Tucked away behind an unassuming glass door on the second floor of CSULB's Brotman Hall is a group of people at the Center for International Education with a common goal: bringing the world and CSULB together through education abroad.
"The Center for International Education is comprised of several parts," said Nathan Jensen, senior director of the center. "We have International Admissions and Recruitment, which (recruits) international students to come (to CSULB), processes their applications and makes admission determinations for them. We have International Student Services, which handles advising as it pertains to their status and their visas in the U.S., as well as provides programs to make international students more comfortable-getting used to how we do things here, the logistics of getting a driver's license or a social security card, or whatever the case may be. And then we have the education abroad office, which is all about sending CSULB students away to study in other countries."
The level of commitment exhibited by CIE's personnel to these tasks is backed with a fierce belief in the power of an education focused not just within our own borders, but of breaking past those boundaries to experience learning on a deeper level, which only travel to other places can provide.
"I'm a professor of history and Africa is my area of specialization," commented Ken Curtis, CIE's interim executive director, "so I did my doctoral research in Tanzania. I'm a member of international professional organizations, and I've been to Italy five or six times. Actually, my first experience was as a study abroad student in London.
"Because we live in such a diverse cosmopolitan region, our students are preconditioned that the world comes to them," Curtis added. "In 15 minutes, we could be over having lunch in Little Saigon and experiencing Vietnamese culture. Isn't that great? But that's not the same thing as going to Vietnam. And very often, because they're first generation college students, their parents didn't have the experience, so they're not hearing that message from their high school counselors, from their parents, from their classmates."
To help raise students' consciousness about education abroad, CIE goes on the offensive with a variety of programs and curriculum. Programs ranging from short-term to semester and year-long options provide opportunities to learn abroad while pursuing academic degrees.
Where in the World is CSULB?
A powerful tool in CIE's regimen is the Global Learning Options for a Broader Education (GLOBE) Program. Now in its eighth year, GLOBE is a targeted learning community created to encourage an increased number of CSULB students to become more globally literate and to study, volunteer, work or intern abroad.
Through GLOBE's outreach during the Student Orientation, Advising and Retention workshops, approximately 50 students are recruited each fall and are offered an integrated curriculum of courses focused on global themes. The curriculum includes written communication, oral communication, critical thinking, literature, the arts and social sciences. In addition, students receive paired courses for the first year, academic advising throughout their undergraduate careers, assistance in selecting a major (and minor or certificate), and study abroad advising.
International education goes in both directions, so CIE also oversees CSULB's Fulbright Awards, the U.S. State Department's premier international educational exchange program for students and faculty. CSULB ranks fifth in the nation among master's degree-granting institutions in producing Fulbright Awards for U.S. students in 2007-08, according to the Oct. 26 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Three CSULB students and three faculty members earned Fulbright Awards for this academic year.
Moreover, CIE handles enrollment and other services for the more than 1,200 international students who come to CSULB from 103 nations and collaborates with University College and Extension Services' American Language Institute, which builds foreign students' English language skills.
"At the end of the day, we should be able to stamp our graduates as globally competent. This is a skill that should be an outcome of a university education at Cal State Long Beach," Curtis said.
