International Education -
Why Virginia’s Community Colleges Should Participate

Contents

Introduction
                      The Origin of Job Outsourcing and        

                      The Importance of Changing Output
                                                       per Labor Dollar ……....…..… page 2

Part I.  The Rationale for Improving American Productivity
             by Emphasizing International Education across Virginia’s
             Community College Curricula ………………………………...……….. page 4

Part II.  Traditional Efforts at Community Colleges in
             International Education ……………………………………………..……. page 7

Part III.  Providing International Education that’s Supercharged:
              What’s Happening at Tidewater Community College Today ……...…. page 10

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….....… page 12

References …………………………………………………………….………...… page 13

Introduction
                      The Origin of Job Outsourcing and        

                      The Importance of Changing Output per Labor Dollar  

During the 2000 election year debates between presidential candidates, Ross Perot gave a new name to a growing and problematic economic reality i.e. the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs overseas.  He referred to outsourcing as a   “sucking sound.”  American workers faced growing unemployment. In Martinsville, Virginia, a community formerly known for its manufacturing contributions in nylon, textiles, and furniture, unemployment would rise to 16% by 2004, and companies such as DuPont and Tultex, permanently closed their doors leaving workers jobless. Virginia’s “sucking sound” was repeated across America in the high tech info-world of California, across the prairies in Kansas City, Missouri; it was a growing sound that rumbled in the metal fabrication plants along the rust-belt states beneath our Great Lakes, and extended into the blue and white collar worlds within the beltways from Boston to Washington and from Tampa to San Antonio.  Traditionally an insular country, complacent with its higher wages and living standards, there seemed (while jobs were plentiful) little reason to doubt that American output per worker would be challenged.  Americans had failed to hear the challenge by foreign workers whose rising aspirations were matched by additional education and supplemented by foreign government vouchers that may continue to improve worker productivity in some countries in the third world.  U.S workers had not heard nor heeded the origins of that growing “sucking sound.”  

  As global outsourcing continued, community colleges in Virginia such as Patrick Henry Community College (PHCC) in Martinsville found their classrooms beginning to fill with laid off workers who enrolled for retraining using federal grant monies provided through North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) adjustment provisions. This role of education, to help solve the unemployment problems of an increasingly internationalized U.S. economy, was identified as early as the 1980s by Governor Gerald Baliles, an appointee to the Advisory Council on International Education by the Southern Governor’s Association. In his advisory role, Baliles was faced with negative economic and educational realities for the South, in particular, and the nation in general.  He heard reports that as early as 1984 the value of the South’s exports reached $53 billion annually, and that its export sector employed 1.4 million people, while American students had turned in abysmal performances on geographic surveys as compared to their international counterparts during the decade. (In 1982, UNESCO reported that among 10 to 14 year-olds surveyed in nine countries, American students ranked next to last in their comprehension of foreign cultures.[1]  In 1984 a major southern university said that only 5 percent of its students passed an elementary geography test. )[2]  Baliles reacted to the reports with a strong endorsement of the need for international education saying:

“In my mind, given the conditions we face in the world, the pursuit of trade and the desire for educational excellence are indivisible… The fact is we do not prepare our students—and, consequently, our workers and managers to succeed in the global economy.  Conditioned to expect easy, even automatic success, American firms repeatedly blunder in foreign markets because they neither understand nor can communicate with foreign buyers…
            We have become a living paradox: a nation of nations, where every citizen has an immigrant for an ancestor, and yet we have become insular and blissfully unaware of the world around us….

Americans must understand a basic fact: the best jobs, the largest markets, the greatest profits, and the brightest futures will belong to those who understand the world and its many cultures.” [3]

International education can be effectively delivered by community colleges given their mission, location, and variety of funding sources.  Two-year colleges have traditionally been tasked with meeting the educational needs of students within their local communities.  This local mission is well served when committees of faculty and administrators meet with local business people, as happens bi-annually at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, to discuss and make recommendations for change in the business curriculum to fit the demands of the community work force.  With over 1600 public and private community colleges available, most Americans can commute less than one hour to the nearest campus for retraining or degree work.  The necessity for ease of access cannot be overstated when increasing student populations tend to have some level of job commitment, full or part time, and family responsibilities to maintain while attending classes.  Finally, to aid in the accomplishment of their mission, community colleges can look to three levels of government. Community colleges such as PHCC receive funds from the yearly budget allocations of surrounding cities and counties.  In Virginia, “seed money” for community college programs that benefit industry or promote economic development is available through the Virginia State Council of Higher Education (SHEV) using the “Funds for Excellence Program.”  Federal government funding is funneled through eligible training providers in the public/private sector for retraining workers whose jobs were displaced by NAFTA.  Most recently, the grants announced by President Bush II, are targeted specifically for the community college mission of retraining displaced workers.  As with local and state money, these federal dollars also support the community college effort to prepare workers for a global workforce.           

It seems apparent that to retain profitability, Virginia’s businessmen must sell in global markets and must purchase resources, including human resources, from those sources in which “output per dollar of wage costs” is highest.  In the past century, American output-per-dollar (output/dollar) was secure because the numerator could depend upon American technological superiority relative to our competitors.  Today, American output per dollar of wages is insecure for two reasons. First, low wage countries alter the ratio in their favor by their ability to insert low dollar figures for human wages into the denominator.  Second, American schools are no longer the only schools producing large numbers of college graduates and engineers that result in high output per worker.  China and India increasingly alter the numerator in output/dollar in their favor because each produces more college graduates than the United States, and China and India each graduates more engineers annually than America[4].  Thus both numerator and denominator in output per wages are tilting in directions that favor countries like China and India relative to America.   These differences are due in part to the improved abilities of the Chinese and Indians to design or import modern technology, and to the Chinese and Indian lower labor costs, relative to the USA.  Unless and until the benefits of an American education can be improved, or until the wage differential between Americans and non-Americans is reduced, Virginians will increasingly be dislodged by that “sucking sound” of their jobs heading offshore. The USA will remain among the great nations, but no longer a technological superpower whose productivity formerly dominated that of our global competitors.

Part I.  The Rationale for Improving American Productivity
             by Emphasizing International Education across Virginia’s
             Community College Curricula

If Governor Baliles was correct, “…the best jobs, the largest markets, the greatest profits, and the brightest futures will belong to those who understand the world and its many cultures.” [5]  American complacency about its technological leadership is being displaced.  The new problem is to replace the “grim realities of the sucking sound” with a correctly understood linkage upon which to compete.  That linkage involves raising revenues and lowering costs.  Businesses exist to earn profits, and profits are the difference between sales revenues and resource costs.  To raise sales revenues, American businessmen must anticipate the challenge of marketing products globally to consumers whose languages, customs, and cultures differ radically from our own.  To lower wage costs, businessmen must procure labor resources from wherever sufficient and equal quality can be hired for minimum cost.  I conclude that both sales and payrolls require a new internationalized set of knowledge skills that include mastery of languages, customs and cultures different from our own.

Two reasons suggest Virginia’s community colleges become a primary provider of international education to its business community.  The first reason is that the mission of community colleges resides “close” to the needs of the communities they serve.   The second reason is that 23 community colleges in Virginia already demonstrate the ability to promote regional solutions to problems.

Why should America use its local community colleges to improve it human resources?  The answer is that an effective way of solving a national problem like outsourcing of American jobs is to put into action an institutional framework that already operates successfully at the local level.  When solving problems, Americans take ownership and believe in decentralization of power.  If the challenge in changing output per dollar of wages becomes widely understood, then approximately 1600 public/private community colleges enable Americans to commute less than an hour to their nearest campus.  It’s at this grassroots level that community college and business leaders should provide the planning and educational programming for redressing workforce cultural complacency.  Governor Baliles expressed the need by saying:  
           “Has our educational system become a sanctuary from the world, from other cultures?  It would seem so.  There are an uncomfortably large number of supposedly educated Americans blissfully unaware of the world’s complexities and unable to do much about them.  Each day we pay a political and economic price for our inability to understand and communicate with our global neighbors.” [6]

Before community college teachers write instruction modules or tinker with course titles and content, Virginia’s community college presidents should include international education in their mission statements.  As an example, to provide a college-wide planning basis, Miami-Dade Community College phrased its mission in this way:
          “A community college should be a door to global communication and awareness.  Understanding global interdependency in our increasingly complex societies is the key to economic, social, and cultural development.  Global education can no longer be for a small elite; it must be an integral part of every student’s education.  Community colleges, because of their closeness to their communities, are uniquely suited to educate for global understanding.” [7]

Thus a local solution – the use of community colleges - is widely available, willing, and responsive to business needs.  Community colleges have traditionally been flexible in their mission statements.  Community colleges can design their courses to include the language, customs, and cultures of those with whom we wish to sell, and whose labor we require, when such labor is more economical than our own.  Seen in its positive light, this process frees American labor to re-tool at their local community college.  Rebuilding the skills of displaced American workers will be judged on basis of student ability to re-enter emerging careers in which newly required global skills in language, culture, and diversity mark a rite of passage to a more globally competitive American workforce.

Why are Virginia’s community colleges a good choice for solving regional problems?  The reason community colleges should be empowered to redress the “sucking sound” of job outsourcing with across-the-curricula internationalized education is that community colleges already work well with each other, and with the business communities whom they support.  As an example, the cities of Lynchburg, Altavista, and Bedford, and the counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, and Campbell are “highly involved in trade in the various world regions.” [8] Gerald Wilson and Eduardo Peniche, officers in the Piedmont Export Expansion Program (PEEP) approached then Lieutenant Governor Charles Robb to promote a regional effort for the central Virginia area.  Ralph Brown, Coordinator of Research and Planning at Central Virginia Community College (CVCC) got involved, and a source of funding from the Virginia State Council of Higher Education was located.  Together they formed the Piedmont Export Expansion Program, or PEEP.  PEEP put together “A Model for Utilizing Higher Education Institutions to Promote an Export Expansion Program for Central Virginia” and received its seed money for the 1983-84 academic year. [9]  Among its goals PEEP’s regionalized planning included:
(i.) Increase the number of additional businesses entering or expanding their international trade activities and utilizing CVCC’s Cross-Cultural/Foreign Language Resource Center;
(ii.) Increase the number of academicians and businessmen acquiring new knowledge in international trade procedures; and
(iii.) Increase the cooperation between higher education and business. [10] 

            On the seaboard side of Virginia, forces were also at work that would lead to an internationalization of the curriculum and to collaborative faculty interaction and travel on the four campuses of Tidewater Community College and other schools.  The words spoken by Governor Baliles in March 1984, “In my mind, given the conditions we face in the world, the pursuit of trade and the desire for educational excellence is indivisible” were reiterated at the Eastern Community College Social Science Association meeting that summer.  Consequently, two faculty members - Mary Ruth Clowdsley and Barbara Nudelman - received a small Virginia Community College Association grant to develop an initial plan for internationalizing across the curriculum at TCC. Their effort ultimately has led to an increase of 450% in TCC’s 1993 budget for international education, and to relationships with Old Dominion University, Norfolk State University, and with sister community colleges at Thomas Nelson and Paul D. Camp.  At these 2-year and 4-year schools, faculty have been “sponsored with funds” to increase their own understanding of international education, to revise their courses, and to travel abroad. [11]  Two funding example are that, (1) - during May and June of 1993 a $47,000 Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Award Grant enabled 12 faculty members from four colleges in the VCCS to spend five weeks in the Czech and Slovak Republics;  (2) - Tidewater received $60,000 in each of two years from the U.S. Department of Education Undergraduate Foreign Languages and International Programs for the internationalization of its programs. [12]

            Proximity to the peoples they serve, and, of equal importance, a propensity to act in concert with each another make Virginia’s community colleges a natural stakeholder in re-dressing Ross Perot’s “sucking sound.” For these two reasons, empowering community colleges to internationalize their curricula will benefit Virginians.  Jobs that will otherwise be taken by low wage earners abroad can be retained when America’s workforce is re-equipped with global workforce linguistic skills, cultural sensitivity, and an appreciation for the values embedded in diverse cultures.  Part II and Part III of this paper explain what traditional international education programs have meant in Virginia’s community colleges and what additional benefits emerge when a leading community college like Tidewater seeks to internationalize across its curriculum.

Part II.  Traditional Efforts at Community Colleges in International Education

Traditional efforts in international education programs typically include: (1) foreign language courses; (2) faculty exchange programs with faculty from foreign countries; (3) encouragement of enrollment of international students from other nations; and (4) student study abroad.  Within Virginia, the following community colleges and the VCCS itself provide for several or all of these traditional efforts.

Foreign Languages at Central Virginia Community College (CVCC)

Virtually all Virginia’s community colleges offer a selection of foreign languages.

An interesting version of language programs exists at Central Virginia Community College.  On that campus, Eduardo Peniche heads up a Cross-Cultural and Foreign Language Resource Center whose activities are centered in the traditional language lab, a learning laboratory, and a television studio.  Area businesses demand, and CVCC provides, both language instruction and cross-cultural education.  CVCC offers self-paced language instruction in “Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish – languages of importance for trade and sociopolitical communication.” [13]

“Cultural packages complement and support the language instruction.  The cultural information includes brief historical background, cultural institutions (education), political and legal structures, art, music, customs, and food.” [14]   Courses called Danish Language & Culture and Spanish Language & Culture are taught to employees of General Electric; evening classes in German are taught to employees of Meredith/Burda, Inc., a German-American company; and employees of Babcock and Wilcox Company are taught French.  Mini-courses, workshops, and seminars, instruction and presentations are given through interdisciplinary cooperation. [15]  The foreign language and cross-culture program were made possible by two grants: a consultancy in 1977, and a pilot award in 1979 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. [16]

Faculty Exchange via the Virginia Community College System (VCCS)

            Central Virginia Community College and the other 22 community colleges within the VCCS and the 15 four-year public institutions have contact persons so that all faculty may apply for the VACIE-CEMP Professional Development Exchange program with England, Wales, Scotland, and the Netherlands.  VaCIE is an acronym for Virginia Council for International Education.  CEMP stands for Cheshire Education Management Program, found in about seventy-five colleges of further education in the United Kingdom. [17]  VaCIE is modeled after similar organizations in other states, such as PaCIE in Pennsylvania.  Founded in 1990 in Virginia, it is the brainchild of matchmakers JoAnne McCarthy, Director of International Programs at Old Dominion University, and CEMP director Kevin Quinlan.  JoAnne described the exchange model to educators in the VCCS and persuaded several to listen to Kevin’s presentation during VaCIE’s annual meeting in 1994.  As a result, Virginians host their foreign colleagues during the latter two weeks in October, and the United Kingdom delegates reciprocate during mid-May. [18]

            Careful pairing deepens personal friendships through providing opportunities to stay in each other households, travel, and meet new friends.  “Visiting educators enjoy a welcome reception, sit in on meetings, interview key personnel, teach classes, address faculty, help with lab sessions, stalk to students and otherwise master the nature and modus operandi of their host institutions.” [19]  This is accomplished on the rather reasonable budget of $850-$900 per educator, and is open to administrators as well.  Since the 1995-96 academic year, 193 community college teaching and professional faculty and administrators have participated during 8 successful and reciprocal cycles. [20]

An “Artistic Variant” on Faculty Exchange
at Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC)

            During 2003, a different form of exchange visit occurred between Northern Virginia CC and the Netherlands.  Barbara Lash, an adjunct in art history, met Edo Zupan, coordinator of The Art Workshop while traveling on a VaCIE-CEMP exchange visit.  The Art Workshop is a fourteen-year-old Dutch project subsidized in part by government funds and in part by sales of real works of art.  The Art Workshop consists of two art disciplines: visual arts and theater.  What really sets The Art Workshop apart is that it sees itself as a school for mentally challenged artists.[21]

            “While I was in the Netherlands, Edo and I discussed the possibility of having an exhibit at our (NVCC) Campus and I’m delighted that we were able to make it happen,” says Barbara Lash.  Dutch artwork was put on exhibit at Manassas Campus of NVCC in Cogan Hall. “The main purpose” of the Dutch endeavor said Edo Span, “is to create an environment where mentally challenged artists can develop… For some artists, it takes a few years before they create a real work of art… The most important thing is to have a positive atmosphere, which creates self-reliance and maturity… Every mentally challenged person who wants to express himself through art has the right to do so.” [22]

 Enrolling International Students at John Tyler Community College (JTCC)

            International students possessing an F-1 (student) visa have been approved by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Services of the Department of Justice for enrollment as full time students at John Tyler Community College.  The JTCC Student Handbook provides procedures for admission and information needed by foreign applicants.  Such students fill out an application form; provide transcripts of all academic records, translated into English; give evidence of financial resources; complete a health information form; pass appropriate test scores, and achieve a minimum score of 500 on the TOEFL – Test of English as a Foreign Language. [23]  A check of the VCCS Fall enrollment by race during 2002 showed that among John Tyler’s 5,870 students, there were 27 American Indians, 1,487 Black, 135 Asian, 217 Other, 120 Hispanic, and 3,854 White students.  However, NVCC has the largest enrollment of international students.  By race during 2002, fall statistics show that NVCC enrolled 1,070 American Indians, 6,077 Blacks, 5,219 Asians, 2,205 others, 4,216 Hispanic, and 20,342 White students. [24] 

During my research I found that the American Association of Community Colleges provides a website with suggestions about the information required to build a website to attract international students.  In addition to providing basic information about your campus, consider adding information that tells:
(i.) why international students should choose your campus;
(ii.) in what way the location of your city and state are attractive to international students;
(iii.) how you have addressed student admissions requirements, with policies pertinent to:
       New F-1 visa applicants;
       F-1 transfer applicants;
       Students with non-immigrant visas; and include
       Costs, deadlines, how to apply, and financial support.

Be sure your college website discusses its ESL program and support in English skills.  Then describe programs of study that are popular among international students.  Include descriptions and pictures of faculty and students during specially planned activities that show the international students as able to be successful on your campus. [25]

Students Study Abroad - Virginia Western Community College (VWCC)

“I am quite concerned that too few of this nation’s colleges and universities are adequately preparing student to be international citizens,” said Governor Baliles.  “This nation cannot maintain its world leadership role if our young people do not understand the cultures and languages of the nations with whom we trade, work, and negotiate.” [26]  Virginia Western responded to its governor’s challenge in two unique ways.  First, VWCC tapped its Sister City Committee.  Roanoke has a sister city in Kenya, which coincidentally is building a community college.  So VWCC got itself involved with sending two planners from Virginia to Kenya and receiving two people from Kenya who visited VWCC.  “The faculty from the Kenyan college studied our curricula and methods and were welcomed on the campus as lecturers and classroom visitors.” [27]

The second thing that Virginia Western did was to provide its students the opportunity to study abroad.  To do this VWCC  got the assistance of the Community College Ministries, an organization supported by several church groups in Virginia.  Using its Social Sciences Division, VWCC developed a multidisciplinary course emphasizing the study of social, economic, and political problems associated with poor but developing countries.  Following the spring quarter of 1987 and 1988 this class visited the Dominican Republic.[28]

Charles Downs, President at VWCC, reported “nearly 75 educators from a variety of foreign countries visited during an 18-month period.”  Approximately 50 were sponsored by the United States Information Agency. “The second group to visit was made up of twenty-two educators, businessmen and political leaders from new nations in the Pacific region.  The United States Department of Education helped to sponsor this tour of six American community colleges.” [29]
            “The most important result of all these activities has been to stimulate faculty interest in the idea of international education.  The faculty International Education Committee has attracted new and vigorous interest… ” said Downs.  “We also hope that these small and inexpensive experiences in international education have helped to move our campus closer to the Governor’s goal to prepare our students to be international citizens and to help them understand a bit better how to meet the people of nations with whom they will have to trade, work, and negotiate.” [30]

In these ways, Virginia community colleges and the VCCS have provided the traditional methods found in international education programs within their localities -
they have successfully and creatively provided a variety of language and cultural instruction courses, sent faculty and administrators abroad and received similar guests in exchange, provided for admission of foreign students, and incorporated methods for improving website information deemed important to foreign students.  Additionally, Virginia’s students have been provided a measure of travel abroad

 

Part III.  Providing International Education that’s Super-charged:
                What’s Happening at Tidewater Community College Today

The most noticeable response to the message from former Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles is found at Tidewater Community College (TCC). A comprehensive plan for implementing international education (IE) across the curriculum was conceived, funded, and implemented.  From the student perspective, a comprehensive plan accomplishes three tasks:
(i.) IE “across- the- curriculum” - The plan infuses international material into each student’s educational experience, across the curriculum;
(ii.) Collaboration around IE - The plan infuses collaboration among college officials, faculty, staff to internationalize the college mission;
(iii.) Study abroad - The plan provides a formal study abroad program in Costa Rica and in France.

International Education “Across-the-Curriculum” at TCC

With campuses in Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, as well as a regional Visual Arts Center in Olde  Towne, Portsmouth and a performing arts center in downtown Norfolk, Tidewater Community College anticipates serving over 32,000 students, (14,245 FTEs), is Virginia’s second largest community college, and 37^th largest among the nation’s 1600-institution two-year college network. [31]  In addition to fostering development of the whole student, Tidewater specifically commits to putting its resources “in programs that offer students the ability to expand their frame of reference, to travel, and ultimately to deepen their experience and understanding as members of a regional, national, and global community.” [32]  TCC offers neither area studies majors nor exclusively international topics found in four-year college programs.  Instead, its faculty driven International Education Committee has sought to infuse international content into as many facets of student educational experience as possible.  Faculty receive encouragement to put international content into their courses.  The committee reviews and updates what it considers to be the international courses list.  “All graduates in the A.A. or A.S. transfer programs are required to have had at least one course with an international emphasis.  So far, these courses include language, selected history, geography, humanities, communications, literature, fine arts, philosophy, anthropology, geology, and culinary arts.  Within the languages, TCC offers its 52% transfer-enrolled A.A and A.S degreed students French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.

Collaboration around International Education at TCC

            In spite of the changing administrations of four presidents, TCC faculty retain a commitment to international education in three ways:  First, TCC has taken the lead in mentoring other community colleges in IE.  Using a FIPSE grant enables TCC to consort with schools in Colorado, North Carolina, and Virginia.  This resulted in an NSEP Viet Nam project, and in the first VCCS sponsored event centering on international education.[33]  Second, TCC’s International Programs Office collaborates with Student Activities, its Visual Art Center, the Women’s Center, and the Office of International Student Services to present an assortment of international activities that complement curricula and appeal to students.  The International Film Festival and the promotion of an international theme at all four campuses in its Women’s Center bring topics like apartheid and machismo to the attention of all.  Third, an International Student Services Office, working through the President’s Office recruits an immigration lawyer to discuss the F-1 visa law with students annually.  And college administrators address the students.  The Student Services Office sponsors an annual international dinner and dance showcasing the food, music and dance from global cultures.

TCC’s Study Abroad Program

            TCC currently offers a formal study abroad program for the Spanish language in Costa Rica and for the French language in France.  FIPSE funds enable the school to continue to multiply study abroad opportunities.  A major service-learning project took place in Costa Rica, while similar planning is being put into place for Viet Nam, as part of the college’s NSEP grant.  The idea is that TCC students will work with students at Hong Duc University, tutoring them in English.  A subsequent NSEP grant is anticipated to provide a similar experience with the Philippines.[34]

 

Conclusion

Currently job insecurity in the United States is spreading from the ranks of blue collar into white collar occupations.  American command of superior output per dollar of labor costs has been assaulted on two fronts.  First, equal or greater numbers of trained college graduates are matriculating from schools in China and India, formerly regarded as less developed countries.  This leads to improved technology and output in those countries relative to America.  Second, through technology, work of equal quality is being performed at lower cost in countries abroad.  To compete globally, American businesses must sell globally to persons whose cultures we barely understand; at the same time our businesses must minimize costs by hiring human resources of equal talent at the most competitive wage rates, in countries most of us have never visited on the globe.  To assist with these transitions, American schools must redress American lack of geographic understanding, our language deficit, and teach us cultural empathy.  American schools must successfully imbue these global competencies in a re-tooled workforce that can perform in emerging careers requiring international education skills.  Community colleges are ideal at performing these tasks because they address our national problem at its grassroots, in every locality, and because they cooperate with four-year colleges and with business enterprises whom they seek to serve.  The ordinary international skills in our curriculums already include languages, faculty exchange/travel abroad, recruiting foreign students, and sending American students to study abroad.  But these isolated successes can be buttressed by revised mission statements that emphasize the importance of international education across every curriculum.  We must get rid of the complacent assumption that educated employed persons can rely on a steadily rising and uninterrupted stream of income throughout their working lives.  The marketplace no longer “forgives” our arrogance when equally skilled and larger numbers of college graduates are matriculating on foreign shores. Here lies an important challenge for America – to reverse the “sucking sound” of job outsourcing.  In America today we need a political leader who can articulate the plight of the person caught in the economic struggle over which companies provide the greatest output per dollar of wages.  Having taught America and Virginians that the pathway to productivity comes through education, elected leaders, business owners, and academicians should empower community colleges to retool their international education programs in the comprehensive across-the-curriculum manner demonstrated at Tidewater Community College.

References

 

1. American Association of Community Colleges AACC/Site info “International Student Web Site – Information Required to Build a Site,” pages 1 and 2.  http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Content/NavigationMenu/ResourceCenter/Services/International 03.26.2004.
2. Clark, Don. “Another Lure of Outsourcing: Job Expertise.”  The Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2004, page B1.
3. Clowdsley, Mary Ruth.  “Educating Faculty for International Education:  A Community College Experiment.”  VCCA Journal, Volume 3, Number 2, Fall/Winter 1988, pages 4-9. 
4. Downs, Charles. “International Education at Virginia Western Community College.”  VCCA Journal, Volume 3, Number 2, Fall/Winter 1988, pages 23-24.
5. “Dutch Artwork on Exhibit at Manassas Campus of Northern Virginia Community College” March 20, 2003. http://www.nv.cc.va.us/manassas/newsevents/pressrel/dutchArt.htm 
6. “The Internationalization Collaborative, Tidewater Community College, General Institutional Overview, and Overview of Internationalization Efforts.” Pages 1-10.  http://www.acenet.edu/programs/international/collaborative/community/tidewater.cfm 03.23.2004
7. “John Tyler Community College Student Handbook, Admissions Information, International Students,” pages 1and 2.  http://www.jtcc.edu/StudentHandbook/AdmissionInformation.htm 
8. O’Connor, Kathleen D. and Mary Ruth Clowdsley. “Grant Funds Supplement College Investment in International Education.”   VCCA Journal, Volume 8, Number 2, Fall/Winter 1993, pages 11-16. 
9. Peniche, Eduardo. “CVCC in the Global Village.”  VCCA Journal, Volume 3, Number 2, Fall/Winter 1988, pages 15-18. 
10. Peniche, Eduardo A. “The Piedmont Expansion Program:  Community Colleges in International Trade.”  VCCA Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring/Summer 1988, pages 16-21. 
11. Sandberg, Nancy and Rita Krasnow. “How the Need to Give an International/Intercultural Focus Affects the Curriculum.”  VCCA Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, Summer 1990, pages 34-36. 
12. Thomas, Becky. “The VaCIE-CEMP Exchange.”  Inquiry, Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1997, pages 58-60.
13. “VACIE-CEMP Professional Development Exchange,” 2003-2004.  http://www.nvcc.edu/depts/vacie
14. “VCCS Fall Semester (2002) Enrollment by Race,” pages 1 and 2.  http://www.vccs.edu/vccsasr/Research/race02.htm 

 

Footnotes