It’s impossible to think that 2020 will not be a watershed year for global education. So many changes have directly confronted the profession on so many different levels, there isn’t much choice but to change and move onward. Pivot is an exercise often employed in the tech world to maintain relevance and market dominance and pivot is exactly the exercise needed in global ed right now.  

A good place to start this pivot is examining the evolving name of the professional domain. Until very recently international education held dominance as the descriptor of choice for the professional activities in US higher education occupied with international enrollments, study abroad, English language instruction, international student advising, and curriculum internationalization. A shift is occurring  in which global is replacing  international for office names, mission statements, and professional titles. Hopefully, this is a deliberate, well thought out decision, intended to reflect the inclusion of the US within the sphere of activities under international education.  “We intentionally say global education to include the US with all other countries, as we believe learning outcomes such as intercultural competency, don’t require leaving the country to be met.” 

The second most important pivot should come from the international student recruitment and advising area.  Now Is the time for universities to either be more forthcoming about how international admits support their bottom line and/or develop an equitable approach to building out the international student population to include a diverse range of students from financial backgrounds, academic levels, and geographic regions, especially the global south. Ideally, this process is similar to the recruitment of domestic students. Universities, in the post 2020 landscape, should now be long past the era of:  international students were put on this earth to subsidize the US higher education system.  Moving forward universities should develop metrics to assess  the impact of international students on the US campuses and also the university experience on the international students. It would be valuable to understand other ways of quantifying  the learning for international students in US universities beyond the diploma. 

Also due for a significant review is education abroad. This more visible side of global education was struck down with a sudden and violent blow in spring 2020. It will be hard to forget the unprecedented Department of State global travel warning and the abrupt standstill of global student mobility in 2020.  Now that the dust has settled, a real opportunity for renewal and change presents itself. Never in the history of education was there more ripe of a time for a pivot.  A big juicy pivot – a pivot that includes and encapsulates the demands for social justice and equity in mobility programs and participants.  A pivot that builds on the indisputable recognition that our world is irrevocably inter-connected, if not just through a pandemic,  but also environment, economy and social justice issues. Higher education must be compelled to develop a new conception of education abroad. A giant step forward would be a plan that leverages global education opportunities to train and teach students cross-cultural and language learning skills to better engage with their local communities.  Too often education abroad experiences are set in a vacuum and seen as a “once-in-a lifetime” bucket list activity. The valuable skills students learn abroad are absolutely transferable to connecting with communities of difference locally, such as immigrants, the differently able, those experiencing homelessness, senior citizens and non-English speaking populations. 

It’s not too often that your profession comes to an indefinite standstill. US global education professionals and their colleagues around the world have been given an incredible opportunity to build a Brave New Global Education World. Hopefully this moment will be used to reimagine student mobility programs that are rooted in equity and are structured to maximize the benefits our global inter-connectivity.