SAN FRANCISCO – Howard University president Dr. Sidney Ribeau was initially surprised when, about six months ago, a standing room-only crowd of students packed in the school’s 1,500-seat auditorium for a program promoting study abroad opportunities in China. Because first lady Michelle Obama was the program’s keynote speaker, an amused Ribeau simply reasoned that her appearance was what likely drew such a large turnout.
But he was nearly floored in recent weeks as undergraduates steadily “made their way to my office, looking for funding and support” in order to study in China this summer. While Howard’s MBA program typically sends at least 30 students to China most summers, Ribeau estimated that more than 60 undergraduates—at least one fourth of them freshmen—were clamoring to spend time in the country that is the world’s longest continuous civilization.
“The students said they never thought about going overseas until Mrs. Obama came and talked about it,” Ribeau said.
His remarks came Thursday in a Presidents Symposium examining the internationalization of their institutions during the annual meeting of the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education. Representing a wide swath of colleges, the presidents and former presidents shared their experiences in launching international programs and activities stemming from their respective commitments to diversity.
While Ribeau half-joked that a spokeswoman such as Obama can lend a magic touch, he and other panelists also emphasized that touting global initiatives shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of just one person.
“Leadership is at every level of the institution,” said Dr. Ding-Jo Currie, chancellor of Coast Community College District. “Successful projects need multiple champions.”
The panelists encouraged college officials attending NCORE to not let seemingly insurmountable financial hurdles prevent them from trying to globalize the curriculum and their campuses, saying that their programs have typically been funded through a mix of grants from foundations, government agencies, professional associations and entities such as Fulbright. “There’s no way we would have the capacity to fund these things ourselves,” Ribeau said, observing that programs often spring from faculty collaborating with their colleagues at institutions in foreign countries.
