New Vanderbilt International Office to help university “act globally”

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Nov 13, 2006, 10:32 AM


NASHVILLE
,
Tenn.
–
VanderbiltUniversity
community members who want to “think locally and act globally” have a new resource on campus – the Vanderbilt International Office (VIO).

The office opens officially on Nov. 15 – during International Education Week (Nov. 13-17) – in 201 Alumni Hall. Assistant Provost for International Affairs Joel Harrington and Britta Watters, manager of international programs, call the new office home and have been hard at work creating a “one-stop shop” for information and assistance in connecting faculty, researchers, staff, students and alumni with the global community.

“The university has been an active global citizen through faculty research and teaching initiatives such as the Kampala Project – a partnership between the Office of Active Citizenship and Service and the Center for Medicine, Health and Society – which had about 20 students working on HIV/AIDS education and outreach in Kampala, Uganda, this summer. However, there was not a central place on campus that tracked and offered assistance in coordinating these types of activities,” Harrington said.

 “Our plan is to be a conduit so, for example, if a faculty member or student group is planning a trip to
China
and there is another Vanderbilt community member who has done work there, we can connect the two to share information, as well as support them in setting up logistics for the trip.”

One of the ways VIO will facilitate international connections is through its new website www.vanderbilt.edu/international, which serves as a clearinghouse for relevant information about conducting research, studying and traveling abroad.

VIO will also coordinate activities among existing campus offices with international focus. Study Abroad and the
EnglishLanguageCenter
now report to VIO, which will work closely with International Student and Scholar Services within the Dean of Students Office and the Office of International Services within Human Resources.

Other services offered by VIO include assistance for international students and faculty seeking housing and for those planning visits for international delegations. The office also plans to offer cultural immersion seminars for faculty and staff groups planning travel to foreign destinations.

 Establishing partnerships with foreign universities in order to create opportunities for research and study is another key function of VIO. The university has entered the initial stages of partnerships with the University
of
Melbourne in
Australia
and the University
of
Cape Town in
South Africa
. Both universities are peer institutions in that they are strong research universities with a broad range of disciplines. The goal is to establish partnerships with eight to 10 peer institutions around the world in the next three years.

“We are taking the approach of establishing a few core partnerships with universities that provide exciting opportunities for research collaborations across all of our schools and disciplines. We want these to be deep, significant partnerships as opposed to the scattershot approach that often results from having hundreds of partnerships without much depth,” Harrington said. “We also hope these universities will become our allies within their geographic regions, which will help facilitate coordination with local governments to conduct research.”

A task force is currently working to determine what types of institutional relationships can be established in
Asia
.

VIO is an integral part of the university‘s international strategy, which includes attracting and retaining the best and brightest students worldwide, offering a curriculum that embraces global perspectives, providing all students with linguistic and cultural education to help them thrive in the global community, recruiting top faculty from around the world and fostering international research and teaching opportunities for faculty.

For more Vanderbilt news, visit VUCast at www.vanderbilt.edu/news.

Media contact: Princine Lewis, 615-322-NEWS
princine.l.lewis@vanderbilt.edu

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