YALE'S INTERNATIONAL STRENGTH|SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT|SEPTEMBER 2006
| Pictured are just a few of the international students now at Yale College. President Richard C. Levin has noted that by bringing together students from diverse countries and cultures, universities such as Yale are helping to promote understanding among the young leaders of the future. |
International Programs Dean. Yale College created a new post this year to spearhead its international initiatives. The Associate Dean for International Programs in Yale College is responsible for strategic planning of all internationalization efforts aimed at undergraduates. The dean focuses on longer-term planning and operational coordination among the three offices -- Yale Summer Session, Undergraduate Career Services and International Education and Fellowship Programs -- that provide opportunities for undergraduates at Yale to study or work in international settings. Jane Edwards, former director of the Office of International Programs at Harvard University, is the first incumbent of the new post.
Financial Support for Summer Abroad Opportunities. To ensure that all undergraduates can take advantage of overseas opportunities, Yale established the International Summer Awards (ISA), which provide undergraduates who receive financial aid with grant support for summer study and unpaid internships abroad. The level of aid is proportional to the financial support Yale awards to students during the regular academic year. In the summer of 2006, 346 students received ISAs totaling more than $1.7 million. Further information: www.yale.edu/isa/.
Yale Summer Sessions Overseas. In 2006, Yale Summer Session offered 24 courses in 15 countries. These included eight-week summer language and culture courses in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Russia and Spain, and five-week courses in Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Panama, Sardinia and Singapore. All told, 209 Yale students studied abroad in a Yale Summer Session program. The program at the National University of Singapore (NUS), launched this past summer, featured classes composed half of Yale College students and half of NUS students, which were taught in English by NUS faculty. Students lived on the NUS campus and went on a week-long field trip to Malaysia and Thailand as part of the learning experience. The program was divided into two courses: "Introduction to Southeast Asian Studies," an overview of the region from a variety of perspectives; and "The History of Southeast Asia," a critical examination of how modern Southeast Asia was formed and how the various groups in the area developed their individual identities. Further information: www.yale.edu/summer/.
Bulldogs International Internships. This summer, building on the highly successful "British Bulldogs" and "Bulldogs in Beijing" summer internship programs, Undergraduate Career Services (UCS) offered Bulldogs internship programs in eight cities: Athens, Beijing, Brussels, Delhi, Hong Kong, London, Monterrey and Tokyo. UCS also arranged international internship opportunities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Germany, Ghana, India, Kenya, Peru, Poland, Singapore and Spain through partner organizations. As a result, the number of Yale students who worked abroad in a University-sponsored international internship program more than doubled, from 82 in the summer of 2005 to 172 in 2006. Further information: www.yale.edu/career/.
Peking-Yale Joint Undergraduate Program. This fall marks the first year that 21 Yale College students and 20 honor students from Peking University are living and studying together in Beijing as part of a unique undergraduate program sponsored by the two universities. The Yale students, who will receive full credit toward their bachelor's degrees, are taking a full course load taught in English by both Yale and Peking faculty. (While the students are also learning the Chinese language, that is not the focus of the program; this year over 100 students will study languages and immerse themselves in cultures other than their own in countries throughout the world, including eight sites in China, with support from Richard U. Light Foundation Fellowships.) The Peking students are part of the Yuanpei Honors Program, which allows a select group of Chinese students to spend their first two years at Peking University studying a liberal arts curriculum before concentrating on a single subject. They are all housed in a new residence hall on the Beijing campus, making the Yale undergraduates the only group of U.S. students to live with students at Peking University, China's flagship university. Further information: www.yale.edu/iefp/pku-yale/.
Professional School Study Abroad. Trips abroad are increasingly becoming an integral part of the curriculum for students in Yale's professional schools. These are just a few examples.
School of Management. As part of the redesigned M.B.A. curriculum that it launched this fall, the Yale School of Management (SOM) requires first-year students to complete a two-week "International Experience" in January between the first and second semesters -- making SOM the only major business school to require students to study abroad. Such international experiences were already an important complement to SOM students' coursework. Last spring, a group of SOM students traveled to India, where they learned about the real-world experiences of senior managers at some of the nation's leading companies. A highlight of that trip was an hour-long meeting with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Other recent and future destinations for SOM student trips include China, Cuba, Japan, Madagascar, Nigeria, Peru, Russia and South Africa.
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. At the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES), students in a course on shaping the 21st-century city have traveled to New Delhi, India, and Bogotá, Columbia to study the environmental impacts of alternative transportation and urban land-use policies in those cities. Another seminar on global environmental governance brought F&ES students to Kenya, where they presented an assessment of the United Nations Environment Programme at its international conference, and had the opportunity to meet and learn from Wangari Maathai, a former F&ES visiting fellow and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her achievements as the founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya.
Divinity School. Overseas travel seminars have been an integral part of Yale Divinity School students' theological education for nearly 20 years. Most recently, students traveled to Israel-Palestine, where they walked in the shadow of the Separation Wall while considering the theology of conflict. Other trips have taken divinity students to such far-flung locations as Korea, Mexico, South Africa, the Philippines, El Salvador, Chile, India, Ghana, Central America and Cuba.
School of Architecture. For over a decade, students from the School of Architecture have traveled to Rome for a three-week summer seminar. As part of the course, the students do freehand sketches of the city's buildings, on the theory that the most effective way to engage Rome's architecture and urban history is through direct observation, and that observation is best served by on-site hand drawing.
Institute of Sacred Music. Similarly, the Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) hosts biannual faculty-led study tours that allow students to see, hear and learn in every ISM discipline: choral conducting, voice, liturgical studies, organ, and religion and the arts. The two most recent destinations were Sweden and Mexico.
Expansion of Fox International Fellowships. Three new institutions -- Boaziçi University in Turkey, Tel Aviv University in Israel, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa -- recently joined Yale as partners in the Fox International Fellowship Program, the University's flagship vehicle for international student exchanges. This brings to 11 the number of universities now participating in the fellowship program which is supported by Joseph L. Fox '38. In addition, Benjamin Zucker '62 last year designated a portion of his gifts to Yale to support environmental studies as a field of research in the fellowship program. The goal of the Fox Program is to identify and further develop outstanding young men and women, both in the United States and abroad, whose leadership potential in a range of fields should enable them to contribute to peace and stability in the world. There are well over 200 Fox Fellowship alumni throughout the world, among them heads of business and philanthropic organizations, lawyers, journalists and scholars. Further information: www.yale.edu/macmillan/fif/.
Educating Future Global Leaders
Attracting the World's Top Students and Scholars
Advanced Training for World Leaders
International Resources on Campus
Educating Future Global Leaders
Overseas Opportunities for Every Undergraduate. The University is committed to offering all Yale College students the opportunity to study or work abroad during their undergraduate experience. "We believe that being an educational leader in this century requires our students to experience other countries as well as study them," said President Richard C. Levin when he announced the goal in 2003. Since then, Yale has launched several new programs and expanded other initiatives. These include traditional semester-abroad programs, as well as summer research and educational opportunities. Last year, more than 950 Yale College students spent time abroad on a program operated or administered by Yale. A number of these initiatives are listed below.
Professors and students from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music examine an 18th-century chantbook during a study trip to Mexico, one of the biannual tours that complement the institute's courses. Increasingly, study abroad is becoming an integral part of the curriculum for students in Yale's graduate and professional schools.
Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. International students comprise almost one-third of the student population at the Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences; this represents the largest group of international students at the University. The Graduate School has special orientation sessions for international students to acclimate them to life at an American university and to introduce them to Yale and New Haven. The McDougal Graduate Student Center sponsors numerous programs and services aimed at these students, including social events and an International Mentor Program. Non-English speaking students can hone their language skills through the McDougal's English conversation groups and through the Yale English Language Institute, which offers programs during the academic year and in the summer. In addition to the area-studies programs it offers in conjunction with The MacMillan Center (see related item), the Graduate School has master's degree programs in "International Relations" and "International & Development Economics." Its doctoral students do research and fieldwork throughout the world through formal exchange programs with overseas universities or through the support of programs such as the Fox Fellowships (see related item, below). The school also recently established a Travel Fund for students to attend conferences around the globe.