Bringing the Mountain to Mohammed: Problematizing International Branch Campuses

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday VI)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Planning, legitimacy, and sustainability in international branch campuses

Proposal

The goal of this session is to interrogate the purpose, impact, and sustainability of international branch campuses (IBCs) in their many forms. With the decline in numbers of international students coming to the U.S. (Open Doors 2017) due to cost, competition, visa hurdles, and politics, among other obstacles, there has been a corresponding proliferation of foreign outposts of higher education institutions, primarily from affluent countries competing for new student markets.

The Cross-Border International Research Team (2012) defines the IBC model as “An entity that is owned, at least in part, by a foreign education provider; operated in the name of the foreign education provider; engages in at least some face-to-face teaching; and provides access to an entire academic program that leads to a credential awarded by the foreign education provider.” As of 2016, there were 249 IBCs established in 75 locations around the world by universities in 32 countries, with the U.S. as the largest source of this model (Kinser and Lane, 2016.)

The structure and quality of these branch campuses or partnerships vary widely, but they represent a phenomenon that warrants critical analysis. A survey of recent literature reveals a spectrum of criticism and support for the model, yet the narrative is largely focused through a business lens: ROI, risk mitigation, quality control, international branding, and donor cultivation in host countries. Critics assert that this framework commodifies higher education into a desirable product that is exported with little regard to unintended consequences. Alternately, supporters herald the IBC growth as evidence of widening access to an education model that features progressive, student-centered pedagogies and facilitates transnational employment.

This session will examine the qualitative dimensions of the IBC phenomenon with regard to its impact on the educational landscape, academic culture, and policy consequences of host country higher education systems: curricular disparities, language policy, student aspirations and mobility, faculty status, and sustainability of the model. Specifically, it will frame a discussion on the following questions:
• Who makes the decision to launch an IBC, and upon what factors is this decision based?
• Is there sustained engagement by U.S. home institutions of IBCs with host country ministries, universities, and scholars?
• Do IBCs draw top students away from national institutions, or do they offer opportunities that are not available through local universities? Do IBCs exacerbate wealth disparity among student bodies?
• What is the impact of IBCs on national education standards? Are they promoting international standards of pedagogy and outcomes, or polarizing disparate standards through competition?
• How does the language of instruction (usually English) affect language policy choices in host countries – at both the secondary and tertiary levels?
• What are the motivations behind host government policies to liberalize regulations for foreign campuses – are they driven by educational goals or political-economic strategy?

Proposed format:
15 minutes: Introductions – establish participants’ roles and interests
15 minutes: Outline issues
20 minutes: “Push factors” – what motivates US institutions to launch IBCs?
20 minutes: “Pull factors” – demand for IBCs by host governments and students
20 minutes: Identify critical issues for further examination

Authors

• Lauren E Clarke, Sampoerna University

• (NFN) Soepriyatna, Sampoerna University