“Our goal was to make sure students on campus understood that they would be working in a global environment,” says Karen Kashmanian Oates, Peterson Family Dean of Arts and Sciences at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. As scientists and engineers, WPI students are poised to enter a truly global marketplace, with companies headquartered outside the U. S. or requiring working in or with these other locations.
Constructing a strategic plan for global engagement that will benefit both students and the institution, however, requires more than a simple study-abroad program. In a presentation for the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD), Oates and her co-presenters explained the situation thus: “Without a strategic plan for global engagement in place, most interactions have been reactive instead of proactive, with engagements neither initiated nor coordinated with central university aspirations.” By constructing a strategic plan, the institution can help meet institutional goals.
Student recruitment is not the exclusive domain of admissions staff. There are many things that department chairs and faculty can do to promote their programs to potential major and minors. In an interview with Academic Leader, Victor Vallo, Jr., chair of the music department at Newberry College, offered the following recruitment techniques at the program level:
