Below is a brief overview of each of the five goals that make up the Strategic Plan for Internationalization.
For a more detailed look, click below to expand each goal’s initiatives.
Goal 1 – Expand & Enhance Globally-Focused Research & Engagement
UC Santa Cruz has an impressive profile of faculty engaged in research and creativity throughout the world. Faculty international engagement is the foundation for building strategic international partnerships, expanding global opportunities for our undergraduate and graduate students, and elevating our research impact and reputation internationally.
A. Engage faculty and foster global collaborations
- Provide seed grants to faculty to create or expand international collaborations
- Partner with the campus stakeholders to launch a first round of seed grants during the 2021-22 academic year
- Develop interdisciplinary faculty seminars abroad designed to enhance curriculum, mobility, and research partnerships
- Partner with campus stakeholders to identify country locations
- Partner with Academic Senate to develop a review and selection process to send a cohort of faculty on a seminar abroad in 2022
- Increase grant opportunities that foster international research
- Partner with the Office of Research to assist faculty in identifying funding sources with international foci that maximize our existing research strengths
- Explore donor funding for international research and i
- Partner with University Relations to create a plan for development work with international corporations, foundations, alumni, and donors
B. Develop a campus resource to disseminate information on faculty engaged in international research and initiatives
- Map international activity of faculty and communicate broadly
- Enhance the functions of the GlobalConnect database linked to the GE website
- Promote the utilization of the GlobalConnect database to faculty as a shared resource
C. Create opportunities and facilitate global impact
- Increase housing availability for visiting scholars
- Partner with campus stakeholders such as CHES and the Colleges to explore visiting scholar housing options
- Partner with University Relations and/or community sponsors to explore the establishment of an International House
- Increase international graduate student enrollments
- Develop a campus-wide strategy for the recruitment of international graduate students, including sponsored students
Goal 2 – Provide Global Learning Opportunities for All
To prepare all of our students for the interconnected and interdependent world into which they will graduate, and to be competitive in this ever-increasing multicultural workplace, we must provide multiple and varied global learning opportunities for all of our students.
Increase opportunity and access
- Support faculty in the creation or modification of globally-focused courses in every major
- Launch a Global Classrooms initiative for the inclusion of Collaborative International Online Learning (COIL) components into existing courses
- Explore partnering with CIE and the Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning (CITL) to offer a faculty fellows program focused on this goal
- Offer workshop opportunities for faculty with this focus
- Increase the number of faculty-led and exchange programs, and increase student participation in both
- Through a sustainable funding model, provide incentives for faculty at all career levels to develop and lead faculty-led programs
- Through a sustainable funding model, decrease the cost of participation for students
- Advance academic integration of our UC Santa Cruz Global Exchanges through partnering with academic departments
- Develop virtual and in-person international internship programs
- Partner with academic departments and faculty to provide undergraduate international research exchanges with university partners abroad
- Establish internship/experiential learning opportunities during Summer Session
- Develop international online course exchanges
- Partner with the Academic Senate, departments, and faculty to offer online courses from universities abroad during the academic year to undergraduate students
- Expand and promote domestic study-away opportunities
- Expand domestic exchange opportunities
- Explore the development of faculty-led summer programs for domestic locations
- Expand the iFloor model
- Partner with the College Provosts and College Administrator Officers to expand iFloor to other colleges
Expand foreign language training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to support their study and research
- Increase language curriculum tied to degrees and the Centers with regional research foci and area studies
- Develop language-focused exchange partnerships
Develop undergraduate and graduate global studies/theory designations, minors, or concentrations
- Partner with academic units to develop minors or concentrations with global focus
- Facilitate inclusion of global concentrations and pathways in degrees
Goal 3 – Strengthen Student Success
Helping students achieve success is imperative for any university. We must continually monitor and improve
the experiences and outcomes for our students, both for those who are new to our country and for the totality of graduates who will be living and working in an increasingly complex, multicultural, and multinational world.
Improve international student experience and support
- Expand writing and language support for international students
- Increase participation in the Graduate Preparation Program
- Develop and identify funding for international graduate writing curriculum
- Explore the development of an Undergraduate Preparation program
- Monitor the well-being of the international student populations
- Partner with Institutional Research, Assessment and Policy Studies (IRAPS) to include data collection specific to the international student experience in their surveys
- Conduct regular focus groups/data collection from students
- Diversify the international student popul
- Broaden recruitment activities
- Increase sponsored students
Provide support and opportunities for cross-cultural understanding for all students, staff, and faculty
- Support faculty and staff in teaching and working with students from multiple countries, cultures, and backgrounds
- Explore providing workshops/training in collaboration with CITL and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI)
- Consistently include international foci in staff and student diversity training programs
- Expand the Global Staff Exchange Program
- Expand and integrate co-cu
- Expand virtual co-curricular opportunities through university partners abroad and international consortiums such as the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU)
- Partner with campus stakeholders to develop activities that create meaningful and impactful interaction between international and domestic students
Goal 4 – Enhance Our Global Reputation
We must tell our international story for all stakeholders to recognize the strengths of our academics and research, and attract the brightest minds from around the world to our campus to study, teach, and conduct research.
Establish faculty advisory groups by world region to inform strategy and guide implementation of global initiatives
- Identify and develop research foci and world regions to prioritize international efforts and define UC Santa Cruz’s global profile
- In consultation with the regional faculty advisory groups, develop a process to identify projects and regions of the world where we can have the greatest impact as an institution
Broaden and deepen institutional partnerships with universities abroad
- Increase the number of international partnerships
- Diversify partnership portfolio by region and country through strategic planning and faculty connections
- Collect data on visiting scholars to explore potential partnerships through existing connections
- Establish a partnership development strategy that prioritizes expansion of global learning opportunities, graduate student recruitment, and access to new grant funding
- Support faculty collaboration and research with partners
- Facilitate graduate student exchange
- Develop a protocol and provide funding for establishing faculty exchanges with partners abroad
- Provide funding for faculty symposiums/workshops with partner universities
- Establish seed grants to support international visitors and faculty travel to strengthen partnerships
- Cultivate partnerships beyond academia with the private sector, governments, and non-governmental organizations
- Develop pipelines for sponsored students
- Expand international opportunities for students, faculty, and staff
Enhance the communication strategy to tell our international story
- Communicate our assets, activities, impacts, and plans via the web, annual reports, newsletters, and other publications
- Coordinate with University Relations and divisional communications teams to create and disseminate stories and research impact
- Leverage innovative tools to collect, archive, analyze, and display inte
- Explore and identify a systematic way to collect data on faculty activities and connections abroad
- Develop a campus resource web page to display international activity and promote its utilization by faculty
Engage alumni living and/or working abroad
- Develop a plan to engage with international alumni and alumni living abroad
- Partner with University Relations to develop a plan
- Leverage leadership, faculty, staff, and student travel to engage with alumni
- Develop a database of international alumni and other a
- Create communications tools to engage alumni abroad
Goal 5 – Define Organizational Structure
UC Santa Cruz has, in recent years, taken steps that demonstrate a strong campus commitment to internationalization. Continued work to develop structures, positions, and processes dedicated to comprehensive internationalization is key to sustained growth and development.
Establish a permanent principal officer position to lead the division to ensure global engagement is part of campus leadership discussions and planning
Provide comprehensive risk management for student, faculty, and staff international travel
- Create and fund a position dedicated to managing international risk that will create policy and enact best practices to mitigate risk to individuals and the institution