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  • Introduction
  • Richard Rodman and Martha C. Merrill

The theme of this, the third, volume of AUDEM: The International Journal of Higher Education and Democracy is "Rethinking Internationalization: Actors, Analyses, and Academics." The volume has brought together a group of leading international educators to focus upon the internationalization of higher education institutions and systems, the multiple stakeholders involved, and the values associated with internationalization. In the last decade, the internationalization of higher education institutions has expanded dramatically and new forms, such as program and provider mobility and trade-related educational export, have been created. Advocate and cautionary voices have emerged on a host of new and interesting fronts as more is lived and learned about internationalization. Given the rapid increase in internationalization of higher education institutions, the diversity of purposes it is being used for, and in the creation of regional groupings (in Bologna Process countries, including East and Central Europe; in Central Asia, in the Caucasus, in the Middle East, in Asia, in Latin America, and in East Africa) to facilitate it, a plethora of critiques of internationalization have arisen.

This issue employs the voices and perspectives of multiple observers in "rethinking"—to name who the actors are in internationalization, to analyze its purposes and rationales, and to connect the actors and the analyses to academics—academics as people and academics as the purpose of higher education. The volume is organized so that it identifies critical issues and perspectives defining internationalization discourse today, and then explores some of the expressions of those issues. In this fashion, we invite the reader to 1) reconceptualize basic premises of internationalization; 2) rethink applications [End Page 1] in institutions, sectors, and nations, and the implications of new forms of internationalization; and 3) rethink specific institutional processes, specific programs in historical periods, and specific cases of internationalization.

The Merrill and Rodman article, "Rethinking Whose Needs Are Being Met by Internationalization: Purposes, Players, and Aberrations," represents a basic theme of the journal in asking a question that casts consideration upon perspective, and the breadth and foci of "rethinking" internationalization, from the question of who benefits by internationalization—external economic players or the learners themselves, both students and faculty. Elspeth Jones and Hans de Wit's "Globalization of Internationalization: Thematic and Regional Reflections on a Traditional Concept" further explores and critiques interpretations of internationalization, particularly from more recent value-based perspectives and from the point of view of how internationalization has different meanings in different regions of the world, concluding with a list of eight priorities for the future. Darla Deardorff 's "Looking to the Future: Leadership Perspectives on Internationalization—A Synthesis" builds upon such a discussion and shifts the voice regarding issues and lessons first to those senior international leaders who speak in and for the field at an institutional level, and then to the "global thought leaders" who participated in the rethinking exercise initiated by the International Association of Universities. And in terms of critical, foundational issues, Judith Eaton's "Toward Internationalizing Quality Assurance" sharpens a focus upon the ways in which mission-driven, peer-reviewed forms of quality assurance have moved from being nationally based systems to become international, with implications for higher education practice worldwide.

Historical context, expression, and the changing role of internationalization are found in Christopher Medalis's article, "The Strength of Soft Power: American Cultural Diplomacy and the Fulbright Program during the 1989-1991 Transition Period in Hungary," as it addresses the Fulbright Program's evolution in Hungary from a U.S.-centric model to an active partnership. And just as Medalis points to the changing role and positioning of international education and relationships between nations, Patricia Croom's "Internationalization and Institutional Strategy" depicts the ways in which relationships, roles, and impacts within institutions of higher learning, and particularly the dynamics in connection with leadership, decision-making, inclusion, and institutional mission, change at an institutional level when an institution becomes involved in one of the newer forms of internationalization, the establishment of a campus abroad. Rosalind Raby addresses and reassesses involvement of an entire sector of higher education with the focus upon community colleges and the challenges these important institutions of higher learning face in becoming involved in internationalization processes...

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