Proposal for the Creation, Elimination

Proposal for the Creation, Elimination,

or Alteration of Academic Units

December, 2014

Answer the appropriate questions below for new units or units that are growing.

1)What is the name of the unit? Provide a brief history or justification for it.

The Department of International and Global Studies

We propose to change the status of International Studies (INTL) from a program to a department. At the same time, we also propose to change the name from solely International Studies, because an increasing number of programs in the field are now named “Global Studies.”This name change reflects a focus on global issues, and not solely on inter-state relations. In 2010 the provost commissioned an external review of international institutes and units on campus. In their 2011 report the reviewers recommended that INTL consider a name change: “The program might consider changing its name to Global Studies, as a means to encourage people to collaborate, and to emphasize its focus on cross-regional and cross-cultural topics.”

Justification:

Through its multidisciplinary faculty, the International Studies Program creates global and international awareness, builds regional knowledge specializations, and significantly contributes to the University as an internationally-oriented center of higher learning. International Studies, in partnership with other departments, has established an environment for critical thinking, self-reflection and cross-cultural skills that prepares students as global citizens in an increasingly globalized world. INTL also helps students to find ways to build relationships between their respective local communities and the international community. Our core-learning requirement reflects this approach: “Students will demonstrate an understanding of world cultures, politics and economics, within the context of globalization, as well as developing the skills and attitudes to function as `global citizens.’” As such, International and Global Studies is integral to what constitutes a strong liberal arts education.

International Studies is in fact a long-standing major at liberal arts colleges in major public and private universities across the United States. The common thread that unites such majors is its study of major events and trends through an interdisciplinary program of study. This focus on interdisciplinarity distinguishes it from many established departments, as does its focus on globalization. The related term “global studies” augments international studies by reaching beyond the nation-state focus and approaching social, political, cultural, and historical change through the prism of global outlooks and approaches to problem solving. Such issues include race, class, and gender issues, social justice, democracy, and conflict resolution, all of which require understandings embedded in both international studies and global studies approaches. Global and International Studies is no longer a secondary field of knowledge but a core interpretive framework of the world we now inhabit.

International Studies as a field has a major association (the International Studies Association), which holds an annual conference that draws several thousand people. There are also regional associations within this structure, which hold annual conferences throughout the United States. In Britain there isthe British International Studies Association (BRISA), as well as the Global Studies Association (GSA), both of which also host annual conferences. The field also has many dedicated journals: International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives, Millennium- An International Studies Journal, International Affairs, and the Journal of International and Global Studies. International Studies at PSU has a long history of engagement with these organizations and journals. For example, Prof. BirolYesilada currently serves on the governing council of the ISA, and served as the past editor of its journal, International Studies Perspectives, for five years.

The International Studies degree affords an excellent foundation for careers requiring an understanding of international economic, political, social, informational, and cultural affairs. In addition, the major provides solid preparation for graduate work in professional fields such as business, development, international law, cultural exchange, education, public health, and community development.

International Studies, founded at PSU in the 1980s, has become a rigorous unit and program of study. It currently requires 70 credits to graduate, more than several other excellent departments on campus. Of these credits, 36 must be taken within the program. We have three core-faculty who are full professors, along with three affiliated core faculty who are also full professors. Collectively, the Program’s 12 voting core and affiliated faculty have produced numerous books and a large and broad compendium of refereed journal articles, several of which are key references in the field. Two of the faculty have together written a common textbook for the freshman class, An Introduction to International and Global Studies, which is now in its second edition. One of our faculty members holds an endowed chair.

The unit has recently altered its curriculum – removing a colloquium requirement and replacing it with a mandatory theory course – for the purpose of further adding rigor to the program in support of its multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to learning. The transition to department status thus reflects the growth, status, and quality of the faculty and the growing number of majors, as well as and the program’s richer curriculum demands. At the same time, we have created standard lists of advisor-approved courses in cooperation with other departments across campus, so that our students can benefit from other internationally-oriented courses across the University. These objectives are defined with clearly articulated learning outcomes in the field (available at the following URL:

In sum, the transition to department status is a logical step that reflects the growing enrollment in and presence of International Studies on campus and the importance of its goals, values, and standards for its students and majors, as well as the wider interests of the University as a center of global and international education. This change also reflects parallel pedagogical and curricular changes to our unit. This change will raise the profile of International Studies, and recognize our role in facilitating internationalization on campus.

In many respects, International Studies already operates and acts as a department. There are four tenure-line faculty with split positions (UNST and CUPA), which allow us to collaborate across campus. We also have four tenure-line faculty within INTL, as well as a long-time fixed term hire (eight years continuous service and a multi-year contract). In addition, one faculty member teaches one-third of her load in INTL, despite having a tenure home in Applied Linguistics. The fact that our faculty are shared across department lines distinguishes us from other departments. It is also a key strength of INTL, as it ensures that our students have a truly interdisciplinary experience. International Studies, like Women's Studies, Ethnic Studies, American Studies, Urban Studies, Communication Studies, etc., is not a discipline. It is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in character. Other disciplines look at issues from very specific subset of a discipline or frame, such as cultural geography. International Studies looks at problems from multiple frames, which are united by a shared interest in globalization.Having joint faculty enriches the program and builds bridges across different departments and colleges. This is all to the benefit of students who get to experience the different ways of seeing, which helps them decide on their futures from a broader palette of understandings.

The director is internal to the program, and his tenure home is in INTL. We have a newly revised set of bylaws (approved by the provost in 2014), which provide clear guidelines both for our internal operations, and our relations across campus.

INTL has witnessed a cleargrowth trend in the number of graduates over the last five years, with a large spike in graduates in the 2012-13 academic year, as the charts that follow indicate. We changed our graduation requirements last year to require students to take fewer credits to graduate, which may have led to a wave of students graduating in 2012-13. Still, the overall trend over the last five years is clearly upward.

The total number of graduates is a better measure of INTL’s work than SCH, for three reasons:

We have two facultyin shared positions with UNST. In light of OAA’s decision to abrogate the MOUs last year, we no longer receive credit for these faculties’ instruction in UNST, especially their FRINQs.
Second, our faculty support the Global Perspectives cluster, and as of last year, we no longer get the SCH from the UNST enrollment in SINQ classes.
Third, two faculty are split positions in CUPA, which means that we have a larger than normal number of cross-listed classes. We no longer receive the enrollment for any but the INTL prefix, because of the same changes to SCH attribution. This makes it difficult to compare past numbers on SCH to current SCH.

For this reason, the best means to view growth in the program over time is by looking at the number of graduates.In 2006 there were 32 INTL graduates, while this year we have 73. The number of students graduating with a minor or a certificate has also increased steadily, and this year the number (29) was nearly triple that of five years ago (11).The Asia Studies certificate is new, and we believe that will be a source of growth over the next five years, so that the total number of certificates will continue to increase.

At the current time, we have a decline in majors from two years ago to 268, which may reflect the wave of graduations with the new requirements last year. We wish to address this change through better recruitment (including work with PCC, which is starting an International Studies program). We are also changing our curriculum, in particular the language program, to better match student needs. The rationale for changing the language requirement from three years to two years is that there were a number of issues with the existing requirement:

It impacted student time to degree, because many of our incoming students are transfer students who begin taking a language after they come to PSU.
The policy created a problem for students who are not studying languages at PSU for which 3 years of study are offered. This was a particular problem for students studying world regions outside Europe, such as Africa. This created inequities in terms of the opportunities offered to students.
Our students were being asked to complete more language training than similar programs nationally, including the Jackson School at the University of Washington, as well as the International Studies program at the University of Oregon. We carefully studied language requirements in similar programs nationally. Two years is the norm.
Many of our students do a minor in a language such as Spanish, so that those students already have a pathway to explore a language and to receive a credential for it.

The key motivation for this change is not to achieve growth; our fall 2014 SCH is up 33% over last year without any change to the language requirement. We do believe, however, in making our major better serve our students.

We have increased our faculty dramatically in the last decade, have substantially grown the number of our graduates, and are comparable in both respects to other departments on campus. In sum, the long-term trend that a growing number of students are interested in interdisciplinary degrees, and especially in International Studies, provides a solid justification for changing the program status to department. Nation-wise, a basic Google search shows that the majority of the US universities have either Department or School of International Relations/Affairs/Studies.

Chart: Numbers of graduates by track (OIRP data provided by Lina Liu; we have updated with information on the current academic year).

DEGREE BY MAJOR (excludes certificates and minors)

DEGREE MAJOR / 2009-2010 / 2010-2011 / 2011-2012 / 2012-2013 / 2013-2014
ISAF / 6 / 3 / 6 / 5 / 7
ISEA / 6 / 5 / 8 / 15 / 11
ISEE / 6 / 13 / 15 / 15 / 13
ISLA / 19 / 15 / 19 / 19 / 14
ISME / 6 / 6 / 5 / 18 / 9
ISID / 2 / 12 / 14 / 22 / 19
ISNA / - / 1 / - / - / -
TOTAL / 45 / 55 / 67 / 94
(one student graduated both ISAF and ISME) / 73

****please note that the “North Atlantic” track is not active, although it technically exists.

MINORS AND

CERTIFICATES (ASIAN STUDIES, CONTEMPORARY TURKISH STUDIES, EUROPEAN STUDIES, LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES, MIDDLE EAST STUDIES)

2009-2010 / 2010-2011 / 2011-2012 / 2012-2013 / 2013-2014
MINOR / 8 / 9 / 6 / 7 / 15
ASIAN STUDIES / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 2
CONTEMPORARY TURKISH STUDIES / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1
EUROPEAN STUDIES / 0 / 0 / 0 / 2 / 3
LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES / 1 / 3 / 1 / 4 / 5
MIDDLE EAST STUDIES / 2 / 4 / 4 / 5 / 3
TOTAL / 11 / 16 / 11 / 18 / 29

DECLARED MAJORS

2009-2010 / 2010-2011 / 2011-2012 / 2012-2013 / 2013-2014
INTL / 316 / 322 / 342 / 310 / 268

*** We have not included Canadian Studies certificates, because this program has only had a single graduate, and is now inactive.

*** Please note that the Asian Studies certificate is new, which is why there were no graduates before the current academic year. We expect the number of students obtaining this certificate to increase significantly.

In November 2010 Provost Koch appointed an International Program Review Committee (IPRC) to review international academic programs at Portland State University. The 2011 external report to the Provost on International Programs at PSU recognized INTL’s accomplishments and capacity for growth and recommended that “PSU has the elements for strong international programs and any subsequent decisions should build on them” (see INTL has worked to build on this recent external review, which reflected the program’s overall strengths. Today, with the addition of a new thematic track on international development, the International Studies Program coordinates six major tracks (which combined are roughly equivalent to History or Sociology in size), a minor, and five active certificate programs. We are a unit that serves student needs in diverse ways.

Apart from the growing interest in international and global studies in this and other countries, there is an intrinsic value in increasing the profile of this area of study for the sake of encouraging greater global citizenship among students. It is critical to our future that students become more aware of such problems as war and conflict, environmental issues, global poverty, pandemics, racial, ethnic, class, and gender discrimination, and other serious concerns where collective action is necessary for the benefit of humanity. International and Global Studies leads students to be globally minded citizens, and prepares them to participate in an increasingly borderless world. In a university in which the motto is “Let knowledge serve the city,” we relate our mission to the global stage.

Lastly, despite requesting a move to department status, INTL will remain an interdisciplinary unit. We remain interested in collaborations with other academic units, which will include continuing to have our faculty teach in other departments (such as Geography), and cross-listing courses (as we do with Applied Linguistics, Black Studies, Political Science, Urban Studies and Women’s Studies). We are also open to new opportunities to collaborate around curriculum, study abroad, and internationalization. We realize that wisdom and expertise regarding international issues exists across campus, and we wish to take advantage of that. The change to department status will not undermine our interdisciplinary identity.

2) How does the unit help Portland State University to achieve its themes/goals?

Achieve Global Excellence—International Studies core faculty are committed to research and teaching that is creatively responsive to the evolving global landscape and to facilitating Oregonians’ ability to engage internationally.
Enhance educational opportunity—As a program, INTL contributes to internationalizing the general education curriculum through its management of the Global Perspectives track, in collaboration with University Studies. 600 students take gateway Sophomore Inquiries offered through INTL every hearand several thousand more participate in U-designated Global Perspectives cluster courses. In addition, we have two faculty a year who each teach year-long FRINQ classes that help to bring a global perspective to the freshman experience. We are also working with the Internationalization Council to help to create an alternative way to transcript students global education.
International Collaboration: the INTL program oversees the courses through the Transnational Program, which is one track within the Waseda program. This agreement brings Japanese students to PSU every year. Through this program INTL students take classes with Waseda students (every spring there is a special INTL 201 “Introduction to Global Studies” class, which has a joint student body of 12 Waseda students and PSU INTL majors). Professor BirolYesilada is an endowed faculty member who oversees the Turkish Studies Center, and has facilitated multiple important contacts with Turkey. We also have an affiliated faculty member, Ann Marie Fallon, who is the director of Honors, and oversees an exchange program with Trier through University Studies. Lastly, PSU recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Federal University of Bahia. Prof. Smallman is working with Robert Verhine, the Vice-Rector for Graduate Studies, to expand this agreement to create more opportunities for a U.S.-Brazilian exchange. This is a brief and incomplete list of the international agreements that INTL facilitates at PSU.
Study Abroad: Our faculty teach multiple short-term study abroad programs, in locations as diverse as Qatar, Cyprus, Turkey and Argentina.

National Visibility and Publications: Two faculty members (Shawn Smallman, INTL and Kim Brown, INTL affiliated) have published a common textbook for Global Studies programs nationally (An Introduction to International and Global Studies) with the University of North Carolina Press. The press will publish a second edition in January 2015.

Professor Smallman also has a forthcoming book with Heritage House, which will come out in fall 2014, titled Dangerous Spirits:the Windigo in Myth and History. He also publishes on global health issues, such as his 2007 book published by the University of North Carolina Press, the AIDS Pandemic in Latin America. His most recent article was: “Biopiracy and Vaccines: Indonesia and the World Health Organization’s new Pandemic Influenza Plan,” Journal of International and Global Studies. Vol. 14:2 (April 2013): 20-36.
Since 2005, Professor Gerald Sussman has published three books related to International Relations: the Propaganda Society, Global Electioneering, and Branding Democracy.

Professor BirolYesilada has recently published both books and articles in the field: book, BirolYesilada (2012). EU-Turkey Relations in the 21st Century. London: Routledge; Barry Rubin and BirolYesilada, Islamization of Turkey under the AKP. London: Routledge, 2010.Articles:Abdollahian, Mark, Travis Coan, Hana Oh, and BirolYesilada (2012). "Dynamics of Cultural Change: The Human Development Perspective." International Studies Quarterly. Vol. 56, no. 4 (December):827-43; Abdollahina, Mark, Zining Yang, Travis Coan, and BirolYesilada, "Human Development Dynamics: An Agent Based Simulation of Macro Social Systems and Individual Heterogeneous Evolutionary Games," Complex Adaptive Systems Modeling(2013).
Professor Leopoldo Rodriguez has been publishing in the area of migration. Two of his recent articles are: Rodriguez, L., King, M., & Cobb, C. (2010). Ni Uno Ni El Otro: The Spectrum of Formality In The US Work Experience Of Mexican Migrants In Portland, Oregon. Urban Anthropology, 39(4), 359-395. See also Rodriguez, L., Cobb, C., & King, M. (2009). Betwixt and Between: The Spectrum of Formality Revealed in the Labor Market Experiences of Mexican Migrant Workers in the United States. Review of Radical Political Economics, 41(3), 365-371.
EvgueniaDavidova is working in the field of nationalism and has published Balkan Transitions to Modernity and Nation-States Through the Eyes of Three Generations of Merchants (1780s-1890s); Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Professor Priya Kapoor is completing an edited volume titled Community and Transnational Media Trajectories. She also has two recent chapters. The first is forthcoming in mid-2014: “Communicating the Local Discursively: Devi, the Divine Feminine in Grassroots Feminist Politics,” in S. Padma’s Inventing and Reinventing the Goddess Lexington Press (2013); “A Genealogy of Occupy within Transnational Contexts and Communication Research,” in R. Heath, V. Fletcher and R. Munoz’s Understanding Occupy from Wall Street to Portland: Applied Studies in Communication Theory. Lexington Press.
Professor TugrulKeskin has a forthcoming book: TugrulKeskin, Ed. Neo-Orientalism, American Hegemony and Academics after September 11th. Brill, February 2015; his recent articles on the Middle East are: Keskin, Tugrul and Gary Wood, “ A New Introduction- Sociology of Islam: Social, Political and Economic Transformations of Muslim Societies,” Sociology of Islam Journal 1 (2013); 1-6; Wood, Gary and TugrulKeskin. “Perspectives on the Gulen Movement,” Sociology of Islam Journal, 2-3 (2013): 127-130; Review essay, “Peter Wagner- Modernity: Understanding the Present,” European Journal of Social Theory, forthcoming in 2014.
Since 2005, tenure-line faculty have also been successful in achieving internal and external grant support (totaling over $100,000).
Work with OIA: INTL collaborates with the Office of International Affairs (OIA), centers and institutes to sponsor events and courses, and to inform students and faculty about international programming and research opportunities. In addition, INTL reviews and awards credit for students in many overseas courses.

Provide civic leadership through partnerships—INTL has had on-going partnerships with the Portland World Affairs Council and the Oregon Consular Corps and periodically assists groups like the Columbia River Peace Corps Association and the Iran-American Friendship society in organizing programs at Portland State for students and the community.
Commitment to Educational Excellence: in 2012 INTL approved a new set of Learning Outcomes, which will better help us communicate our goals to students, as well as to create a curriculum map to ensure a unified curriculum.

3)What are the objectives and planned outcomes for the unit?