UNC Seeks To Enhance Its 'Global Brand' | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Jesse Saffron, who writer and editor for the for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Proposal from General Administration would require $400k from taxpayers

    RALEIGH     Over the past two years, the University of North Carolina has been implementing recommendations laid out by the General Administration and Board of Governors in their 2013 "strategic directions" report, "Our Time, Our Future: the UNC Compact with North Carolina." For example, the system has streamlined the transfer process for students going from community colleges to UNC schools and defined "core competencies" that all graduates should possess.

    One proposal now being reviewed by the Board of Governors seeks to boost UNC's international reach and enhance its "global brand." It calls for $400,000 of new annual state funding to help link students, faculty, and staff with regions "critical to the state's economic and strategic future," namely China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and Africa. Building those relationships, the report states, would "prepare students to succeed in the global economy."

    The administration's desire to promote more international relationships, however, has not evoked much interest (or funding) in the legislature. And the system's Board of Governors - which is more conservative than the one that wrote the 2013 report - may not be all that enthusiastic, either. But does it matter? International relationships appear to be thriving.

    Last month the General Administration's Office of International, Community, and Economic Engagement presented the board with an in-depth report on UNC's international activity. The first such report since 2005, "Global Connections: UNC and the World" adopts many of the recommendations in "Our Time, Our Future." Written by the office's director, UNC system Vice President Leslie Boney, it provides a comprehensive review of the international relations of the UNC universities.

    It reports that in 2012-13 roughly 6,000 students across the UNC system studied abroad, with almost 50 percent traveling to Western Europe. However, at about half of UNC schools, less than 1 percent of the student population participated in such programs. The top two foreign languages in the system are Spanish and French, and of the 9,000 international students who came to UNC schools last year, more than 50 percent came from China and India.

    Boney praises East Carolina University as a "national pioneer" for offering online "Global Understanding" courses, taken jointly by students from ECU and students around the world. ECU's project began in 2003 after faculty members discovered that only 2 percent of ECU students had study abroad experiences.

    The report also heralds system-level initiatives such as StudyNorthCarolina.us, a website designed a couple of years ago to attract international students, and the UNC Exchange Program, based at UNC-Greensboro. That program helps UNC institutions and international schools arrange and manage student exchanges (with UNC students studying for one semester at sister schools in other countries while students at the sister schools study at UNC).

    Economic development also is emphasized in the new report. The report states that last year in North Carolina, 30 percent of new investment came from foreign sources, and that 200,000 North Carolinians now work for foreign-owned companies. The report's implication is that a failure to boost "global competency" will leave college graduates ill-prepared for the modern job market.

    In an e-mail, Boney and President Tom Ross stressed the importance of engaging with geographic regions outside of Western Europe, currently the most popular region for students interested in study abroad programs, foreign language courses, and other international coursework. Ross and Boney want to promote partnerships with China, India, Brazil, and Mexico because of the huge economic influence of those countries.

    Despite the urgency of the report and the enthusiasm of Ross, Boney, the General Administration, and some Board of Governors members, it's not likely that $400,000 of recurring funding will be set aside for this proposal anytime soon.

    The board's Educational Planning, Policies, and Programs Committee chairman, Craig Souza, says he'd like to convene a small group of committee members to review the latest report and consider possible future actions; however, the legislature has not appropriated money for this proposal, nor has the proposal been included in the board's 2015-17 budget priorities.

    At the moment, it looks like "internationalization" supporters will have to view the latest report more as a statement of guiding principles than as a concrete policy mandate.

    But even without funding for this program from the General Assembly, UNC will not shun "global engagement." Academics continue to foster international collaborations, foreign investment and businesses continue to come to North Carolina, and students continue to have myriad foreign language options, international courses, and student exchange programs to choose from. The University of North Carolina is far from isolated.