The educator's role in internationalizing the curriculum: A transitional period

Abstract

The global perspective in academe, like the technology phenomenon that ignited in the 1980s, will move ahead with full steam into the twenty-first century. However, as it evolves, some educators are faced with, in effect, a transitional phase as their employers take steps to integrate the world view into the learning environment. This is an especially critical time for faculty who may be attributed with comparative advantages in engaging academic communities at the international level.Educators who share knowledge acquired through international exchange activities with their academic home communities will considerably contribute to furthering the internationalization of the curriculum and, consequently, to the growing awareness on campuses that globalization is more than a buzzword. Educators and institutions that advocate multi-culturalism, diversity, and globalization in the nascent stages of transition will, in time, be credited with perhaps the greatest contemporary advance in general education.The transition to globalization in academe has been accompanied by a conspicuous rise in standards for the international educator. For example, teaching English abroad requires substantially higher credentials today than a decade ago. International economics educators encounter similar challenges. Increasingly more rigorous and careful preparation is expected today to effectively represent our universities abroad. (JEL A20)