My two cents on internationalization

What is the purpose of a university education? Why are you here? Ideological tools of analysis. In his sermon during the opening mass last year, University President Fr. John Jenkins said much as opportunities to intervene directly in the war in Ukraine were foreclosed to the attending faithful, they could continue to make sense of the occurrences of the time in their classrooms. This is what he was appealing to: the idea of the university as the site for strategic retreats where students acquire the tools to make sense of reality.

For Notre Dame, this exercise is not an end in itself but a necessary precondition to transform and perhaps transcend that reality. Put simply, one cannot change fundamentally what one does not understand. The world is complex. Tools of analysis are thus conceptual paraphernalia we employ to process this complexity in order to effectively engage with the world and contributeto its forward march. How do you make sense of your existence as an individual and your place in the world, the exigency of our ecological crisis, the current strike by American auto workers, the development impasse in Africa? What intellectual and spiritual tools do you employ to decipher such questions? Those are tools of analysis. We all have some and they can be refined over time.

To the world, Notre Dame sells the promise of a holistic education: body, mind and spirit – oft represented by the Main Building, library and the Basilica. If the purpose of education is to satiate the most exigent needs of society, to form holistic men and women who can facilitate political and social revolutions, then the student is a vessel. Carriers of the hopes and dreams of society. This view may not be popular in a setting where the allure of personal advancement at the expense of society is so infectious, but we will maintain it nonetheless.

Notre Dame by default produces leaders of the world – its elite. They can pretend away or even shirk the responsibility but the men and women who get out of this school will one day rule the world. If this hasn't been happening, the aspiration is clear in the new strategic framework. Notre Dame aspires to have many more of her students take an interest in public service thereby prevailing, for many, over the temptation of corporate America represented by our business school. Part of the aspiration is also an effort toward internationalization – helping Notre Dame become less white both in composition and thought. As it stands, the University is a truly North American institution in both regards.

What happens when you lure in students who are genuinely curious about and intent on fundamentally transforming their communities and fail to deliver? Is this something the University risks as it pursues greater internationalization?

In the new strategic framework, Notre Dame considers need-blind admissions for international students as a step in the right direction. The increasing internationalization of Notre Dame in admissions creates a demand – even though students may be unaware because of that old paradox – you don’t know what you don’t know. A demand from the newly admitted for spaces and people where and with whom they can seriously engage exigent issues back home. Where they can acquire tools of analysis.

Exactly 58 years ago, then-President of the one-year-old Guinea, Ahmed Sékou Tourémade made a speech in Conakry where he said: “To take part in the African revolution it is not enough to write a revolutionary song; you must fashion the revolution with the people. And if you fashion it with the people, the songs will come by themselves, and of themselves. In order to achieve real action, you must yourself be a living part of Africa and of her thought.”

Her thought. That’s the challenge. How does one remain part of the thought of a region from which one is physically removed in the face of very imposing alternatives?  For Africans for example, there’s an obvious challenge trying to study the continent from outside with the view of having a lasting impact there. This is not helped by a dearth of directed scholarship on the region. A cursory look at the current menu of courses validates this point.

In the past two years, I have had interactions with comrades who, even in the safety of the Notre Dame bubble and the promise of America, are still concerned about how they can transform the political and social realities back home. These students need faculty who have dedicated their lives to some of these questions to help guide their thinking, disabuse them of naivete and keep their revolutionary zeal alive. This can only happen if they are critically examining these questions. They need classes that offer them the tools to grapple with the challenges back home. For obvious reasons, self-directed learning alone cannot suffice.

How does Notre Dame address itself to the challenge of Africa for example as it pursues greater intellectual diversity both of the student body and faculty? It is true that the University’s responsibility is at best putting in place minimum standards. It cannot set anyone up. As per the framework, the University has committed itself to strengthening foundations (intellectual areas where the University already possesses excellence). What does this spell for areas it doesn’t? Does a strong African (not Africana) studies department at par with standards set by departments focused on Europe and America (much of the University’s offerings) and other institutions in the Association of American Universities (AAU) meet the qualification of minimum standards? As the University turns the page with the framework, internationalization in admissions must keep up with the demand it creates, or else the University will be overpromising where it can’t deliver.