Internationalization Task Force Final Report

VII. Northern Michigan University will use both "High Tech" and "High Touch" approaches to internationalize the campus community. It will use these techniques to disseminate NMU's reputation as an institution that promotes global perspectives and a sense of global citizenship among students.

The Internationalization Task Force acknowledges the paramount role that technology plays both in disseminating our message of internationalization to the wider world community and in facilitating international exchanges through cyberspace for learners. At the same time, Northern Michigan University seeks to reinforce her position as an institution well rooted in the City of Marquette and the Upper Peninsula communities. The task force acknowledges the important contributions that such services as the lap top program, distance education, Public Radio and Television, and the NMU Office of Communication can make in promoting our goals and/or facilitating learning across geographical boundaries. The Task Force Implementation Plan contains details that will facilitate these ends.

1. Creation of a virtual international hub on the NMU web in which all matters international would be available within two to three clicks. This would include referencing services so that NMU events and program emerge at the top of Google searches.
2. Provision of workshops for faculty on the use of numerous technologies already available at NMU to internationalize the classroom.
3. Recruitment of the services of 1-2 undergraduate interns who would work to make internationalization more visible by promoting coverage of international events and programs on NMU- operated, local, and regional media outlets, and on the world wide web.
4. Creation of advisory/interest group from the community/community service organizations who would champion global studies and who would assist in providing placement opportunities for international service learning.
5. Work closely with President Wong and the NMU Foundation to develop Dr. Wong's "Ten Thousand Points of Peace Initiative."

Policy Recommendations

• The university is urged to seek alumni/corporate partnerships in order to provide support for Google links.
• The university is urged to develop an outreach project specifically aimed at members of the Marquette/Upper Peninsula community with broad international interests and organizational links and contacts. Such individuals/groups should be enjoined to share information, resources, and expertise in a true partnership with NMU's internationalization efforts.
• The university is urged to begin immediately to think of itself as a University with a Global Edge, just as it began to see itself as a High Tech university about one decade ago. To this end, the university is urged to remain open to opportunities emerging from technologies under development and to apply their use to the university's mission.
• *The university is urged to remain ever vigilant to opportunities to disseminate its name globally through diverse forms of publicity available in the global marketplace.