as varied as ethnographic studies, discourse analysis and surveys, how does a scholar-practitioner identify all relevant research? What tools are available to help simplify this process? This chapter addresses such questions by considering the nature of the field of international education through specific types of resources available to scholar-practitioners, primarily in academic libraries. In addition, it suggests ways of evaluating and organizing these resources. The chapter concludes with a proposal for a newly imagined definition of a scholar-practitioner.
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Exploring a Possible Future for the Scholar-Practitioner
Fiona Hunter, Laura E. Rumbley
This chapter provides a perspective on the possible future evolution of the roles and experiences of scholar-practitioners (or ‘practitioner-researchers’). Practitioners work increasingly in an ‘expanding knowledge environment’, exerting ever-stronger pressures on practitioners to ‘know’ more about their own work, to account for their actions rigorously and accurately, and to understand and articulate how their professional activities fit into a broader context. However, practitioner-researchers are often left with the sense that they must develop this deeper knowledge in isolation, among other reasons because the research community focused on higher education is concerned with questions that do not have clear implications for (or resonance with) practitioner concerns. Moved to undertake research focused on their own, scholar-practitioners must confront the very real challenges of researching one’s own field. Ultimately, a robust future for the scholar-practitioner will turn on effective capacity building in research methods for these individuals, as well as concerted collaboration between less experienced practitioner-scholars and colleagues with more refined research skills and more extensive experience with rigorous academic inquiry. Fundamentally, a commitment by key stakeholders to the notion of ‘intelligent internationalization’ is needed, which implies more effective and systematic engagement across policy, practice, and academic communities concerned with international higher education.
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Pathways of the Scholar-Practitioner
All contributors
To support our belief that the biographies behind the authors of each chapter matter almost as much as the arguments they are making, we have included a final chapter with brief personal narratives of all authors in an effort to highlight the many pathways they have taken to becoming scholar-practitioners of international education today.
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Notes on Contributors
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