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Institute of
International Education
809 United Nations Plaza
7th Floor
New York, NY 10017
USA
Tel: +1 (212) 984 5367
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IIENetworker University Presidents Interview Series |
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A Conversation with President Ruth J. Simmons, Brown University
 By Shannon Bishop
Hosting over 1,000 international students, offering 24 foreign languages, and sending 38% of their undergraduates abroad, Brown University has made a strong commitment to equipping students with global skills. To gain insight to their success and provide readers with a perspective on how the upper levels of higher education administration interpret the importance of internationalization, IIENetworker presents a discussion with Brown University President, Ruth J. Simmons.
A recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to France and former French professor, President Simmons has demonstrated her commitment to student exchange and international education throughout her academic career. Dr. Simmons has led Brown University since 2001.
IIENetworker: In your opinion, what are the most effective ways to produce globally competent citizens
President Simmons: Producing globally competent citizens implies that universities prepare students for lives and careers in an increasingly diverse, far-reaching interconnected world. Today’s global circumstances require a firm commitment to international learning in combination with dynamic institutional partnerships and study abroad across the full range of regions. Brown has international programs in 13 countries and offers opportunities for students from all academic backgrounds. We also have an Office of International Programs that facilitates enrollment in more than 150 programs sponsored by other universities and providers, and approved by our own faculty. We also have many international partnerships– such as at Paris VI in France, Zhejiang University in China, and Ewha University in Korea. We continue to explore many more.
Global competence begins at home, and includes an on-campus commitment to openness to diversity, language differences and communication across cultures. We have dedicated ourselves to increasing the diversity of international students on our campus. The University will spend nearly 40 percent more on programs of financial aid for international students during the next four years in order to assure the presence of students from different economic backgrounds.
Effectiveness in diversity and global education is related. In the international environment that we have today, where people move constantly across national borders, and where the traditional idea of citizenship – uniformity of ethnicity, uniformity of race, uniformity of clans and whatever homogeneity was imagined necessary several hundred years ago – are all disappearing. In the future, the success of societies will depend heavily on their capacity to understand and embrace a variety of cultures in the ideal of nationhood and community. That is not an easy thing to do, but education can be pivotal to improving our capacity to benefit from this change.
IIENetworker: What do you see as the main challenges in internationalizing your campus?
President Simmons: Most colleges and universities have international programs and have had them for many years. Brown also has had long-standing programs of student exchanges and some important and very durable international research relationships among faculty that thrived even during difficult political periods. It will be important for Brown to build on those programs and to ensure that our international reach is comprehensive—to regions of Africa, Asia and South America that may be less known. And we will want to do this in a way that is consonant with Brown's approach to undergraduate education—maintaining flexibility and a broad array of options for all students. We want to preserve our academic strengths as we seek a larger, richer and more significant international role for the University, its students and its faculty.
IIENetworker: How do you get the campus community involved in your institution’s internationalization activities?
President Simmons: This may be the easiest part. Demand for international experience and exposure to different cultures and languages has been growing steadily at Brown and elsewhere. Students come to us with significant global experience already—family travel, high school exchange programs and so forth—more than students even 10 years ago. Faculty also are finding international collaborators much more readily, and the underlying technology for academic exchange (travel, high-speed internet, communications devices, the ability to share enormous datasets) is making it much easier to pursue international professional relationships. I do not believe students and faculty will need to be convinced. It will be a matter of designing institutional support—not just funding, but staffing as well—that will allow global perspectives and initiatives to thrive.
IIENetworker: Has your institution’s focus on international education changed since September 11? How?
President Simmons: Brown has long had an international focus. For example, our first exchange students from Korea arrived in 1901. Today, well over 500 Brown students study outside of the United States each year, transformed by their experiences in the most positive and profound ways. This year alone, our graduates represented more than 70 nations, from Argentina to Zimbabwe. We have many ways on campus for people from different cultures to share points of view: such as our very successful Interfaith Dormitory House. Brown University has long realized that it is not enough to acquire a textbook knowledge of other peoples, other cultures, and other ways of thinking. The international experience, to be fully valid, must be lived.
Excerpt from President Simmons’ brief address to the campus community at 7 p.m. on September 11, 2001:
"At moments like this, I become aware more than ever that access to education in its broadest sense can make an immense difference in the future of our civilization. We can focus on educating ourselves about ourselves, if we so desire, but far more important is to educate ourselves about others. There are regions of the world that we understand not. There are peoples of the world that we care not to know. There are communities in our very midst from which we turn away. Turning away is not a solution.
IIENetworker: You received a Fulbright fellowship to France. What was your
motivation to study abroad and how did this experience impact your career?
President Simmons: My studies abroad were extremely valuable to me; my classes in French language and literature opened my eyes to the transformative power of education. Early in my studies, I found that many of my fellow students had spent time in France, and had therefore already experienced the learning advantages of travel. Before going to France, I struggled and even considered dropping French, but was convinced to stay by a professor. During that journey of mastering a language and a culture, I learned I could, in fact, learn a considerable amount about myself as well as another culture. My Fulbright was a confirmation of that realization, a capstone experience that figured into my decision to choose academic life and a career within the academy.
AT A GLANCE: Brown University
Location: Providence, RI
Total enrollment: 8,261
Number of international students: 1,025 (12.4% of total enrollment)
Number of students that go abroad: 563 (37.8% of undergraduates)
Shannon Bishop is Program Manager at the Institute of International Education.
This interview was originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of the IIENetworker magazine.
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