Materializing global academic mobility: Insights from a U.S.-Romanian Erasmus+ program

• In Event: Education Abroad for First Generation Students, Diplomacy and DEI

Proposal

Academic mobility, as promoted by the European Union (EU), is much in line with some of its own core principles: the freedom of its citizens to move among its member states for work or study in an effort to increase intercultural awareness and learning opportunities, transnational cooperation, and other social and economic ties while reducing bureaucratic and other linguistic/cultural barriers given the EU’s hugely diverse membership and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Established in 1987, Erasmus, the EU’s flagship mobility program in education, training, youth, and sport, is named after the Renaissance-era itinerant scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and stands for “EuRopean Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students”. Since its inception, the program has continuously extended its goals and reach, and contributed to the mobility of over 15 million students, faculty, and staff. The current iteration of the program (2021-2027) “has an estimated budget of €26.2 billion…[which] is nearly double the funding compared to its predecessor programme (2014-2020)”. Each program pursues specific foci, aligned with ongoing social, political, cultural, or ecological developments across Europe and the world to prepare younger generations for the challenges ahead. Accordingly, the current program is focused on “social inclusion, the green and digital transitions, and promoting young people’s participation in democratic life,” thus implementing objectives defined by the European Education Area, the Digital Education Act Plan, and the European Skills Agenda.
Much scholarly literature has been complied over the years on the Erasmus+ Programme and how it contributes to mobility, exchange, and study abroad among students and faculty, even virtually during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, mobility program coordinators at given higher education institutions responsible for student, faculty, and staff exchanges as well as institutional accreditations and organization represent an under-researched population. This comparative study zooms in on a Romanian-U.S. Erasmus+ transatlantic partnership established between the Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai (UBB) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo, United States in 2015. Specifically, it asks the following questions:
1) What are program coordinators’ responsibilities in and experiences with facilitating mobility and exchange?
2) How is academic mobility perceived and promoted individually and institutionally?
The study aims to fill this gap in literature and shed light on a geographical context that is under-researched through (auto-)ethnographic, in situ explorations. According to de Wit et al. (2017), internationalization processes have been studied predominantly through experiences and perspectives shared by the English-speaking world and Western Europe. Little attention has been directed to other “peripheral” contexts, which, as de Wit et al. (2017) predict, will significantly impact internationalization of higher education institutions in the future. Romania, and how mobility agreements with that country are perceived and co-materialized at a U.S. higher education institution, is therefore an extremely valuable context to be further investigated. The present study strives to capture highly relevant institutional knowledge gathered and shared by two mobility program coordinators to advance empirical and practical understanding of these roles and positions within higher education institutions, which can be said to have a significant impact on the micro-, meso-, and macro-level of academic internationalization and mobility processes.
The study frames academic mobility within the broader literature on internationalization, taking into account that although various definitions of internationalization exist, they may be viewed as complementary, rather than competing conceptualizations of the term. For instance, an early, widely accepted initial definition of internationalization considered it “the process of integrating an international/intercultural dimension into the teaching, research and service functions of the institution” (Knight, 1993, p. 21; see also Knight, 2004). In turn, Van der Wende (1997) viewed internationalization as transcending the institutional level and defined it as “any systematic effort aimed at making higher education responsive to the requirements and challenges related to the globalization of societies, economy and labour markets (p. 18).” Although the focus of this article is on academic mobility within the broader framework of internationalization of higher education, it should be noted that the literature on internationalization has expanded beyond its early exclusive focus on academic mobility in the context of globalization processes. Since then, subsequent research has diversified our understanding of internationalization, often in a comparative perspective, via the dual paradigms of competition versus cooperation, through the lens of internationalization at home practices, through the prism of curriculum internationalization, in relation to its role in driving and repercussions from its use in global university rankings, in regards to its impact on institutional change and governance or as a means to promote holistic or inclusive internationalization. Nonetheless, the focus on academic mobility as a subject of investigation has remained constant in the internationalization literature.
The study draws on (auto-)ethnographic explorations to investigate two coordinators’ roles, responsibilities, and experiences and explores the infrastructure and qualifications needed to facilitate mobility programs. As the collected information on both country contexts, the data on both institution’s academic mobility as well as the two coordinators’ perspectives on and experiences with mobility and exchange reveal, internationalization is today’s reality at higher education institutions and the wider society as a whole. While certain mechanisms of internationalization happen autonomously and sometimes go unnoticed, others require active management and purposeful intervention from policymakers, administrators, or other individuals involved. This is especially the case if we - as this study does - view internationalization as enrichment, as a tool “to enhance the quality of education and research…and to make a meaningful contribution to society”. Comparative studies showcasing successful transatlantic mobility agreements such as this one are in themselves proof of capacitating internationalized academic practices and directly result from meaningful international collaborations by the participants and the co-authors. We conclude that the materialization of mobility agreements relies on a combination of personal and institutional motivations, interests, and goals. High levels of individual initiative, linguistic/cultural knowledge, connections, and consistent involvement on the part of the coordinators facilitating the process are required. We advocate for more institutionalized incentives and recognition for coordinators to continue shaping the future of global mobility in higher education.

Authors

• Florin D Salajan, North Dakota State University

• Anna Becker, Polish Academy of Sciences