Princeton must improve its study abroad offerings and strengthen relationships with international scholars, President Tilghman and Provost Christopher Eisgruber '83 said in a report released last week.
The document, titled "Princeton in the World," calls for increased "internationalization" at Princeton, which its authors define as more fluid interaction among global academic communities and increased cultural literacy for students.
The report — which comes 11 years after the University appended "and in the service of all nations" to its unofficial motto, "Princeton in the nation's service" — stems from Tilghman's ongoing emphasis on increasing the global role of the University, which she has long cited as one of the goals of her administration.
"I'm very excited about the report," Tilghman said in an interview. "We have been really trying to think through how Princeton should be preparing for the impact of globalization and all that entails."
A global vision
"Princeton in the World" was conceived last year, when Tilghman and Eisgruber commissioned a report on how Princeton should respond to globalization. A faculty committee, led by history department chair Jeremy Adelman and Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80, was charged with advising Tilghman on how to "fully realize [Princeton's] aspiration to be an American university with a broad international vision."
Goals outlined in the report include the exchange of students and faculty worldwide, global research collaboration, bolstering the study abroad program and spreading "Princeton scholarly energy" around the world.
With the possibilities for international collaboration increasing, the authors argued, "Princeton could not be a great teaching and research university unless it incorporated an international dimension into its mission."
This goal should apply not only to departments often seen as internationally minded, such as the Wilson School or politics, but also to those that seem isolated from global interaction, the Adelman-Slaughter Committee said. "We think that it's very unlikely that there's any department in the University that couldn't take advantage of this program," Tilghman said.
Borrowing a metaphor from economic globalization, the report advocated "a vigorous form of academic free trade in which a robust import policy will go hand-in-hand with a robust export strategy, and ideas will flow freely across international borders."
But to make that vision a reality, Princeton must improve how it directs its funding and address a sometimes-disorganized administration — problems that were constant themes in the report. To fix them, the committee urged a more formal infrastructure for the University's administration.
"Many of Princeton's international efforts are hard to discover," Adelman said in an interview. For example, he said, a student would have to spend a burdensome amount of time navigating the University website to find opportunities to work with people in other parts of the world.
Eisgruber said he hopes visiting professors can sustain their ties to the University after leaving campus, explaining that he envisions students studying abroad under the guidance of foreign scholars who previously spent time at Princeton. "If you bring in a faculty member for just a semester or for a year, it takes time to develop ties with the students," Eisgruber said.
To make such sustained ties possible, the report advocates the creation of a Global Scholars initiative. "These ideas of prolonged interaction are actually a very important part of the initiative," Tilghman said.
The committee also turned its attention to graduate students — who, though a diverse group, need support for research opportunities abroad, the report said. Such support might help lure the highest-caliber international students to Princeton, Dean of the Graduate School William Russel said in an interview.
There is "strong competition for the brightest international students, just like there is for the brightest domestic students," he said, noting that Princeton is not the first university that foreign students consider when applying to American schools.
"We can only benefit from greater visibility," Russel said.
Funding an international project
"Internationalizing" costs money — not only for teaching and research, but also for the more formal administrative structure envisioned by the committee.
While the Global Initiatives Fund has already received $1,000,000 from last year's Annual Giving campaign, the report argues that additional resources are still needed for seed grants, travel support for faculty and students and global network infrastructure.
Eisgruber and Tilghman said they expect additional funds will come from the capital campaign to be announced next month. According to a breakdown of the University's "table of needs" revealed earlier this year, $300 million have been earmarked for an initiative called "Citizenship and the World."
On top of funding individual projects, the report urged the University to create a Council on International Teaching and Research, which would function like the Council on Science and Technology and the Council on the Humanities, and to hire an administrator who would serve as secretary of the council.
The report also said a central physical space is needed to coordinate international efforts and suggested Frick Hall as a possible location.
Expanding study abroad
One prong of the new push to internationalize involves making it easier for students to study abroad and increasing the numbers of those who do so.
In a report to the Academic Planning Group last year, Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel said every student should be expected to incorporate international study into his or her education. Princeton, she said, has "a responsibility to produce globally competent citizens." She defined global competence as "substantive knowledge about international affairs, an empathy with and appreciation for other cultures, foreign language proficiency and a practical ability to function in other cultures."
Malkiel said in an email that the University will not make study abroad mandatory or require language proficiency greater than the current language requirement students must fulfill. She does, however, "want to reach a point where an incoming student expects to be abroad" at some point before graduation.
But the current structure of a Princeton undergraduate education can dissuade students from studying abroad. In addition to financial considerations, Princeton's curriculum often makes it difficult to take a semester away from campus, with junior papers and labs serving as a significant barrier for some.
Study Abroad Director Nancy Kanach said the experience offers innumerable benefits for Princetonians who do take the plunge. "Students who return from a semester or year abroad typically refer to the experience as 'transformative,' " she said in an email.
Kanach added that the experience can have practical benefits as well, with many companies prizing time abroad as a desirable trait in potential employees.
The Adelman-Slaughter report echoed Kanach's view, saying "the critical question about study abroad is not whether to expand Princeton's offerings, but how to do so." It opposed setting up satellite "mini-campuses" in foreign countries, as Stanford and Cornell have done, saying they tend to be costly and shelter students from the "full-blast experience of being embedded within a foreign culture" even if they might seem more comfortable and familiar.
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