Strategic Planning and Development a Comprehensive and Holistic International Portfolio with four Priorities

  • Involved all university internal and external constituencies in a strategic planning process with the aim of developing a vision and plan of action for the internationalization of Lehigh leading to four priorities
    • Expanding International experiences for students abroad and making it affordable
    • Faculty Engagement
    • Lehigh as a Destination for International Students & Visiting Scholars
    • Expanding Lehigh International Footprint
  • During the initial six years of the implementation of the plan many tangible deliverables were achieved supporting the new motto for Global Lehigh: “Taking Lehigh to the World and Bringing the World to Lehigh”.
  • As the founder of the new office of international affairs, developed an organization structure for and hired staff to support the implementation of Lehigh International portfolio.
  • The following are highlights some achievements in the four priorities:
    • Wrote successful proposals to generate funding from several external organizations: Luce Foundation, Freeman Foundation, the Institute of International Education (IIE), and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State.
    • Secured an endowment of $10 Million from the Iacocca foundation to support fully funded summer undergraduate international experiences (6 – 10 weeks). In 2014, 68 undergraduate students lead by eight faculty members were placed in 23 countries.
    • Created new and innovative international experiences and 40 new destinations world-wide for the undergraduate students.
    • The percent of undergraduate students by who had at least one international experience abroad by class year graduation increased from 33% in 2009 to 40% in 2015.
    • 170 faculty members engaged into various aspects of Global Lehigh.
    • Created 6 grants/year for funding faculty to develop their own international connections. During the period 2009 – 2015 34 faculty members from 17 departments went to universities overseas in 14 different countries.
    • Developed institutional partnerships and faculty connections with 16 universities in China, England, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Russia, and United Arab Emirates. Faculty discussions from involved universities lead stablishing institutional partnerships as platforms for launching two-way collaborations in faculty research, student experiences abroad, advanced graduate studies, and educational programs.
  • Developed the US-Indonesia Partnership Program (USIPP) with funding from the Ford Foundation and the IIE. The USIPP was a forum for international research collaboration among faculty from the 12 participating universities (6 from Indonesia and 6 from the USA). Three faculty members from each of the 12 universities participated in 2 day research workshop held at Universities Gadahn Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia to map out areas potential collaboration and sources of funding.
  • The workshop Theme was “Sustainable Environment and Resilient Community”, with 6 sub-Themes that promised to engage engineering and technology, arts, humanities, and social sciences. The Workshop Proceedings were sent to 12 university presidents, NSF, Luce Foundation, Ford Foundation, and US State Department.
  • Successful in making Lehigh a favorable destination – during the period 2008 – 2014 fully paying international undergraduate increased from 159 to 455 (230%), graduate students from increased from 484 to 797 in 2014 (140%), and Fulbright scholars increased from 5 to 29.
  • In 2019 the total number of fully paying visiting scholars & postdocs = 157.