This article originally appeared in the Maryland International newsletter, Fall 2005, Volume II. It is based upon an interview with President Mote conducted by Kelly Blake in October 2005.  

More than ten percent of the students who enrolled at the University of Maryland (UM) this year came from outside the United States, placing Maryland, for more than 15 years, among the top 20 U.S. universities serving international students. More than half of UM’s total international student population comes from China, India, Korea, or Taiwan. Ties to these and other countries have been critical to UM’s success as a leading research institution, since approximately sixty-five percent of international students come here to study engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, or business – areas in which the University consistently excels.

While the presence of international students on campus is not new, the university administration has begun to emphasize international programs to meet the challenges of what President C.D. Mote, Jr. calls “the University’s broader role for international leadership in this age of globalization.” To fulfill this role, the university is pursuing several new strategies to link faculty and students with opportunities abroad, and to create a campus culture that integrates more international activities into research collaborations and academic programs.

New Partnerships

To expand the University of Maryland’s international relationships, President Mote is pursuing partnerships with governments, states, cities, and businesses as well as with institutions of higher learning. “We are broadening the types of partnerships that universities develop,” he says. “There is essentially no local industry any more, only global industry, and universities have to engage in partnerships on a global scale while continuing to serve the local needs for education and economic development.”

There are many examples of the university’s successful university-government partnerships. One of them is a professional development training program designed by the University of Maryland for Argentinean Senate staffers and delivered to Buenos Aires by former staffers from Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski’s office along with Saúl Sosnowski, Associate Provost for International Affairs. The US-Sino Science and Technology Park is a partnership between the university and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, and will be the first Chinese research park outside of the mainland. The University of Maryland Research Park has partners in both government and industry, including Fujitsu of Japan, Fraunhofer of Germany and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Center for Climate and Weather Prediction. The university’s executive leadership training program for Chinese government and business officials (through the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs) has led to other unique partnerships, including the recently established Confucius Institute at Maryland, a Chinese language and cultural center offering courses for teachers of Chinese, for individuals, and for private and public sector groups who intend to do business with China.

Expanded Student Opportunities

 Embedded in the President’s Promise initiative is another strategy to further internationalize the university. Beginning in Fall 2005, the university committed to provide every incoming student with the opportunity for a unique educational experience in addition to her major. Because today’s students will graduate into a world and a workforce that requires a nuanced understanding of international issues, President Mote wants to increase the number of students who study abroad and to create new opportunities for them. “Every undergraduate student should go abroad before she graduates,” he proclaims. “We can generate momentum in this direction by promoting the idea of international experience and by adding resources for scholarships for those who really can’t afford to go otherwise.”

He also envisions taking advantage of UM’s ties to international alumni, businesses, and governments to link students with internships or study opportunities, citing the Foreign Affairs office in China’s Henan province, the State of Maryland’s office in Shanghai, or the RH Smith School of Business’s offices in Shanghai and Beijing as potential locations for student internships. Furthermore, Provost Destler’s International Advisory Committee, chaired by Saúl Sosnowski, is considering a wide range of initiatives to expand and strengthen UM’s presence overseas. In addition to work or study abroad, many well-established campus-based programs such as Global Communities, Jiménez-Porter Writer’s House, and the College Park Scholars-International Studies Program play an important role in providing an intercultural context for students on campus.

Recognizing that an initiative of this scope will take many people and resources to implement, Mote suggests that the personal and professional benefits of international study will become obvious: “I predict it may take a few years to get this moving, but students will come to understand that these are not ventures outside of their education; rather, they are a critical part of it. These expanded educational experiences are a value added when students enter the job market or go to graduate school.”

Retaining the Talent Edge with International Students/Scholars

Mote is also acutely aware of the value that international students and scholars add to the University of Maryland’s quality and success as well as to the state and national economies, and feels the university has a responsibility to make it easier and more attractive for these students to come here. “Some people believe that our effort to educate international students is not in our interest and is giving something away. I disagree entirely. It is imperative to our national interests that we are able to attract and retain the best minds from around the world. With only five percent of the world’s population native to the U.S. we will not be able to retain our talent edge unless we can attract highly talented people from all over the globe.” For this reason, Mote has testified before Congress about the effect of potential government restrictions on the university’s ability to conduct research and on the state of the country’s “knowledge economy.”

He describes the potential problems that could be created by restrictions placed on international students’ use of technology for scientific research. If implemented, the so-called “deemed export” policy changes could require international students to be licensed before using each piece of scientific equipment categorized as “export controlled.” This would create significant interruptions in research. President Mote fears that such policies could be even more problematic than the visa restrictions imposed post-9/11. They could mean that large numbers of international students will opt to study in other countries and that U.S. investigators would be discouraged from recruiting international students as well. “We need to ask,” Mote urges, “‘Has there ever been a case where the US has diminished its security or its economic advantage by an international student using a piece of export controlled equipment in her basic research program?’ To my knowledge, the answer is ‘No.’ We might also ask, ‘Have there been thousands of cases where US security and economic advantage have been enhanced by international student participation in research?’ The answer is ‘Yes.’”

  From facilitating the education of international students, to providing US students with affordable opportunities to go abroad, to developing strategic international and inter-institutional partnerships, the University of Maryland enters its 150th year poised to fulfill the responsibilities of international leadership that President Mote sees as the role of the flagship university in the age of globalization. Simultaneously delivering knowledge and talent to the global market while also meeting the needs of the local population for education and economic development may be challenging tasks, but as President Mote sees it, they are intimately intertwined responsibilities for a state research university: “We can’t serve the state unless we have a broad view of what is going on in the world. In order to have a great educational experience, we have to have students from all backgrounds here and give our students the opportunity to develop a broad view for themselves.”