Guest Speaker Presentation —

1. The Institute for International and Global Engagement (IIGE) is relatively new and is the single largest investment in international and global education by a Provost in KU history. IIGE reports to the Provost’s Office. There is an Executive Director and Administrative Associate, with budgeting and reporting support.
2. The main component of IIGE is the four area centers: Center for East Asian Studies; Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies; Kansas African Studies Center. The centers apply for Title VI funding every 5 years and bring in more than $8 million in federal funding, about half of which is scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students. The Center for Global and International Studies is the newest international studies center at KU and focuses on thematic issues. Hopefully this center will be able to cover regions not currently covered under the 4 area centers. KU can also connect with these regions through faculty and graduate student research and teaching. Some of the first international students to study in the U.S. studied at KU.
   1. Q: The Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships are only open to citizens or greencard-holders. What opportunities are there for international students?
      1. A: All Title VI funding is for U.S. citizens. The Office of DEIB is working with KUEA and their current funding campaign to raise donor funding for international students, with an outreach focus on former international students who studied at KU and U.S. nationals living abroad.
3. The ACE Internationalization Lab provided recommendations and guidance for strategic planning to improve internationalization at KU. They concluded that our resources have a lot of potential but are badly organized and do not promote visibility and collaboration. IIGE’s mandate is to organize the area centers to exist independently of Title VI funding and to connect them more closely with the rest of the university.
4. Melissa shared a recent example of IIGE’s work. KU was selected to participate in the Huayu BEST Program with Taiwan. A student can get a scholarship that will pay for tuition, room, and board for 2-12 months in Taiwan. They will learn Mandarin in the morning and are required to spend 8 hours/week in a Taiwanese school as a model English-speaker. This contributes to Taiwan’s commitment to have all bilingual schools by 2030. These students can be any KU students.

Internet connectivity issues prevented the meeting from continuing.