Community colleges play a vital role in ensuring that America’s future workforce is both globally competitive and globally competent. Notably, in order to produce globally competent graduates, community colleges must first ensure that their faculty and administrators are themselves globally competent.
The “AACC Competencies for Community College Leaders” states that effective community college leaders must “understand that people live and interact in an increasingly globalized world” and “strive to provide students with opportunities to become exposed to different points of view and their…roles within a global, interconnected society.”
Not surprisingly, community colleges have shown a strong commitment to global competency for their faculty and administrators. Over the past five years, in particular, community colleges have made huge gains in providing necessary international professional development opportunities to staff. A recent ACE study reported that community colleges have shown the largest increase in international professional development activities compared to any other sector of U.S. higher education.
Anecdotally, Harper College (Illinois) recently received a prestigious national award for its Global Region of Focus Initiative, in which faculty engage in a variety of international professional development activities to infuse their courses with international perspectives and information that they acquire.
Reaching out to community colleges
To meet the international professional development needs of staff, community colleges are increasingly leveraging their relationships with Title VI federally funded national resource centers.
Historically, national resource centers have been located on the campuses of public and land-grant universities. However, following a national international education strategy to expand and diversify their impact, the centers have increasingly sought to partner with, or engage in strong outreach to, community colleges. For example, the national trend of globalizing the curriculum at community colleges (highlighted in the AACC International Education Toolkit case studies) is often accomplished in partnership with national resource centers. A list of the centers, their areas of focus, and outreach offerings is available on the UC Berkeley ORIAS website.
The following types of Title VI resource centers often provide a variety of free international education materials and free or subsidized international professional development workshops and seminars for community college faculty and administrators:
National Resource Centers (NRCs) provide professional development and materials for teaching modern foreign languages and area studies, including the culture, history, politics, and economics of world regions. In doing so, NRCs often work with foreign institutions and organizations. NRCs also collaborate with each other and higher education institutions on projects that address themes of global importance.
The nation’s Language Resource Centers (LRCs) serve to improve the nation’s capacity to teach and learn foreign languages through the development and dissemination of teaching materials and innovative teaching methods, including professional development related to the administration and interpretation of language performance tests. LRCs also hold intensive summer language institutes.
Centers for International Business Education (CIBEs) develop and disseminate international business and language curriculum as well as provide professional development opportunities for faculty to improve their understanding of the cultures and customs of countries that trade with the United States. Also, CIBEs facilitate opportunities for students to gain real-world experience in order to ensure that U.S. graduates are career-ready.
For more information about Title VI resource centers, consult the U.S. Education Department website. The next competition cycle for resource center funding is fiscal year 2018.
