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Leading while expanding: a case study examining the changing nature of an American land grant public research university in response to the forces of globalization
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Leading while expanding: a case study examining the changing nature of an American land grant public research university in response to the forces of globalization
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Content
LEADING WHILE EXPANDING:
A CASE STUDY EXAMINING THE CHANGING NATURE OF AN AMERICAN
LAND GRANT PUBLIC RESEARCH UNIVERSITY IN RESPONSE TO THE
FORCES OF GLOBALIZATION
by
Jonathon Michael Hyde
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
August 2009
Copyright 2009 Jonathon Michael Hyde
ii
DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to my wife, Dr. Corinne Hyde, who spent countless hours
convincing me that I could achieve my academic goals. Without her, none of this would
have been possible. We have accomplished so much during our time at the University of
Southern California, and I am confident that with her by my side, we will accomplish
much more in the future.
Love always, Jonathon
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Faculty Committee
Dr. Karen Symms Gallagher, Dr. Michael Diamond, & Dr. Lynette Meriman
Without your support, encouragement and advice this would not have been possible!
My Mother
Vae Hyde, who has always loved and supported me when I have needed it.
My Best Friends
Rush Faren, David Blake, Arthur Moleterno, Brian Highnote, Viktor Kerney,
Samuel John Reynolds III, & Dr. Brian Wilkinson.
My Supervisor, Colleagues, & Staff in Residential Education & Student Affairs at the
University of Southern California
Dr. Denzil Suite, Dr. Leah Schueler, Dr. Carol Schmitz, Matthew Nelson, Stacey
Parker, Christopher Zacharda, Tyffany Dowd, Elizabeth Peterson, Corliss Bennett
McBride, Dr. Vincent Vigil, Kelly Nelson, Dr. Michael Marion, Brandon Tsubaki, Zach
Helsper, Salma Khoshfekr, Seth Reder, Dan Hirsh, Marcy Higareda, & Freddie Sanchez.
My Mentors Along the Way at Florida State University & Cornell University
Dr. Adrienne Otto Frame, Dr. Robert Schwartz, Dr. Paige Crandall, Donald H.
King, Kirsten Post Eynav, Amelia Habict, and Dr. Irma Almirall Padamsee.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ............................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................ iii
List of Tables........................................................................................................... vi
Abstract .................................................................................................................. vii
Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................. 1
Definitions ............................................................................................................ 1
Globalization and Education ................................................................................. 2
Statement of the Problem ...................................................................................... 5
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................. 6
Research Questions ............................................................................................... 7
Significance of the Study ...................................................................................... 7
Limitations ............................................................................................................ 9
Delimitations....................................................................................................... 11
Chapter 2: Literature Review .................................................................................. 12
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 12
Leadership and Education ................................................................................... 12
Globalization and Education ............................................................................... 17
Organizational Change and Education ................................................................. 20
Mission Statements ............................................................................................. 26
The Changing Scope of Public and Land Grant Universities ................................ 27
Borderless Education and International Campuses............................................... 31
Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 34
Chapter 3: Research Methodology .......................................................................... 36
Overview ............................................................................................................ 36
Qualitative Research Orientation ......................................................................... 36
Case Study Design .............................................................................................. 39
Bounding the Case: Units of Analysis and Population ......................................... 41
Instrumentation/Sources of Evidence .................................................................. 42
Data Collection ................................................................................................... 45
Reliability and Validity ....................................................................................... 46
Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 50
Chapter 4: Findings ................................................................................................ 51
Overview of the Institution .................................................................................. 52
The Research Questions ...................................................................................... 60
Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 91
v
Chapter 5: Discussion ............................................................................................. 94
Synthesizing the Results ...................................................................................... 94
Implications ........................................................................................................ 97
Future Research ................................................................................................ 100
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 102
References ............................................................................................................ 104
Appendix A .......................................................................................................... 108
Appendix B .......................................................................................................... 111
Appendix C .......................................................................................................... 114
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Interview Data Table ................................................................................. 58
Table 2: Interview Data Table with Locations ....................................................... 114
vii
ABSTRACT
Using the methodologies of document analysis and interviewing, this dissertation
examines the ways in which leaders at one post secondary educational institution were
able to shape internationalization efforts and overcome challenges facing their response
to globalization. This qualitative case study utilizes the frameworks of Armstrong (2007)
and Bolman and Deal (2003) to analyze the success and methods of leaders at a large
land grant institution.
Findings include that the major role of leadership at institutions seeking to
internationalize is changing the culture of the institution. The leaders in this study did so
through reframing the institutional mission, building constituent support, and creating and
supporting internationalization initiatives. Major challenges faced by the institution
included organizational agility in responding to issues abroad, building constituent
support, and managing the tension between institutional quality and responding to the
specific needs of communities and individuals abroad. The leadership was found to
utilize all four frames presented by Bolman and Deal (2003), and to engage in the process
of reframing suggested by the same authors. Additionally, the institution was found to
transcend many of the challenges related to internationalization that face other
educational institutions, as suggested by Armstrong (2007).
1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Globalization is a phenomenon that is affecting many aspects of post secondary
education. Leaders in post secondary institutions have attempted to keep up with the
changing world around them through many means, including restructuring on an
organizational level (Ulukan, 2005). One way some institutional leaders have
approached globalization is through restructuring and realigning their campuses to focus
internationally on various levels in a process called internationalization. Even the
missions of colleges and universities are changing, and one researcher suggests that an
impact of globalization on university mission statements is moving a central focus from
the idea of public service to the concept of internationalization (Scott, 2006).
Definitions
Definitions of globalization focus on many aspects of its complex nature,
including social relations, technology, culture spreading, sociopolitical impacts, and the
forces that shape it (Stromquist, 2002). Furthermore, the complexity of the globalization
phenomenon and the speed at which it has evolved constricts our ability to understand it.
Thomas Freidman argues that “the system of globalization has come upon us far faster
than our ability to retrain ourselves to see and comprehend it” (2000, p. 14). One
researcher argues that changes in post secondary education currently do not correspond to
the traditional corporate centered definitions of globalization (Armstrong, 2007).
Consequently, defining globalization as it pertains to postsecondary institutions is a
difficult task.
2
Wagner (2004) suggests that globalization can be defined by its arguably
inevitable impact transnationally in three areas: economically, upon the development of a
worldwide market, culturally, in terms of both spreading heterogeneous aspects of culture
and in developing a worldwide homogeneous culture, and finally politically, by
highlighting and negatively impacting the sovereign nation state through multinational
initiatives. The globalization dynamics of economics, culture, and politics are supported
by Morrow & Torres (2000) as being key defining aspects, but the authors also assert that
educational reform discussions are predominantly pushed by the interplay dynamics of
economics and political contexts. Taking a purely economic perspective, researcher
David Bloom (2004) asserts that globalization is simply the procedure by which nations
become more incorporated through shifting of goods, labor, capital, and ideas.
Armstrong suggests that globalization can be defined as “the process in which
modularization of production (from conception through sales) is joined with state of the
art information technology and decreasing national trade boundaries to enable a global
optimization of production and distribution” (2007, p.2). Although Armstrong suggests
that this definition is based in the corporate world, it is applicable in the realm of post
secondary education as well. Armstrong’s definition and his article’s assertions serve as
a framework for understanding globalization in an educational context in this study.
Globalization and Education
Stromquist (2002) argues that education has become a key mechanism for
supporting globalization through the transmission of supportive ideologies. Her notion is
3
furthered by Levine (2001) who suggests that the concept of what a university is in the
United States will be redefined by five factors, one of which is the shift from an industrial
to an information based economy. That globalization and education are intricately
connected is not in question, but how they affect one another is still up for discussion in
academia. Access to post secondary education has become an indication of the
development level of individual countries on a global scale, and this access is sometimes
used as a measure to compare societies (Goastellec, 2008). Consequently, many
countries are seeking to expand their systems of post secondary education in an effort to
create educated populations that can compete in global world market. In the United
States, this translates into individual universities, both state funded and private in nature,
expanding their services internationally.
Many questions remain regarding exactly how globalization is impacting
institutions of post secondary education. Armstrong (2007) argues that globalization is
impacting institutions of post secondary education in the United States at a different rate
and in a different way than it is impacting the transnational business community.
Specifically, Armstrong (2007) asserts that globalization has had less of an impact on
institutions of post secondary education than in the business community and attributes
this lessened impact to the notion that institutions of post secondary education are tied
intimately to their locale, and that they are slow to respond to change as organizations.
Armstrong’s notions provided a framework for this interpretive case study designed to
understand how an American public research university closely tied to a state through its
land grant mission was able to expand internationally; specifically, how Land Grant State
4
University’s leadership was able to expand and focus on internationalization efforts,
including being the first university to open a campus in a major city in the Middle East.
Bolman and Deal (2003) suggest that leaders can benefit from examining
situations utilizing multiple frames. The authors posit a four frame model which suggests
that leadership activities can be broken down into structural, human resource, political,
and symbolic leadership frames. The structural frame focuses on how leaders organize
and structure groups within organizations to achieve their goals. The human resource
frame focuses on how leaders shape their organizations to meet human needs and to build
positive group dynamics. The political frame focuses on how leaders build alliances,
respond to conflict and power, and react to internal and external political forces. The
symbolic frame focuses on how leaders mold culture within their organizations to create
meaning, build team spirit, and send symbolic messages formally and informally to
internal and external stakeholders. The authors suggest that when leaders encounter
problems, applying concepts from the frames of leadership can help to solve them
through a process referred to as reframing. In this study, Bolman and Deal’s frame
approach was used as a framework for understanding how the leadership at Land Grant
State University was able to achieve success in expanding and focusing on
internationalization efforts, including being the first university to open a campus in a
major city in the Middle East.
5
Statement of the Problem
American universities seem to be expanding beyond their traditional geographic
locales in various ways, and university leadership guide and shape the ways in which this
expansion occurs. There is little literature documenting this somewhat recent
phenomenon, particularly with respect to the impact of globalization on this expansion.
The dearth of literature on the topic can be attributed to the relatively new
implementation of responses to globalization among institutions of post secondary
education. While one could argue that globalization has impacted the world for several
decades, the response from universities has been slow, especially when compared to
business organizations. Furthermore, some of the institutions that do attempt to
internationalize fail, as evidenced when George Mason University decided to end their
short lived branch campus in the Middle East, citing mainly monetary reasons (Lewin,
2009). Land Grant State University has both an extensive history of involvement in the
international area as well as several current programs focused on internationalizing their
campus. One specific example of this expansion occurred when Land Grant State
University opened a campus in a major city in the Middle East. For this study, the
problem of understanding how senior university officials in positions of leadership at a
publicly funded university succeed in overcoming the place bound nature of post
secondary education as outlined by Armstrong’s (2007) framework was examined in
depth, in order to fill a gap in the current literature, as well as provide descriptive
information for other American universities looking to expand abroad and reshape their
focus to one that is responsive to the forces of globalization. Additional aspects of
6
university policies such as mission statements and important guiding documents were
also examined to understand why some institutions succeed and others do not. These
documents provided the guiding philosophies for expansion and are also what the senior
leadership was charged with implementing on a daily basis. Because these documents
provided only a glimpse of an institution’s priorities, this study also focused on concrete
strategies and actions that senior leaders used to implement and achieve their goals.
Consequently, aspects of implementation, such as the utilization of multiple frames of
leadership, were examined as well.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to understand how the senior leadership of a public
research university was able to impact the development and implementation of
internationalization initiatives both inside and outside the boundaries of the United States,
including being the first university to open a campus in a major city in the Middle East.
This descriptive case study enriches the field by providing an in-depth understanding of
the role of key university leaders and how they implemented their university’s mission
within their “real life” context. This study paid particular attention to the challenges for
public research universities in creating and facilitating initiatives which expand and
magnify the university’s presence in the global arena.
7
Research Questions
In order to provide ideas to others about how to implement effective
internationalization initiatives in institutions of postsecondary education similar to the
initiatives implemented by Land Grant State University, it was necessary to examine the
policies, practices, and outcomes of Land Grant State University’s internationalization
initiatives in depth. This case study attempted to answer the following two research
questions that relate to how Land Grant State University was able to successfully develop
and implement successful internationalization initiatives in response to globalization.
• What is the role of the senior leadership in a public research university in the
development and implementation of internationalization initiatives both inside
and outside the boundaries of the United States?
• What are the challenges for public research universities in creating and facilitating
initiatives which expand and magnify the university’s presence in the global
arena?
Significance of the Study
This study contributes to the broader literature on organizational change by
providing a comprehensive description and analysis of one public university’s path to
expansion globally through the implementation of internationalization initiatives. While
the findings in this study are not generalizable to all American universities, this study
serves as an informed starting point for the development of future global expansion in
post secondary education at an institutional level. By utilizing the frameworks of
8
Armstrong (2007) and Bolman and Deal (2003), this case study enables other researchers
to better understand the impact of globalization on institutions of post secondary
education in the 21
st
century. Specifically, this study enables other researchers to
understand the path that the leadership of one land grant university took in responding to
the challenges of globalization.
Additionally, this study is of benefit to leadership teams, including presidents and
chancellors, provosts, and vice presidents and vice chancellors, who are interested in
expanding their own institutions internationally. Because challenges to implementation
and leadership strategies are discussed, this case study could be helpful to both current
and future leaders in colleges and universities as they contemplate organizational changes
on an international scale.
Finally, policy makers in post secondary education may benefit by examining this
study, particularly at the state level. Other public institutions of post secondary education
may seek to follow the lead of Land Grant State University in promising initiatives such
as seeking to open campuses abroad. These policy makers will need to determine what is
feasible in their state, particularly if they are working with land grant institutions whose
historical missions contradict such expansion on a surface level. Because this study
sought to illuminate challenges that Land Grant State University faced while creating and
facilitating initiatives which expanded and magnified the university’s presence in the
global arena, policy makers would do well to heed the implicit warning contained therein.
9
Limitations
This study used case study methodology to understand and describe the impact of
globalization on the leadership of a public land grant institution as they developed and
implemented internationalization efforts on their campus. Case study methodology
provides an extremely detailed and in-depth descriptive analysis, however there are some
limitations involved in using case study methodology. The limitations of this study were
closely tied to the limitations of the methodology. A major methodological limitation of
a case study includes the arguable inability of a case study to generalize beyond the study
itself (Merriam, 1998; National Research Council, 2006; Yin, 2006). An additional
limitation of this study was that the researcher gained access to interviewees through Mr.
Arthur who serves as the Vice President for Internationalization at Land Grant State
University. This may be a limitation if the individuals interviewed feared retaliation for
speaking candidly in the interview process. Fortunately, the researcher saw no indication
that this was the case during the execution of the data collection process.
This inherent inability to generalize is based on the fact that a case study is
essentially bounded by what is being studied. Merriam (1998) views a case study as a
phenomenon, an individual thing, or a social unit that is in essence an entity around
which exist certain boundaries. These boundaries, such as focus and length of time a
researcher spends on the case, limit what is being studied and define the nature of the
case (Merriam, 1998).
The specific research methods that were used in this case study, including
observations, interviews, and document analysis, were limited in certain ways.
10
Observation limitations included interference by the researcher, a focus exclusively on
external behavior as opposed to internal processes, and a focus on the limited sample of
what is observable during the course of the observation (Patton, 2002). Interview
limitations included distorted responses due to the emotional state of the interviewee,
recall error, interviewee reaction to the interviewer, and responses that are self serving to
the interviewee (Patton, 2002). Finally, document analysis was limited by the incomplete
and inexact nature of the documents themselves (Patton, 2002).
Additionally, researchers with limited experience conducting case studies can
benefit from adopting theoretical frameworks which will guide the course of their studies
(Yin, 2006). Because of this fact, the researcher adopted Armstrong’s (2007) theoretical
framework of globalization in education and Bolman and Deal’s (2003) theoretical model
of leadership as a basis for theory development in an effort to increase the credibility of
the case study. Consequently, the research in this study was limited by the theoretical
models posited by Armstrong, Bolman and Deal, as they are the basis for guiding
questions and the frameworks from which the analysis and conclusions are drawn.
Both Armstrong’s (2007) globalization framework and Bolman and Deal’s (2003)
leadership framework were chosen because of their relevance and fit with the
researcher’s own assumptions and methodological preferences. This fit was crucial to the
success of the study, as the connection between the research and frameworks should be
based upon assessing compatibility and should not necessarily be limited to one
overarching framework (Maxwell, 2005). Although the limitations created by using
these frameworks was significant, their use as a grounding force in the study allowed the
11
researcher to overcome significant credibility issues related to globalization and
leadership.
Delimitations
This case was limited by geography, as some data may be contained only in direct
observations of internationalization efforts. The case is also limited by time in two ways.
First, the limitations occur in the amount of time the researcher had to conduct interviews
and to review documents. Secondly, because the study was bounded by time, the
researcher was unable to examine the long term effects of leadership on the
internationalization efforts at the university.
The delimitations of this study were set by the researcher to allow for a thick
description of the phenomenon occurring at a singular university. Because the study
focused on only one institution, the results of the study are not generalizable to all
institutions in the United States. The study primarily focused on artifacts related to the
events leading up to the current internationalization efforts in place at the university, as
well as interviews with individuals in positions of leadership (See Appendix C).
This study was limited by the units of analysis, which in this case are the
individuals who are in positions of leadership at the university. Because of this fact, the
study was limited to describing the branch campus from the perspective of the leadership,
and not other stakeholders such as students, parents, or the legislature who may also
benefit from the study.
12
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This literature review explores topics relevant to the role of the senior leadership
in a public research university in the development and implementation of
internationalization initiatives both inside and outside the boundaries of the United States,
as well as the challenges that they may face. The concept of leadership is explored in
depth as it relates to Bolman and Deal’s (2003) notion of frames of leadership, which is
one framework for analysis in the proposed case study. Globalization in education is also
explored at length, drawing from several perspectives and expanding upon the second
framework utilized in the proposed study. This second framework, created by Armstrong
(2007) and focused on the lagging nature of post secondary education when compared to
the business world, is compared and supplemented with additional studies and assertions
related to the impact of globalization on postsecondary education.
Continuing on, this literature review examines the nature of organizational change
in institutions, and focuses particularly on colleges and universities when applicable. The
impact of mission statements changing as part of organizational shifting is also examined.
Finally, borderless education and international campuses are explored through examining
both current and historical research.
Leadership and Education
Gardner, in the text Educational Leadership, defines leadership as “the process of
persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) entices a group to
13
pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers”
(2000, p. 3). Gardner’s (2000) definition of leadership demystifies its often elusive
nature, and breaks down the process to the essence of the leader and follower
relationship. Leaders achieve their goal of obtaining follower support through several
ways, and aspects of how leaders obtain this support can be analyzed utilizing Bolman
and Deal’s (2003) concept of leadership frames.
The concept of the frames of leadership was first explored in the early 1980s in
the text Modern Approaches to Understanding and Managing Organizations (Bolman
and Deal, 1984). Since then, their work has been updated, revised, and tested by other
researchers. For the purposes of this dissertation, the principal investigator utilized the
work Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, 3
rd
edition, as a
framework for understanding the data collected (Bolman and Deal, 2003).
Bolman and Deal’s (2003) concept of leadership frames and reframing has been
explored in several studies related to education since its initial development. This seminal
leadership framework has been utilized to explain the leadership of college presidents
(Bensimon, 1989; Sullivan, 2001), academic departmental chairs (Mathis, 1999),
academic deans (Jewell, 2007; Sypawka, 2008), leaders of non-profit organizations
(Heimovics, Herman, & Jurkiewicz, 1993), and school superintendents (Ward, 2006).
Bolman and Deal’s (2003) organizational lenses are well tested and applicable to a
variety of leadership situations in education as evidenced by the variety of studies that
have been conducted based upon the premise of the four frames. Because the research
suggests that this framework has broad application in various areas with education, this
14
study has utilized Bolman and Deal’s frames as a basis for analysis of leadership in post
secondary education with respect to internationalization initiatives.
Bolman and Deal’s (2003) four frames all focus on organizational behavior and
consist of the structural frame, which focuses on the leader as a social architect, the
human resource frame, which views the leader as someone who empowers followers, the
political frame, which presents the leader as an advocate, and finally the symbolic frame,
in which the leader serves to inspire his or her followers and organization. The authors
argue that while certain leaders may be more drawn to some of the frames and repulsed
by others, a clear understanding of the potential impact of all of the frames enables
leaders to deepen their understanding of organizations.
The structural frame posited by Bolman and Deal (2003) seeks to move beyond
individuals and assess the architecture of the work that organizations seek to accomplish.
If this frame is neglected, energy and resources may be misused or utilized ineffectively
and inefficiently. Leaders who focus on the structural frame and overlook the other three
frames may be seen as rigid and too bureaucratic. Leaders fluent in the structural frame
understand the need for flexibility and complexity in organizational structures which face
uncertain and changing environments (Bolman & Deal, 2003). Given this fact, logic
dictates the structural frame would have increased importance for complex organizations
such as institutions of post secondary education that are facing changing and volatile
forces such as globalization and competition.
The human resource frame moves away from the overall organizational structure
to focus on what is arguably an organization’s most important asset, the individuals who
15
make up the organization itself (Bolman & Deal, 2003). Leaders focused on this frame
are closely connected to their followers’ needs and motivations. These leaders seek to
align the fit between organizations and the individuals who make up the organization for
the benefit of both. They recognize that when an organization and the individuals who
make up the organization are at odds, both sides are negatively impacted. Bolman & Deal
(2003) suggest that leaders who excel in the human resource frame recognize that a
comprehensive strategy to empower individuals and strengthen their bond to the
organization is crucial to creating a positive alignment that is beneficial for all parties
involved.
The concept of advocacy dominates the political frame of leadership, and leaders
focused on this aspect of the four frames understand when to engage in conflict and when
to build coalitions to achieve their goals and the goals of the organization (Bolman &
Deal, 2003). Individuals utilizing the political frame effectively understand that position
power does not necessarily designate actual power within an organization, and these
leaders seek out collaborative relationships with those that can benefit their overall goals.
While sometimes labeled as destructive and calculating, leaders working from the
political frame have the ability to marshal resources for noble aims and for the overall
good of the organization (Bolman & Deal, 2003).
The final frame is focused on concepts such as myths, values, stories, rituals,
metaphors, and even humor, as part of the leadership process (Bolman & Deal, 2003).
The symbolic frame eschews impartiality and judiciousness in favor of utilizing symbols
to create meaning for organizational events. Arguably the most nebulous of the four
16
frames, the symbolic lens allows managers and leaders to transcend their practical day to
day obligations, and in addition to create community through utilizing metaphor to
establish meaning and purpose for an organization’s goals and to their followers’ daily
work.
What Bolman & Deal (2003) refer to as multiframe thinking is an application of
their framework which requires leaders to examine leadership challenges and
opportunities from multiple leadership perspectives based upon their lenses. Bolman and
Deal (2003) suggest that when leaders of an organization reframe, they are able to garner
clarity, create new opportunities, and locate successful strategies that apply to any
situation involving organizational leadership.
The research conducted utilizing Bolman and Deal’s (2003) framework of most
relevance to the proposed case study is Bensimon’s (1989) research which examined
college presidents. Bensimon (1989) examined the espoused leadership frame tendencies
of 32 individuals. The researcher then analyzed the tendencies for the leaders to espouse
single, paired, or multiframe approaches to leadership. Bensimon (1989) found that
individuals utilizing four frame approaches were exceptional, and that presidents leading
community colleges tended toward a single frame approach, while presidents of
universities tended toward a paired or multiframe approach. Additionally, Bensimon
(1989) found that newer college and university presidents tended to utilize fewer frames
of leadership, while more experienced presidents tended to utilize paired or multiple
frames. Bensimon’s (1989) work is highly revealing and applicable to the case study this
researcher will be conducting, as her findings provide a basis for which to examine the
17
leadership at Land Grant State University through the framework of Bolman and Deal
(2003).
Globalization and Education
Duderstadt (2000), the former president of the University of Michigan, asserts
that among the competing priorities and obligations of contemporary universities in the
United States, one of the most important is undoubtedly the creation and maintenance of
programs which increase an international perspective. Furthermore, he suggests that the
importance of individuals and organizations in the United States understanding world
cultures different than their own is critical not only for reasons of individual enrichment
and positive global citizenship, but also for the very survival of our nation. He reflects
that we should respond to our insularity and ethnocentrism through reevaluating the ways
in which we as educational institutions cultivate, administer, and advance the
international dimension of our educational missions.
Competitive forces are pushing traditional universities to examine they way they
engage in both domestic and global markets (Duderstadt, 2000). Colleges and
universities face considerable competition from for-profit educational institutions. As of
the beginning of the new millennium, there were already over seven hundred virtual
universities with over a million students listed in college directories (Duderstadt, 2000).
Traditional place bound colleges and universities in the United States boast advantages
such as the power to control accreditation and credentialing, as well as long standing
reputations for excellence in academics. On the other hand, for-profit global educational
entities are quite comfortable with technology, strategic alliances, and rapid decision
18
making which can prove to be advantageous in the competitive global marketplace of
education. Additionally, because for-profit educational entities are not as bound by
public governance systems, social commitments, and limited resources, they have the
potential to mobilize resources to hand pick the most prestigious faculty and products
which will allow for an additional competitive edge in the industry of globalized
education (Duderstadt, 2000).
Armstrong (2007) suggests that most contemporary universities interact
transnationally by following a traditional hub-and-spoke model of industrial globalization
where the university sends out people from its home base who then return quickly from
international destinations. He further argues that very few institutions actually go beyond
the traditional hub-and-spoke model to fundamentally reconceptualize the place bound,
traditional nature of the university. His framework suggests that current examples of
globalization in education are exemplified by the concepts of twinning and franchising.
He describes twinning as when an institution allows its students to attend another
institution for the first two years of their program using a pre-designed and approved
curriculum. The same students then return to the approving university to finish their
study and receive their degree at the source university or college.
The notion of twinning is also confirmed by Mazzarol, Soutar, and Sim Yaw
Sing, (2003) who described the practice among globally expanding universities as part of
a second wave of globalization which is preceding the expansion of universities through
actual branch campuses. Armstrong (2007) conceptualizes franchising by taking the
concept of twinning and expanding upon it. Franchising is exemplified by when an
19
institution allows an outside college or university to deliver its programs, but still
maintains complete control of all aspects of the program content, evaluation, quality and
conferring of the subsequent degree. Armstrong’s (2007) model is highly relevant,
because if he is correct, Land Grant State University’s successful launching and operating
of a branch campus in the Middle East is a fundamental reconceptualization of
contemporary notions of globalization in post secondary education.
Armstrong (2007) argues that several factors have prohibited colleges and
universities of post secondary education from transforming into truly globalized
institutions. One factor is the historical dominance of the United States in competing for
international students. Another reason is that the current funding constituencies of post
secondary education have little reason to encourage change in institutions that will
facilitate acclimation to a globalized world. A third obstacle to globalization is the
current lack of local, state, and federal guidance and strategies for colleges and
universities. In fact, Armstrong (2007) argues that it appears government has not even
thought about the impact of globalization on institutions of post secondary education.
This lack of thought is evidenced in inhospitable immigration policies which prohibit
international academics from attending American institutions of post secondary
education. Furthermore, other nations have created friendly policies, such as Australia
and the United Kingdom, or even defined themselves as global education centers and
allocated resources to ensure this vision is enacted as in the cases of Singapore, Malaysia,
Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The United States, with its lack of global
20
educational policies and strategies, stands in stark contrast to these nations and their
institutions of post secondary education.
Organizational Change and Education
Organizational change in its broadest sense involves simply making things in an
organization different than they currently are (Robbins, 2003). Robbins (2003) further
suggests that organizations can undergo a planned or unplanned change and that planned
change is preferable in organizational settings because it is both intentional and
anticipatory. One could argue that the impact of globalization on organizations is
resulting in unplanned changes, but also spurring on these same organizations to
proactively shift for the future through planned organizational changes. While the
author’s work does not focus on educational organizations specifically, his text is written
to apply broadly to a wide cross section of organizational types. His suggestions, on
their face, appear to have great application to the issues surrounding the response of
organizations in post secondary education to the impact of globalization. He does claim
explicitly that “Educational institutions, which exist to open minds and to challenge
established doctrine, are themselves extremely resistant to change” (Robbins, 2003,
p.561). This assertion complements Armstrong’s (2007) assertion that institutions of post
secondary education are slow to respond to the change associated with globalization.
Robbins (2003) further suggests that these planned organizational changes are led
by organizational change agents who can be leaders from within or who exist outside of
an organization. It seems clear then that in the case of this study, the individuals in
21
positions of leadership at Land Grant State University are, or at least have the capacity to
be, change agents with respect to positioning the organization to proactively anticipate
the forces of globalization.
Katz and Kahn (1978) suggest that organizations are always intrinsically
conservative. Robbins (2003) suggests that a major challenge to organizational change
can be resistance by both individual members of the organization and by the
organizations themselves. Robbins outlines five areas in which individuals resist
organizational change and they are habit, security, economic factors, fear, and selective
information processing. He also indicates six ways in which organizational resistance
manifests itself, which are structural inertia, limited focus, group inertia, threat to
expertise, threat to established relationships, and threat to resource allocations. Finally,
the author describes six ways in which organizations can overcome resistance to change
including education and communication, participation, facilitation and support,
negotiation, manipulation and cooptation, and coercion.
Five areas ways in which individuals resist organizational change are habit,
security, economic factors, fear, and selective information processing (Robbins, 2003).
Habit is characterized by the tendency of individuals to respond in accustomed ways to
both novel and expected challenges. The underlying idea in this phenomenon is that with
respect to novel challenges, the habituated response may not be the most effective.
Security is characterized by an individual’s need for safety, especially when it pertains to
obtaining or retaining their position within an organization. Economic factors that lead to
resistance include individual’s concerns about change impacting their level of
22
productivity, especially when the change is perceived to impact productivity or when this
productivity is closely tied to monetary incentives. Resistance based upon fear of the
unknown manifests itself as individuals resisting the perceived imperative to learn skills
or gain knowledge which will change their role in an organization. Finally, selective
information processing resistance is exemplified by individuals who absorb only
information which does not require them to change in their organizational roles, or who
only absorb part of the total amount of transmitted information. The part of the
information that is processed is only that which supports the individual’s desire to limit
change in their organizational role and this is usually based upon the aforementioned
concepts of fear, economic factors, security, and habit.
Six ways in which organizational resistance manifests itself are structural inertia,
limited focus, group inertia, threat to expertise, threat to established relationships, and
threat to resource allocations (Robbins, 2003). Structural inertia refers to the idea that
organizations have built in mechanisms that produce stability and limit the ability to
change in a nimble fashion. Limited focus of change refers to the reality that
organizations are often made up of smaller systems which are highly dependent on one
another. Thus, changing one of them impacts the others, which in turn may resist
regardless of the stance of the original system. Group inertia refers to a concept similar
to peer pressure in which individuals who are open to change are sometimes overpowered
by group philosophy or pressure which limits progressive action. The final three aspects
of group resistance are focused on fear among subsystems in an organization related to
23
losing power, relationships, and resources and the subsequent resistance which these
subsystems engage in to avoid these perceived future losses.
Becoming a proactive and nimble organization with regard to change is crucial to
an organization’s success in turbulent times. Six ways in which organizations can
overcome resistance to change include education and communication, participation,
facilitation and support, negotiation, manipulation and cooptation, and coercion
(Robbins, 2003). The author argues that, if leaders and followers trust one another, and
the source of resistance is based upon a lack of knowledge, then education through
communication is a good strategy for overcoming the resistance. Participation by
individuals in shaping the change process is also an effective way to garner support, as
individuals normally do not rebel against a process or change they participated in
shaping. The author argues that participation lowers resistance, confirms commitment,
and can even increase the change decision level of quality. Another option for reducing
resistance to change involves the facilitation and support of individuals through
counseling, skills training, and even allowing individuals to step back through time away
from the organization. Negotiation is suggested as another tactic and this involves
exchanging something of value for buy in from individuals and subsystems within an
organization. Manipulation and cooptation involve deceptive practices which can destroy
the credibility of leadership if they fail. Manipulation involves the use of twisting facts
and spreading rumor which are untrue in an effort to gain support for change. Cooptation
involves obtaining subsystem leadership support through participation and manipulation.
Finally, coercion focuses on utilizing threats which are real in an effort to garner support
24
for change. Much like manipulation and cooptation, failure when using coercive tactics
results in a loss of credibility for leaders in an organization and inspires hostility among
subsystems and individuals in the organization.
Organizational change in education involves major changes that move beyond the
simple fine tuning or minor shifts in resources to improve efficiency (Ulukan, 2005).
Instead, these changes, particularly in post secondary education, are concerned with
changing the fundamental philosophies of the functional aspects of how an organization
interacts with the environment outside itself (Ulukan, 2005). Ulukan (2005) suggests that
institutions of post secondary education seeking to change in response to a volatile and
increasingly competitive environment will need to focus on several inter-related
organizational aspects such as management and leadership, structure, strategy,
technology, human resources, and organizational culture. His suggestions are
particularly applicable to this study because his work is focusing on the responses of post
secondary education to the growing impact of globalization.
“Major change efforts have helped some organizations adapt significantly to
shifting conditions, have improved the competitive standing of others, and have
positioned a few for a better future”(Kotter, 1996, p. 3-4). Kotter (1996) suggests that
unfortunately, many organizations fail when implementing change due to what he refers
to as the eight major mistakes. He suggests that these mistakes are allowing too much
complacency, failing to secure buy-in from powerful leaders in the organization,
establishing a successful vision, under-communicating the vision to stakeholders,
allowing challenges to block the vision, declaring victory too quickly, and finally,
25
neglecting to anchor changes firmly into the culture. His critique of organizations
extends to providing suggestions for leaders in these organizations who wish to see their
implemented changes succeed where others fail. While his analysis on leading
organizational change is grounded in a business setting, his approach is useful in other
organizational settings, including education. This work is useful for universities
implementing change because its broad approach and practical eight stage process of
securing successful change allows leaders to plan future steps and analyze the steps they
have already taken. Unfortunately, his work is over a decade old and, while it is focused
on globalization and its impact on organizations, leaders must be careful to consider the
impact of over ten years of the changing nature of globalization on his model.
Change in American post secondary education is seen by some as inevitable given
the phenomenon of globalization. Levine (2001) suggests that five forces that are facing
postsecondary institutions have the potential to reconfigure the landscape of post
secondary education. He argues that the rise of the information economy, changing
demographics, innovative technologies, privatization, and the convergence of knowledge
distributing organizations may converge and reshape how colleges and universities
organize themselves in a global world. Levine (2001) suggests that increasing numbers
of private institutions will increase competition, and that traditional institutions may
become followers, rather than trailblazers in the changing world. Furthermore, he
speculates that three basic types of universities will emerge; click (completely online),
brick (completely physical) and brick and click (hybrid models of campuses) will typify
the postsecondary landscape (Levine 2001). Levine (2001) also suggests that the total
26
number of physical campuses in the United States will decrease; he does not comment on
the expansion of physical campuses abroad, so his outline of impacts does not conflict
with the opening of Land Grant State University campus in the Middle East. Levine
(2001) suggests that worldwide campuses will develop, but implies that they will be
predominately of the “click” variety, and that individualized instruction will dominate the
landscape. In light of Land Grant State University’s expansion internationally, his
predictions fall short and at the very least suggest that the university is an outlier in its
internationalization efforts beyond the “click” variety.
Mission Statements
Armstrong (2007) notes that the most challenging factor related to globalization
facing institutions of post secondary education in the United States is actually
understanding why they are seeking to globalize. Consequently, this development of
understanding will lead to molding and modifying institutional mission statements and
goals. This change will be a shift from traditional mission statement shaping based upon
history, location, funding sources, and immediate stakeholders and move toward a vision
of the future of the institution as a successfully globalized entity.
Cardwell (2006) examined the increasing tendency of community colleges to
expand internationally to reach diverse markets in global setting. He examined an
initiative adopted by a Southeastern community college in 2003 in which the institution
sought to cultivate a global perspective to shape their colleges through the development
of a task group. One of the major changes explored during this initiative was the need to
27
change the mission statement and long range plan of the college by building in the
globalization focus (Cardwell 2006). While this community college is quite different in
terms of population, size, faculty, and staff, its initiative may have applications to almost
all institutions of post secondary education grappling with the increasing impact of
globalization.
Scott (2006) analyzed the historical transformation of university and college
mission statements and posited the notion that these institutions have shifted recently to
what he refers to as a future internationalization mission. He argues that institutions of
post secondary education began with missions focusing on teaching 850 years ago, then
moved through nationalization (European and Latin American institutions) or
democratization missions (American institutions), or research missions (German-
Humboldtian institutions), and on to public service missions in the 20
th
century (Scott,
2006). Given the impact of globalization, his suggestion of the development of future
internationalization missions among colleges and universities in service to a group of
international nation-states is quite logical.
The Changing Scope of Public and Land Grant Universities
Historically, state funded public universities sprung from three major
developments. These developments were the success of the war for independence, the
great westward movement in the United States, and most importantly, the accepted
practice of the federal government providing each state two land tracts to support
developing learning seminaries (Rudolph, 1990). While elite private universities in the
28
United States helped to set high standards for academics and character in America, it was
the creation of the American public university which provided the diversity and capacity
to meet the considerable needs of postsecondary education in the United States
(Duderstadt, 2000). Furthermore, land grant institutions, particularly public colleges and
universities, were the predominant force in positively changing the way that average
American citizens viewed the idea of non-elite members of society attending institutions
of post secondary education (Rudolph, 1990).
Armstrong (2007) asserts that most institutions of post secondary learning were
formed historically as a response to local needs, and consequently have been protected
from competition through state funding. Because of this protection and funding,
universities and colleges typically aligned themselves to meet the needs of local and
national constituents and became place bound by their nature. This education model
stands in stark contrast to corporations, which have been able to regroup and dramatically
benefit from the impact of globalization.
Land grant institutions in the United States were formed as a result of the Morrill
Land-Grant Act of 1862, and their creation expanded both the curriculum and diversity of
post secondary education in the United States (Berdahl, Altbach, & Gumport, 2003;
McDowell, 2001; Rudolph, 1990). Land grant institutions were founded around the
implicit notion of serving people in their respective states through education and contain
the additional dimension of public service, often delivered to the local populace through
extension programs (Phillips, 1976). These institutions were historically established to
29
enable the proliferation of the academic disciplines of agriculture and mechanical arts
(Phillips, 1976).
At the turn of the millennium, 17.43 million acres of land were committed to land
grant institutions, and their number includes some of the finest universities in the world
(McDowell, 2001). There are fifty one land grant universities in the United States,
including one in Puerto Rico, created under the Morrill Act of 1862, with an additional
seventeen institutions established or receiving support through the second Morrill Act of
1890. Land grant universities were founded on the social contract of being people’s
universities under the notion of serving non-elite citizens, who, prior to the development
of these universities, had little hope of obtaining postsecondary education (McDowell,
2001).
Today, while some land grant institutions proclaim to adhere to their original
mission, many have distanced themselves somewhat from providing broad access to post
secondary education to working classes by relinquishing this goal to other institutions
such as those within the community college system. Many land grant universities have
even embraced practices associated primarily with elite private universities, such as
finding the nations best potential students and placing their academic brand on them
(McDowell, 2001). Still others, such as Pennsylvania State University with its Children,
Youth, and Families Consortium, are developing new programs based upon historical
goals to respond to contemporary problems (Spanier, 1999).
Contemporary public and land grant universities are faced with a paradox. They
are called upon by local, state, and federal governments to enhance the public good and
30
provide services for their place bound constituents. Unfortunately, many public
universities are also facing demands from the state and from the general public to
increase sources of support from non state tax funded sources (Armstrong, 2007;
Duderstadt, 2000; McGuinness 2005).
The University of Michigan provides a contemporary example of the
phenomenon, in its transition from state funded, to state assisted, to state related, to state
located university when statutory funds dwindled as it faced the turn of the millennium.
Duderstadt (2000) suggests that with the opening of international campuses even the state
located description may be a misnomer. By and large the changes facing state
institutions have forced the majority of them to become privately financed public
institutions which closely resemble their completely privatized peer institutions. The
increasing pressure has forced public universities to appeal to a wide range of funding
resources, some of them international in nature, while maintaining a vision focused on
state needs (Duderstadt, 2000).
There are many universities that find themselves in the situation of having begun
as fully publicly funded institutions but who are now receiving only a small portion of
their funding from public sources. Currently, many state and land grant universities have
resorted to finding private funding in order to alleviate state budget pressures. Duderstadt
(2000) suggests that one approach these universities might take, in order to serve
expanding constituencies without alienating people in the state, is to convince the public
and media that colleges and universities are vital in a more multidimensional way than
through education alone. This notion is important to the case study because it begs the
31
question of how the leadership at Land Grant State University was able to convince its
state supporting stakeholders that an international venture into the Middle East would be
beneficial to all involved. More broadly, it addresses the question of how the leadership
was able to argue to the people of the state in which they serve as a land grant institution
that it was in their best interest for the institution to focus resources internationally.
Borderless Education and International Campuses
Many institutions across the United States are seeking to expand their programs
and services to include an international focus. Armstrong (2007) suggests that these
cross border education programs usually occur for two main reasons, and his framework
provides typical strategies and pitfalls that institutions of post secondary education
encounter when they engage in these expansion activities.
Armstrong (2007) asserts that one reason colleges and universities give for
engaging in cross border activities is to increase the global awareness and corresponding
skills for students attending their primary institutions. He further suggests that many
institutions attempt to achieve this goal through sending home students to study abroad,
bringing international students to study on the primary campus, and by exchanging
faculty with international colleges and universities. Additionally, many campuses utilize
the aforementioned twinning agreements to achieve this purpose. Interestingly,
Armstrong (2007) cautions the use of international campuses in achieving this aim due to
concerns of their very nature limiting the internal experience. This is because branch
campuses generally attempt to emulate the home campus in various ways. This caution is
32
particularly relevant to the case study at hand, as questions regarding goals and aims of
the creation of the Land Grant State University campus in the Middle East were
examined in detail.
Armstrong (2007) goes on to suggest that another common reason institutions of
post secondary education engage in these activities is to increase and diversify their
income pools. He proposes that institutions seek to meet this goal through bringing
international students to the home campus, by creating partnerships and the
aforementioned franchise arrangements, and by establishing overseas branch campuses.
Armstrong notes a striking similarity between the dot-com boom in this area, and implies
that, just as many dot-com companies opened rapidly without confirming a client base, so
too are colleges and universities seeking to capitalize on their prestige by engaging in
transnational educational ventures.
Mazzorol and colleagues (2003) suggest that there are three waves of educational
expansion transitionally. They argue that the first wave involves students traveling
abroad to study at a host university or college, and the second wave is characterized by
Armstrong’s (2007) previously mentioned notion of twinning. The third wave, which is
based on the opening of transnational branch campuses, involves three options for
institutions of post secondary education. These options include using online delivery
systems to create virtual campuses, partnering with corporations to provide business style
delivery models, and finally, opening actual physical branch campuses, usually in
collaboration with partners (Mazzorol et al., 2003). These options imply that colleges or
universities who choose to engage in any one of them may experience competition from
33
other institutions engaging in other modes of expansion. Mazzorol et al. (2003) further
suggest that institutions which adopt a third wave strategy will need to carefully choose
locations and invest heavily prior to seeing a return on their investment. Mazzorol et al.
(2003) also caution home institutions that operate branch campuses internationally; they
suggest that these institutions will need to pay particular attention to human resource
issues such as recruitment, development, and movement for their expatriate staff in order
to enable transnational success. It is clear that the authors see a need for a home
institution to re-examine its human resource policies as they pertain to employees
working abroad. One weakness of the article is that the authors don’t touch on cultural
issues as they pertain to human resource management, which seems like a logical area
that would impact international success and staff morale.
Quality control is a major problem in opening campuses internationally
(Armstrong, 2007). Post secondary education has little experience in this area compared
to the business world. Just as the corporations that have expanded abroad have had to
invest heavily in time and resources to ensure that the quality of services does not drop
significantly when expanding abroad, so too will institutions of post secondary education.
In a highly relevant study conducted by Cichocki (2005), the author qualitatively
examined three separate universities that had opened branch campuses in the Middle East
utilizing a case study methodology. Cichocki asserted that historically, forays on the part
of American based institutions into other parts of the world typically were
philosophically based upon the American notions of the needs of other countries and
attempts to guide these countries to achieving American educational goals. The author
34
used the lens of the center-periphery model to explore how American universities
interacted transnationally through their branch campuses in the Middle East. This model
suggests that the traditional United States transnational expansions involving post
secondary education operated under the philosophy that the home American institutions
were the creators of structures, knowledge, and research, while the host countries were
merely consumers (Cichocki, 2005).
The author found these historically imperialistic undertones to be shifting in these
three case studies as host countries retained power in several areas. This shift in power
was a result of host countries leaving the periphery and joining the center through
retaining power in the areas of providing establishment incentives and ensuring the
campuses reflected regional needs, motivation and goals of students, and local culture
(Cichocki 2005). Most importantly, she found that these host communities were
receiving more benefits from the campus relationship (Cichocki 2005). While this study
did not focus on Land Grant State University, its conclusions are highly relevant and
informative given that the author utilized case study methodology and focused on
campuses in the Middle East.
Conclusion
Utilizing the frameworks of Bolman and Deal (2003) and Armstrong (2007) this
study was able to examine a land grant institution that is on the verge of reinventing itself
and its role in the world. The literature supported the validity of Bolman and Deal’s
(2003) multiframe approach in terms of its applicability to leaders in education.
35
Additionally, the literature confirmed many of Armstrong’s (2007) notions of
globalization. This evidence suggests that there is value in the researcher’s goal of
studying an institution which currently appears to be uniquely performing against
Armstrong’s (2007) predictions for institutions of post secondary education facing
challenges related to globalization. The research demonstrates that educational
institutions are being impacted in various ways by the forces of globalization, but it does
not indicate conclusively how this impact is affecting them or why it is occurring. The
case study provides a rich description of how one institution is navigating the tide of
globalization, and fills in the gap of how one land grant institution is navigating and
evolving from its land grant history in an age of globalization.
36
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Overview
The purpose of this study was to understand the role of the senior leadership in a
public research university in the development and implementation of internationalization
initiatives both inside and outside the boundaries of the United States, and to understand
the challenges that keep this from occurring. This case study attempted to answer the
following research questions:
• What is the role of the senior leadership in a public research university in the
development and implementation of internationalization initiatives both inside
and outside the boundaries of the United States?
• What are the challenges for public research universities in creating and facilitating
initiatives which expand and magnify the university’s presence in the global
arena?
Qualitative Research Orientation
At its base level, qualitative research can be defined as “a situated activity that
locates an observer in the world. It consists of interpretive material practices that make
the world visible” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p.3). More specifically, qualitative research
can be defined as an overarching concept of several forms of research which help to
illuminate and explain the meaning of phenomena in social settings (Merriam, 1998).
Qualitative research grows out of several collection methodologies including
observations, interviews, and analysis of written documents and artifacts (Patton, 2003).
37
Merriam (1998) suggests that qualitative research is generally assumed to have
five underlying notions that form the basis for this mode of inquiry. These notions
include rich descriptions of collected data, inductive as opposed to deductive research
aims, data collection through fieldwork, the researcher serving as the primary data
collection tool, and finally that the authors of qualitative research are primarily interested
in understanding the meanings that people have created to explain their experiences.
Merriam’s (1998) first underlying notion is the idea that, at the core, qualitative
research is primarily concerned with understanding the meaning that people have
constructed and how they make sense of what they experience in the world around them.
Consequently, researcher bias needs to be minimized and controlled to ensure that rich
descriptions are captured from the individuals being examined in the study. In this case
study, the individuals in question will be the senior leadership of the university who were
involved with the formation of the branch campus.
A second concern in qualitative research put forth by Merriam (1998) is that the
researcher is the primary tool for data analysis and collection. This notion is important
because researchers differ from other instruments in that they have the ability to be
adaptive. Human researchers as instruments of data collection can understand and
respond to context, explore anomalies as they arise, summarize the data, and process data
immediately. In this case study, the researcher may adapt questions and shift focus
should the context suggest additional information can be derived through doing so.
Thirdly, Merriam (1998) suggests that fieldwork is almost always a key
component of qualitative research. This notion is the result of the researcher needing to
38
gain a very in depth understanding of the phenomenon being studied. In most cases, this
involves the researcher engaging in direct contact with the individuals being analyzed,
but in some cases strict document analysis is also acceptable. Given the dramatic
increase in technology since Merriam’s (1998) assertion, it seems logical that other
methods such as video conferencing have also been attempted when direct contact is
impossible. In this case study, the research will utilize direct observation, interviews, and
document analysis to create a richly detailed description.
A fourth element of qualitative inquiry according to Merriam (1998) is that it
utilizes inductive, as opposed to deductive, research aims. Qualitative research usually
builds concepts, theories, and assertions rather than testing existing theories as part of the
process. In fact, much qualitative research begins because phenomena are occurring that
are not easily explained by existing theories. This case study will not begin with a
theory, but instead will utilize frameworks to ground the inquiry and frame the analysis.
The fifth and final assertion of the underpinnings of qualitative inquiry by
Merriam (1998) is the richly descriptive nature of qualitative research. Qualitative
research is concerned with understanding, meaning, and process. Numbers and statistics
are set aside in favor of words and pictures that convey the social world experienced by
the units of measurement through the vehicle of the researcher as instrument. Data are
derived from participants’ own descriptions, from language in documents, and through
excerpts from other sources. This case study focused on the university leadership and
attempted to understand the meaning they derived and the processes they implemented in
39
their quest to internationalize the university and overcome the subsequent challenges
which served as obstacles to their goals.
While quantitative analysis has the advantage of allowing for comparison between
individual cases, the research questions posed in this study lended themselves much more
to a qualitative analysis, which allows for greater analysis of individual depth and detail
(Patton, 2003). Miles and Huberman argue that although qualitative research does have
the ability to allow a researcher to move beyond initial findings to deeper understanding
and possesses a quality of “undeniability”, it has some serious drawbacks as well (1994,
p.1). They argue that the potential drawbacks of qualitative research include the amount
of labor required to gather, process, and encode data, the potential for too much data to be
collected which can cause overload, preconceived notions on the part of the researcher,
sampling adequacy, the ability to generalize findings, practicality of findings, and
conclusion integrity and quality (1994). Despite the potential drawbacks of qualitative
research and the potential benefits of quantitative research, the research questions posed
and the type of knowledge being sought in this study were able to be answered much
more effectively through descriptive, in depth qualitative research.
Case Study Design
Because of the complexity of the research questions being explored, and because
of the nature of the information being sought, a case study design was implemented to
answer the questions. While there are many methods of conducting social science
research, each method has distinct advantages and disadvantages particular to the
40
phenomena being examined (Creswell, 2003; Merriam, 1998; National Research Council,
2002; Patton, 2002; Yin, 2003.). One advantage of the case study method is that it allows
the researcher as instrument to react to new areas of inquiry as they appear. The
researcher expected new areas of inquiry to arise during the document analysis and
during the interviews with the senior leadership team, which they did. In qualitative
research, because the researcher is the key tool for obtaining and analyzing the data, he or
she can respond to various situations by taking full advantage of occasions for seeking
out crucial information (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2003).
Given this information, the case study method is the preferred choice of
methodology given that it allowed the researcher to explore additional avenues of
information that may arise in the case study of Land Grant State University. Merriam
notes, however, that “Conversely, the investigator as human instrument is limited to
being human - that is, mistakes are made, opportunities are missed, personal biases
interfere” (1998, p.20). Consequently, the value of the data obtained in qualitative
research is, in large part, a result of the methodological sensitivity, aptitude, and
truthfulness of the researcher (Patton, 2003). Because of this fact, the researcher had to
be ever vigilant to ensure that he remained objective and did not let personal biases
interfere with the study.
Furthermore, the case study method has advantages over other methods when “the
‘how’ or ‘why’ question being asked is about a contemporary set of events, over which
the investigator has little or no control” (Yin, 2003, p. 9). Given that these parameters fit
the situation specific to the researcher’s relationship and research questions with regard to
41
the Land Grant State University’s internationalization efforts, the case study
methodology was one that provided a great deal of insight and data.
Bounding the Case: Units of Analysis and Population
The unit of analysis in this study included individuals in positions of leadership at
Land Grant State University who were involved in the internationalization efforts of the
university (See Appendix C). Bolman and Deal’s (2003) leadership framework guided
the analysis of the leadership team, and this framework was integrated into the interview
questions. As emergent sources of information presented themselves during the study,
the researcher expanded his pool of interviewees to include additional sources of
information relevant to the case.
This descriptive case study focused on a large land grant institution that is moving
beyond Armstrong’s (2007) framework of what most institutions of post secondary
education are currently doing with regard to expansion beyond their place bound nature.
Nonprobablistic purposive sampling allows one to gain information-rich data through in
depth examination (Patton, 2003). Unique purposive samples examine atypical and
uncommon incidences of a phenomenon of interest to the researcher (Merriam, 1998).
Specifically, this case study will engage in purposeful sampling of an institution that is
providing a unique example given Armstrong’s (2007) framework, Land Grant State
University.
Land Grant State University is a prime candidate for study because its land grant
history and place bound nature defy Armstrong’s (2007) framework of a typical
42
university’s response to globalization. This case was bound from the start of Land Grant
State University’s decision to expand its presence in the Middle Eastern world near the
turn of the millennium and ended with the researcher’s interviews on April 1
st
, 2009.
Land Grant State University was chosen for this case study because it is partially funded
by a state in the midwestern part of the United States of America. This fact makes the
internationalization efforts that it is engaged in exceptional given the largely place bound
nature of public institutions of post secondary education as described by Armstrong’s
framework (2007).
Instrumentation/Sources of Evidence
Interview Questions
Research Question #1
What is the role of the senior leadership in a public research university in the
development and implementation of internationalization initiatives both inside and
outside the boundaries of the United States?
• What led the university to decide to expand itself from the traditional land grant
focus to a more global perspective?
• How did the idea to open a campus in the Middle East specifically come about?
• What role did you play in leading the institution’s global initiatives?
• In your view, who were the key players involved in leading the institution’s
commitment to reshaping itself as a global presence in the world?
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• What roles did each of these key players fill in changing the institution’s global
presence?
• How did you inform your constituents about your specific globalization endeavors
and the opportunities they provide?
• Do you view the institution’s stance on globalization as having symbolic meaning
to its constituents? Do you do anything in your position to motivate or lead your
constituents in a symbolic way?
• As a leader in changing the institution in response to the forces of globalization,
did you need to restructure your office or endeavors to achieve success? What
intentional steps with regard to office structure or hierarchy are important to
success in your view?
• Strategically, how do you navigate the politics of negotiating the
internationalization initiatives that you manage?
• With respect to your leadership, did you do anything on a human resources level
to influence the opening of the branch campus or the followers involved?
Research Question #2
What are the challenges for public research universities in creating and facilitating
initiatives which expand and magnify the university’s presence in the global arena?
• What is the biggest challenge or obstacle that you face (or have faced) in your
department’s work expanding and magnifying the university’s presence in the
global arena?
44
• Was the aforementioned challenge expected or unexpected? If it was expected,
what is the biggest unexpected challenge that you face (or have faced)?
• Did you encounter international legal issues/problems in your work expanding
and magnifying the university’s presence in the global arena?
• Do cultural differences and differing global perspectives impact your work? How
do you respond to these challenges?
• Who do you collaborate with both inside and outside of the university in your
work expanding and magnifying the university’s presence in the global arena?
Does this create challenges or barriers?
• How did you go about selecting and attracting faculty and staff to work at the
institution on issues of global expansion? What incentives do you provide to make
this endeavor worthwhile?
• Does what you do globally change or affect the home campus, student body, or
faculty in any way? If so, how have they changed, why have they changed, and
how do you know change has occurred?
• How are your initiatives funded? Does being a land grant institution impact how
you fund global initiatives and if so, how does this impact manifest itself?
• How is your office integrated into the land grant mission of the university?
Interview Protocol
Interviews were conducted in person and each interviewee was given a consent
form approved by the institutional review board of the University of Southern California
(See Appendix B). Each interview was tape recorded after receiving permission from the
45
interviewee, and lasted between 30-80 minutes. As unexpected lines of data emerged, the
interviewer pursued them if they added to the usefulness and richness of the case study.
Data Collection
One of the underlying notions of qualitative research is that it involves the
researcher conducting fieldwork (Maxwell, 2005; Merriam, 1998.). Qualitative
fieldwork data are generated by three types of data collection: observations, interviews,
and document analysis (Patton, 2002). Data collection in this research study took the
form of interviews triangulated with document and artifact analysis.
Interviews
Data collection took the form of interviews with the individuals in positions of
leadership at Land Grant State University. The interviewees and their respective titles
were granted pseudonyms in an effort to ensure privacy and these individuals were given
a consent form prior to the start of each interview (See Appendix A & C).
Document and Artifact Analysis
Documents were reviewed, including the institutional mission statement papers
written by key leaders of the internationalization efforts, published data highlighting
practices and programs, and online data sources from the Land Grant State University
website.
Analysis Strategies
Patton (2002) notes that qualitative inquiry is the preferred means of exploring
scientific questions regarding exploration, discovery, and inductive logic. He suggests
46
also that inductive analysis starts with specific forms of inquiry such as observations and
then builds toward more universal patterns. This analysis style stands in contrast to
quantitative methods of inquiry which follow a hypothetical-deductive approach toward
research inquiry. This descriptive case study utilized inductive logic to determine major
and reoccurring themes related to the internationalization efforts of a place bound
university through the lens of the researcher’s examination of individuals serving as
leaders on the efforts.
Reliability and Validity
Yin (2003) asserts that case studies, being a form of empirical research, are
subject to four tests of reliability and validity that apply to other forms of research. These
tests include construct validity, internal validity, external validity, and reliability. Patton
(2002) notes that validity in qualitative inquiry is connected much more with the quality
of the cases and with the researcher’s capabilities than with the size of the sample.
Internal validity, while applicable to explanatory and causal studies, does not apply to the
descriptive case study model because by nature it does not seek to generalize beyond its
initial unit of analysis (Yin, 2003). Merriam (1998) posits that case study researchers
should be concerned with validity overall and lists several strategies for ensuring it while
conducting research. To ensure that the case study is both reliable and valid, this
researcher applied specific strategies at differing phases of the study.
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Construct Validity
Construct validity is particularly problematic in case study research, and involves
creating operational protocols that are utilized correctly for the concepts being examined
(Yin, 2003). In order to ensure construct validity in a case study a researcher can utilize
evidence from multiple sources of information, establish chains of data, and have
important informants review the case study draft. In this case study, the researcher will
triangulate data through multiple sources including interviews, observations, and artifact
analysis. Additionally, the researcher created chains of evidence as suggested by Yin
(2003) through creating tangible and visible connections between the research methods
and findings. Additionally, the circumstances under which the evidence was collected
will be illuminated, and furthermore the data and analysis were connected to the initial
research questions.
Internal Validity
Merriam (1998) asserts that securing internal validity involves ensuring that the
research is congruent with the reality of what is occurring in the material world. She lists
several strategies to help improve internal validity and outlines their use. Initially, she
suggests utilizing triangulation, or using multiple sources, methods, and investigators to
confirm emergent information. Next, she suggests that researchers use member checks,
which involve using the subjects of inquiry to examine the plausibility of results and
initial interpretations. After utilizing member checks, she suggests using long term
observations instead of shorter ones to increase validity. Fourth, she suggests that
researchers utilize peer examination, which involves asking colleagues to examine
48
interpretations and results as they emerge. This is similar to member checks, but instead
of subjects of the study reviewing findings, a researcher enlists the help of peer
academicians. Merriam’s (1998) fifth step encourages researchers to engage in
“Participatory or collaborative modes of research”, which calls for the utilization of case
study participants in all levels of study design and implementation from the beginning to
the final conclusions. Lastly, she suggests that internal validity can be increased if the
researcher clarifies and makes transparent his or her biases at the beginning of the study.
To increase internal validity, this case study utilized several of Merriam’s (1998)
suggestions. The researcher engaged in both peer examination and member checks
throughout the research by sharing non-confidential data with colleagues and study
participants to improve the accuracy of findings and quality of analysis. Member checks
were primarily utilized immediately after interviews and observations to provide context
to the data that was generated. Additionally, the researcher clarified his own biases in
this chapter prior to conducting the research. This case study utilized triangulation of data
through multiple methods of collection including interviews and document analysis. Due
to monetary and time considerations, long term observations were not possible, but the
researcher attempted to overcome this limitation through the utilization of member
checks. Finally, participatory modes of research were not utilized due to timing. The
study design was created prior to formal engagement with the institution being studied,
which prevented collaboration from the beginning of the research.
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External Validity
External validity is also problematic in case study research, and involves
discovering whether the study’s findings are generalizable beyond the original case being
examined (Yin, 2003). One way to increase external validity in case studies is to utilize
theory in developing single case studies. While the researcher utilized underlying
frameworks to guide this study, the results are still not generalizable beyond the original
setting. However, if future researchers replicate the original study in other settings, the
use of theory in the original single case will enhance future external validity.
Reliability
Reliability is concerned with minimizing biases and errors in the study (Yin,
2003). A study is reliable if it can be repeated and garner the same results. To create
reliability, authors must carefully document their methods so that future researchers can
repeat them. Retaining a case study protocol and database of research information
improves reliability. The researcher in this case study attempted to ensure, as Yin (2003)
suggests, that all research steps during the case study were as operationally transparent as
possible. This occurred through the use of the consent form (see Appendix B) which
explained to participants the purpose of the study, and through including the interview
protocol as an appendix in this document (see Appendix A). The inclusion of the
interview protocol allows other researchers to not only see which questions were asked to
generate data, but it also enables them replicate the study at a later time.
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Conclusion
This study examined the role of the leadership in internationalizing Land Grant
State University through various efforts and programs, and the challenges that the
leadership encountered through the lens of two distinct frameworks. This qualitative case
study utilized inductive reasoning to make meaning of the data and triangulated findings
through interviews and document analysis. Extensive efforts were undertaken to
maximize reliability and validity, and pseudonyms were utilized for both the university
and the individual’s names and titles who were involved in the study.
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CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS
This chapter presents findings from the qualitative case study utilizing the
narrative analytical approach. The data presented in this chapter are drawn from
interviews with key individuals and from collected documents which answer the research
questions. The collected data are analyzed, synthesized, and classified in the case study
narrative in an attempt to allow the reader access to a rich story involving the leadership
of Land Grant State University, their efforts toward internationalizing the university, and
the challenges they faced.
This chapter examines the case in four parts. First, an overview of the institution
is provided including an introduction, its history, internationalization offices, and key
individuals working on internationalization issues. Second, the first research question is
explored regarding the role of senior leadership in internationalizing the university. In
this section, the role of leadership is examined through themes of creating a major culture
shift through reframing the institution’s mission, building constituent support, and finally
creating and supporting initiatives. Third, the second research question regarding
challenges for leadership is explored through three themes including time, constituent
understanding and approval, and quality. This second research question focuses mainly
on the Middle East campus, while the first focuses more on broad internationalization
initiatives. Lastly, the chapter is concluded with a summary of findings.
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Overview of the Institution
As the researcher arrived at Land Grant State University, he was struck both by
the vastness of the campus and the remoteness of the small Midwest town in which it was
located. As with most land grant institutions, schools which focused on practical
application of knowledge, such as the School of Agriculture, dotted the campus landscape
prominently. Upon his arrival, the researcher received a schedule of whom he would be
interviewing from Mr. Arthur, the Vice President for Internationalization.
The researcher had previously discussed his interview preferences with Mr.
Arthur, and he had helped organize the interviews on the researcher’s behalf, along with
the help of his administrative assistant. The researcher spent three days on the Land
Grant State University campus and was warmly welcomed by everyone that the
researcher met. Each interview lasted between 30 and 80 minutes, depending on the time
allocated by the interviewee. The interview with Mr. Arthur was longer and consisted of
an initial interview and then a follow up interview the next day.
The researcher’s second meeting with Mr. Arthur focused more on the campus in
the Middle East, but the first interview was centered upon the university’s
internationalization efforts in general and his role in their implementation. Mr. Arthur
was generous in sharing documents related to internationalization and gave the researcher
access to two papers that he had written on the topic which are incorporated in this
chapter as part of the data being analyzed. At the conclusion of the second interview, Mr.
Arthur suggested that the researcher call him a few weeks later with additional questions
that had arisen after he had analyzed the data.
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The other interviews that the researcher conducted were with various members of
the Land Grant State University staff who served in widely disparate position levels from
Ms. Lancelot, the Associate Provost, down to a graduate student named Ms. Gareth who
was also working full time as the Assistant Director in the Office of Global Development.
In all cases the researcher received the sense that the individuals were responding in a
candid fashion and that they were not opposed to offering honest opinions about the
institution or other individuals serving in positions which supervised their own work.
Because this case study examined individuals in positions of leadership, the researcher
found emergent lines of questioning evolving around entry and mid-level employee
perception of senior leadership roles and actions. While all interviews are included to
some extent in the analysis, the interviews with senior leaders (Vice President Arthur in
particular) contained more viable data as these individuals have the largest amount of
influence in the university’s internationalization efforts. Also, the questions were
structured in such a way that they were most applicable to responses from individuals in
positions of senior leadership at the university.
History of the University & Its Internationalization Efforts
Armstrong suggests that “Most institutions of higher education were created in
response to local needs, typically with funding from individuals of the area or local
(state) government” and uses this as a basis for arguing why these institutions have been
impacted so little by the forces of globalization. While it is true that Land Grant State
University was created in this way, it appears that a shift in institutional priorities began
occurring in the mid 1900s.
54
Land Grant State University was created as part of the Morill Act, which was
signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 (Rudolph, 1990). Like its
contemporary institutions created in this manner, Land Grant State University has
historically sought to serve the state in which it resides. The university has done so since
its inception, and provides many programs and services which are focused on improving
the local and state wide community.
The university also has an extensive history of international engagement dating
back sixty years when the then president of the institution, Mr. Excalibur, set the stage for
future internationalization efforts. Mr. Arthur explains this when he indicates:
I think the fact that LGSU first engaged sixty years ago heavily internationally
was because of the leadership message by the legendary, then president, John
Excalibur. He stood up in the middle of the 1950’s and said to university
audiences and people in our state, Land Grant State University is a resource for
the people in our state, and also to the United States and for the world.
The involvement internationally in the 1960’s mainly involved the continent of
Africa and focused on the development of agricultural programs and community
development issues. This fact was confirmed by Mr. Gaheris, the Director of the Center
for Global Agriculture, who said:
It was during that period when Land Grant State University grew quite rapidly
and took on a focus on international programs and we were at that period moved
into major contracts in Africa, places like Nigeria. This was back in the 1960’s
and John Excalibur just had a vision for international engagement and really
changed who LGSU is and was back then.
These efforts internationally led the university to develop an internal structure for
supporting internationalization efforts. This early development of a structure is a key
supporting feature of the university and may be a significant reason why Land Grant
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State University is successful in its internationalization efforts in the present day. Mr.
Arthur suggested that the basic organization of the international studies and programs
office was in place in the mid to late 1970s, and even at this point the institution had a
broad commitment to internationalization. Furthermore, he described how this structure
has helped the university’s present efforts when he explained his ideas as to why many
other universities get into problematic situations structurally. He indicated that because
Land Grant State University already had a structure in place, they did not need to create
one. Additionally they were not faced with the dilemma of choosing a centralized or
decentralized structure. Mr. Arthur suggested that the decision to focus on one or the
other was “a false dichotomy” and indicated that institutions “really need some
centralized services and leadership” but also they need “decentralized support structures
down low where the work gets done” to complement the centralized structure.
It appears that the basic structure was in place and current internationalization
efforts have been aided by the framework created by previous organizational efforts.
Furthermore, Mr. Arthur appears to be utilizing the structural frame of leadership
outlined in the frames of leadership theoretical framework to analyze institutional needs
(Bolman & Deal, 2003).
Programs/Efforts toward Internationalization
Ms. Nimue, Director for the Office of Global Development, illustrated one of the
reasons behind increasing internationalization efforts when she stated that:
On a global scale, health has no boundaries. Disease has no boundaries.
Economic crisis has no boundaries. All of the challenges we’re facing today
in the world, if we’re looking at situations related to drought and access to,
you know, look at the food crisis. The students of tomorrow, or the students
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that we’re training to meet the challenges, from the business sector and the
NGO-sector, and education sector need to be aware of the broader context, so
I would suggest the Global Grant name means that Land Grant State
University is and will be engaged with its strategic partners as we look for
solutions to the challenges of tomorrow.
Thus, a major impact of globalization on the university appears to be that university
leadership is becoming increasingly cognizant of the similarity between domestic
problems and problems abroad, and their ability to apply tested domestic solutions to
challenges facing individuals and communities in international settings. In the case of a
land grant institution, the pragmatic application of research in the state leads directly to
the ability to assist others with similar problems in other countries.
Currently, the university has a substantial framework supporting its
internationalization efforts. Structurally, at the departmental level Land Grant State
University’s leadership has devoted a vast amount of resources toward individual support
units which expand the academic mission of the university. While the total quantity of
programs does not reflect the individual quality of each program, it does give one
indication of an institution’s commitment to supporting its goals.
At present, the university boasts seven major departments with a global presence,
twelve student/scholar support units, six thematic international institutes, five language
study units, and five area study centers (Land Grant State University Website, 2009).
Examples of the global presence departments include the Middle East campus and the
study abroad program. Examples of the scholar support units include the International
Students and Scholars Office and the China Programs Office. Examples of the thematic
international institutes include the Office for Women in International Development and
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the International Institute on Agriculture. The language study units span several
academic units focused on non English languages as well as including an English
language center for non native speakers. Finally, the area study centers include offices
focusing on large regions such as Canada, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and others.
The volume and depth of these programs are quite large, as is the history of the
developmental efforts themselves. The university’s multifaceted approach to
internationalization is vast, deep, and spans decades. It appears that the university’s
historical and relatively long standing practice of international involvement has assisted
the institution in expanding its internationalization efforts by providing a solid base,
reputation, and organizational culture from which to draw upon. Most probably, this
benefit is realized through the staff and faculty who are, in many cases, highly motivated
to engage in and initiate internationalization efforts on campus and abroad. This fact is
recognized by Ms. Lancelot, the Executive Associate Provost who explains:
The international efforts on this campus do not emanate in one place and then
try to talk people into going along. They really are from across the campus,
and then people go to Global Studies and Programs and say could you help me
with this could you help me with that. They certainly have initiated important
things, and I don’t want to take that from them, but if all we did was follow GSP,
it would look like a lot of other places. The distinctiveness of this place is how
embedded internationalization is across the campus, right down to student support
services.
Individuals that are Forwarding Internationalization Efforts
Twelve people were interviewed, and these individuals were all university staff or
faculty at various levels of the organization. A table of those interviewed with their
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names (pseudonyms), and titles (pseudonyms) can be found in Table 1 as well as in
Appendix C.
Table 1
Interview Data Table
Position Title (Pseudonym) Name (Pseudonym)
Vice President for Internationalization Mr. Arthur
Assistant Dean of the Global Studies Program Mr. Bedvidere
Vice Dean of the College of Agriculture and Conservation Studies Mr. Merlin
Director for the Office of Global Development Ms. Nimue
Assistant Director for the Office of Global Development Ms. Gareth
Director of the Center for Earth Change and Observation Mr. Gawain
Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Activities in Academia Mr. Perceval
Coordinator for Creative Technology Implementation Ms. Guinevere
Associate Dean for Graduate Academic Affairs Mr. Galahad
Executive Associate Provost Ms. Lancelot
Director of the Center for Global Agriculture Mr. Gaheris
While there are additional leaders at the university who work on internationalization
issues that were not interviewed, this group represents a broad cross section from many
different offices.
Interestingly, Mr. Arthur’s position, which serves as a major member of the
university’s senior level leadership team, is a relatively recently created position.
“Reporting directly to the President, Vice President Arthur said his job entails thinking
long-term about the university's strategic position” (Student Newspaper, Land Grant State
University 2007). The creation of the Vice President for Internationalization position
occurred after Mr. Arthur served as the Dean for International Services for approximately
ten years. Previously, the Vice President position did not exist, and it was a shift in the
university’s structure. When asked about what brought about the position creation, Mr.
Arthur indicated that “there is a huge operational component of that old position, day in
59
and day out” and that the new position was more focused on “thinking about larger scale
issues.”
He suggested that in his current role he regularly considers “Where is the
university headed internationally in the next five, eight, ten years? What major sort of
systems or reorientations do we need to consider on campus to accommodate that?”
During the interview he gave the specific example of dealing with the issue of internal
auditing on the Middle East campus in a proactive manner.
In addition to the freedom to address larger scale issues and be removed from day
to day operational issues, the new position also carries with it the increased position
power and title of Vice President. The creation of a Vice Presidential level position
focused solely on internationalization efforts also demonstrates a clear commitment to
global engagement on behalf of the university through its allocation of resources.
Structural, political, and potentially even symbolic areas of Bolman & Deal’s (2003)
framework are utilized in leading and implementing the creation of this position.
Additionally, the position focus on long term strategy indicates a proactive view towards
the future of internationalization and runs parallel with the National Association of State
Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) publication on the president’s role of
internationalizing a university (2004). This NASULGC document suggests that
internationalization of land grant institutions will involve shattering reporting structures
and redefining roles to create pervasive and impactful long term change in land grant
institutions. Finally, the depth of the international programs and offices indicates that
Mr. Arthur may indeed be aided structurally by his relatively newly created position.
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The Research Questions
Introduction
Both the document analysis and the interviews conducted were based upon the
following research questions:
Research Question #1
What is the role of the senior leadership in a public research university in the
development and implementation of internationalization initiatives both inside and
outside the boundaries of the United States?
Research Question #2
What are the challenges for public research universities in creating and
facilitating initiatives which expand and magnify the university’s presence in the global
arena?
The remainder of chapter four focuses on the findings of the interviews and
document analysis and is organized around the research questions, emergent themes, and
the analysis frameworks of Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership
(Bolman & Deal, 2003) and Armstrong (2007). As previously mentioned, the analysis of
research question one focuses on broad international initiatives, while research question
two focuses more on the Middle East campus specifically.
Research Question One: The Role of the Senior Leadership - Changing the Culture
toward Internationalization
At its core, it appears that the main role of senior leadership attempting to
implement internationalization initiatives involves changing the culture of the institution.
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This culture change, if successful, will be deep, broad, and focus on both long term
initiatives and day to day operations. Furthermore, this culture change seeks to refocus
the institutional mission, the perceptions and level of “buy in” from constituents, and the
day to day practices involving internationalization efforts.
Based upon this case study, it appears that senior leaders at Land Grant State
University engaging in this type of change benefit from engaging in all four frames of
leadership suggested by Bolman and Deal (2003). While my findings are constrained
somewhat by the scope of the analysis framework being utilized, this framework does
suggest the benefits of the use of multiple leadership frames. The roles of these leaders
are characterized by their effective use of these frames on a daily basis. Mr. Arthur
demonstrates this utility indirectly in his description of what he terms “The Pivotal Role
of Senior Leadership” in an unpublished document where he states:
Senior Institution leadership sets directions with respect to mission and scope,
expectations of who contributes, prioritizing responses to external constituencies
and shaping motivations. Senior leadership ‘leads’ answers to questions of the
scope of campus internationalization, including who is expected to contribute and
the impacts of outcomes intended. The ‘doing’ of internationalization resides
with faculty, administrators, students, and staff. Setting directions is only that (a
direction with no movement) unless senior leadership find the means to support
the doing of the international agenda, find the way to engage motivate and reward
all who are expected to play a role, and establish a climate that supports the
creativity of faculty and students to ‘operationalize’ the meaning of institutional
international engagement (Vice President for Internalization, 2007).
Mr. Arthur’s statement exemplifies the need to lead constituents on all four levels,
because it requires structuring, motivating, knowing who to motivate, and knowing how
to reward others for their impact on propelling the institution forward in its
internationalization efforts.
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Why Reframe the Institutional Mission?
Armstrong’s (2007) framework was utilized to identify that Land Grant State
University was in fact succeeding on multiple levels as an internationalized university
while many others were failing to meet criteria laid out in his framework. Land Grant
State University is an outlier compared to many other post secondary educational
institutions with respect to its internationalization efforts in response to the forces of
globalization. The university has been the first to successfully open a campus
internationally in a specific area of the Middle East where no others have succeeded.
According to Armstrong, these types of activities are rare among institutions of post
secondary education and that “this approach does potentially signal the beginning of a
fundamental reconceptualization of the traditional place-based concept of the university”
(2007, p. 3).
With respect to institutional missions and globalization, Armstrong (2007)
suggests that:
The greatest difficulty individual institutions face in creating a strategy for
globalization is in clearly understanding why they want to globalize. A key
component of this process is developing a sharper understanding of the
institution’s own mission, especially in so far as it relates to the characteristics of
the students that it seeks to educate. For most institutions, understanding of its
mission is generally based primarily on its history- characteristics of its location,
traditional funders, and available pools of students who could be convinced to
come to the institution’s location to study. The mission generally has grown over
time by evolution, not direction. Successful globalization will require a quantum
leap in understanding of mission, however, because it demands that the institution
look beyond the limitations of space and geography and history that have formed
and “boxed in” the mission of today (p. 8).
Based upon Armstrong’s requirements, it appears that Land Grant State University is
succeeding in its greatest globalization related challenge.
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As discussed in the history section of this dissertation, Land Grant State
University began shifting its focus from purely state located activities in the mid 1900’s.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the shift from localized activities does not mean a
shift away from serving the constituents in the state. In fact, one could argue that the
shift toward internationalization is spurred on by the fact that the institution is focused on
serving the state in which it resides. If the leadership of the institution feels that the state
is best served, for example, by expanding the state’s knowledge, services, and products to
international markets, then internationalization makes sense and is viewed as beneficial
and even necessary.
Mr. Arthur suggested that the state’s dried fruit producers (who have ties to the
university) have found international markets for their products globally through their
interactions with the university. Similarly, Mr. Gaheris suggests that another agricultural
growth opportunity was created when he says “we have these great distribution networks
we’re freezing blueberries for, through, you know, the rest of the year what they’ve done
now is develop an alliance with Chilean producers, so that we have counter seasonal
supply of blueberries that come through our channel.” These are current examples that
fall in to Armstrong’s (2007) framework where he suggests that post secondary
educational institutions will follow the corporate model of becoming global to find
markets outside their home country and provide sustainable avenues of fiscal income.
These examples also demonstrate a possible avenue to generate support for
internationalization from the local population. If the leadership can demonstrate that
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resources spent outside the state can ultimately benefit those in the state, such as farmers,
then those same individuals will see these resources as well spent.
Another example is the need for students in the state to get exposure to, training
about, or contacts from a globalized world outside the state. If the university leadership
sees this as imperative, then expanding internationally is in fact serving the local
constituents. This seems to be the case at Land Grant State University, and Mr. Arthur
explains that “You can’t pretend to be graduating an educated student if they don’t know
much about what’s going on outside our borders. They are not educated for a twenty-first
century environment.” So another reason the institution is expanding internationally is
the perception that its students will be better off for having interacted with others through
its internationalization initiatives. These interactions could occur directly through travel
abroad or indirectly through interaction with international students or faculty involved in
research on a global scale.
Shift from Land Grant to Global Grant (Pseudonym) Name
Mr. Merlin, the Vice Dean of the College of Agriculture and Conservation
Studies, described Land Grant State University with pride when he explained:
A lot of the work that we do is directly related to development. What I mean
by that is, the express purpose of the projects is to improve people’s lives.
To enhance economic opportunity, address issues of justice, create capacity
or opportunities for women, focus on environmental degradation, those kinds
of things. It’s development. I’m very proud of that and I would argue that one of
the things that I think distinguishes and should distinguish the Land Grant system
from other places.
His description highlights not only the nature of land grant institutions, but also the
efforts of Land Grant State University internationally. Executive Associate Provost
Lancelot suggests that internationalization and the shift to the global grant name:
65
had everything to do with the land grant values. There is a sense in this place
that if you talk to faculty, not everybody, but if you interviewed 100 people,
before long you would begin to hear things like ‘Our mission in this place is
to improve the quality of life, to expand access, to, we’re the voice to people
who don’t have a voice.’ We are all about doing research that changes the lives of
people. We’re all about sharing what we know in ways that are useful and
practical. We’re all about doing stuff that really changes the way people live. So,
that if those are the values of the institution, and they are the values of land grant
places, that’s how they started, then I think it’s a pretty short leap from doing it in
our state to seeing it in places in South Africa where people couldn’t grow food,
and saying you know what, we know these places all started as agricultural
schools. We know how to increase that soybean crop.
Her outline of the “short leap” explains one reason why the university has been able to
accomplish so much with respect to internationalization; the framework of its land grant
history was already in place.
For about five years, Land Grant State University has been referring to itself as a
“global grant” university, a shift from the previous land grant moniker. To be clear, this
shift in title is an expansion of responsibility and opportunity, and does not remove any
responsibility the institution has to serve its state population. In fact, as previously
indicated, this shift may just be an indication of serving the state populace in a different
and arguably more effective way. It also reaffirms the institutional history of helping
those who need it internationally, which began in Africa sixty years ago. Mr. Arthur
indicated that his opinion of the meaning behind the “global grant” concept was to
internationalize all of the institution’s missions. So in essence, the renaming was a
confirmation and shift to recognizing that all aspects of the university should be tied to
internationalization. Mr. Merlin indicates that he feels it was not truly a shift, but instead
“Global Grant was nothing more than simply saying, we’re known for something, how
can we further that cause?” This statement suggests that the leadership reframed the
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institution symbolically and politically utilizing Bolman and Deal’s (2003) concept of
reframing. Ms. Lancelot indicates “I would reiterate, I don’t think it’s a shift at all. I
think it’s a very natural evolution,” which suggests that the institution’s past is impacting
the switch in name.
It appears that Land Grant State University’s extensive international history has
shaped its constituents’ understanding of the new name in interesting ways. When asked
about the decision to shift focus from the traditional land grant model toward the “global
grant” model, several individuals commented that they saw the shift being symbolic in
nature. Mr. Bedvidere, the Assistant Dean of the Global Studies Program, suggested that
the shift was simply:
A continuation of a long-standing tradition which is, Land Grant State
University faculty, students, etc. having interests in things international that
goes back many decades. This transition that you described to “global grant”, I
would look at more as a continuation in the context of more of intensification or
renewed set of efforts to continue that tradition.
This position was echoed by Mr. Galahad, Associate Dean for Graduate Academic
Affairs, who suggested that:
There has always been this self-imposed mission to be international and I think it
probably reflects several presidents that shared that view and it has not been an
abrupt redefinition of the mission. Even though we started as a land grant
university with the mission of primarily serving the local society, there was
always an international mission in there and a lot of connections with the
developing world.
Some administrators even saw the shift to a “global grant” as recognition of the
university’s historic internationalization efforts. There is some evidence to suggest that a
member of the administration at a lower level of position power is struggling with the
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implementation of the shift to the “global grant” university mantra. Ms. Gareth indicated,
with respect to the shift, that:
I think our mindset started changing of what that means and how is it that we
will conduct ourselves and I think we’re very much still wrestling with that. I
don’t think we’ve formulated an identity yet. We don’t know what to let go
of, of our land grant history, we don’t know what we should hang on to and
take forward and apply to a ‘global grant’ vision.
While there is some discrepancy in the conceptualization of what it means to be a
“global grant”, the leadership in the institution is clear about what the concept refers to,
and this is echoed in the university mission statement. The mission statement
incorporates globalization into its three core elements, which are providing a quality
education that creates internationally engaged leaders, conducting research that makes a
positive impact locally and globally, and finally engaging in outreach and economic
development activities which increase individual quality of life at home and
internationally (Land Grant State University Website, 2009).
The symbolic frame stands out as a major incorporated element of Land Grant
State University’s internationalization efforts. The current president of the university has
been referring to the university as a “global grant” institution for approximately five
years and this reference has symbolically impacted the faculty and staff of the university
on many levels. Mr. Arthur commented that a key role of leadership was to ensure that
there was a “clear message that this is a road we’re going down and secondly, the
message is delivered at almost every opportunity the president or the provost has to
deliver it”. This sentiment is echoed in internal institutional documents in which Mr.
Arthur stresses that a prerequisite for university internationalization is having a “clear and
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consistent message from the top (President to Provost) touting an institutional
commitment to internationalization” and that “staying on message is essential” (Vice
President for Internationalization, 2007).
Building Constituent (Faculty/Student/Staff/Taxpayer) Consensus/Support
Building constituent support for internationalization is a key part of changing the
culture of the institution for senior leaders. Constituents include faculty, university
committees, staff members, students, and because of the land grant nature of the
university, state taxpayers and government officials. Identifying ways to engage
constituents in providing input to internationalization efforts is central to overcoming
resistance, and this notion is confirmed by the works of Robbins (2003) and Kotter
(1996), outlined in Chapter Two of this dissertation. While building constituent support
is a key function of the role of senior leadership seeking to internationalize, in the case of
Land Grant State University, it is also major challenge. The challenges associated with
this key area will be addressed directly in the analysis of research question two later in
this chapter. The following section seeks to explore the role of senior leadership and
their attempts at garnering support for internationalization from constituents.
The political frame posited by Bolman and Deal (2003) requires leaders to
understand and utilize power and conflict within an organization to reach goals. Mr.
Arthur noted, when beginning global initiatives, that “the question is, where are the
faculty on this? And if they’re not involved in the process, and supporting it, more in a
support role than a lead role, initially, it’s going to get no place.” This statement suggests
that he has a clear perception of the need to engage individuals with power in the
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university setting to accomplish goals. This need to engage individuals with power also
applies to those constituents who exist outside of the institution itself.
When speaking about outside influences on the university’s internationalization
efforts, Mr. Arthur shared that “you have to be careful about people seeing this activity as
exporting jobs and treasure, as opposed to creating opportunities for jobs and treasures
flowing into the Midwestern United States.” Furthermore, he also suggested that creating
an understanding among outside constituents, particularly in a lard grant setting, is
crucial, when he explained “I think most people will intuitively understand that if you’re
not engaged in global trade, global dialogue, global partnerships, you can’t benefit in any
way from them.” This statement clearly suggests that understanding motivation and the
origination of conflict both inside and outside of a university setting is important when
the university is involved in internationalization efforts. Mr. Arthur also suggests that
taxpayers in the state “see this, from an educational point of view. If you don’t do this for
my kid, they’re not going to be competitive and if you don’t figure out how to make
connections for elsewhere for us, we don’t stand a chance in this global environment.” In
sum, the senior leadership is operating under the assumption that the taxpayers of the
state understand the benefits of internationalization.
Symbolic leadership (Bolman & Deal, 2003) was viewed by Mr. Arthur as crucial
to building support, particular with faculty, and he suggests:
Symbolic leadership coming from key people is important. Then the
question is, where is the academic governance and the faculty (on the issue)?
I think it’s pretty unusual for faculty governance structures to, I don’t know
an example but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, that’s why I say pretty
unusual, for faculty governance structures and faculty groups to be leading a
charge on internationalization. You got faculty who do international things
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who will be out on their soapbox all the time saying, we’ve got to do more
international but that’s like Mathematics folks who say, we need to do more
mathematics.
Mr. Arthur’s views confirm the need for senior leaders to use the symbolic frame when
garnering support and to continually project the message to constituents. Specifically,
Mr. Arthur suggests that senior leadership must be repeatedly and consistently tout an
institutional commitment to internationalization (Vice President for Internationalization,
2007).
Middle East Campus. The Middle East campus in particular seemed to be a
difficult area for Mr. Arthur to garner full support from the university’s constituents.
When speaking about the current situation of the Middle East campus beginning its first
year if operation he argued:
People who work in a very stable and bureaucratically well defined
environment find that the ambiguities and the constant change and the
constant learning and the constant surprises of a start-up a lot of times to be
intolerable. And, as I said to folks on campus in the advisory groups and the
rest of it, over the nine month period of start-up – I said this frequently on
purpose just to remind folks, I said, if you have a low tolerance for ambiguity,
find yourself another project.
Mr. Merlin, Vice Dean of the College of Agriculture and Conservation Studies, analyzed
the president’s decision to position the university in the Middle East, and the need to gain
support and understanding from constituents for it, in the following way:
The issue is, how can the president as an executive promulgate that and get
others, including the board, the public, faculty and the rest of the administration to
see that? Part of it was we’re going to do it anyway, I mean, just no question
about that. So then that kicks in senior leadership, like myself, other deans,
department chairs may or may not be senior leadership, to essentially be loyal
soldiers. To now take what has been mandated by central administration, that
division of senior leadership, to, to move forward and to make something a
reality. And that’s our obligation. So I think, the way in which I would frame this
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at Land Grant State University would be this really is a presidential initiative that
has been delegated to one of the Vice Presidents, Mr. Arthur, to frame, focus and
implement. There was enough general interest campus-wide so that it wasn’t just
a president and a Vice President going off by themselves but there really was not
campus-wide discussion.
So Mr. Merlin, as a senior faculty member of the university involved in the
internationalization efforts of opening the Middle East Campus, understands the need to
serve the president’s wishes after a decision has been made. His perception appears to be
that internationalization is successful due to campus wide interest and not due to a large
amount of input that constituents were afforded. This perception suggests that while
consensus may have been built for other internationalization efforts the university is
engaged in, this was not the case for the new campus abroad.
Mr. Arthur sees the situation quite differently and claims that input on the campus
was solicited and received; he explains:
There was full consultation with the academic governance on this. We went
to Curriculum Committee, the Academic Policies Committee, Deans were told
that they had to go to their College Advisory Councils, and to the extent that they
need to, their College Curriculum Committees to have a discussion about this
before the plug was pulled. At the university level, this was discussed in
Academic Faculty Council which is equivalent to Faculty Senate. So there was a
lot of consultation on this, now folks who want to argue that this was top down,
may want to do so because they have decided that they don’t want to be there and
they don’t think we should be there. You can never have anything like this which
represents an institutional commitment be bottom-up.
These contrasting quotes suggest that there may be disagreement on solicitation of
input between upper administration and faculty leaders. Shortly after commenting on this
issue, Mr. Arthur defended his statement by suggesting “That’s why we went to
Academic Policies and the Curriculum Committee and the rest of them, I think advice
and consultation and open discussion is critical but don’t confuse that with taking a vote
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or making sure you have everybody on board before you do anything.” While the
researcher was unable to find documents to support Arthur’s claim, it seems then that a
balance is needed to move more forward, one that seeks input and utilizes it, but does not
allow input to be confused with veto power.
Data related to the leadership utilizing the human resource frame (Bolman &
Deal, 2003) was found in several areas of the internationalization efforts. The Vice
President for Internationalization proclaimed that “if the intention is that
internationalization be a pervasive institutional phenomenon” then “institutional
recognition and rewards for units that contribute significantly to internationalization” are
a prerequisite (Vice President for Internationalization, 2007, p. 2). Additionally, the Vice
President indicates that other prerequisites include “merit recognition systems that reward
internationally engaged faculty and staff in promotion, tenure, and salary increases”, and
“flexibility in faculty and staff assignments to accommodate their being abroad for short
periods and less frequently for long periods” (2007, p. 3). It seems clear from these
statements that the leadership utilizes the human resource frame when seeking to
internationalize the university through building constituent support.
Creating and Supporting Internationalization Initiatives
The researcher spoke with Ms. Gareth, a staff member who is also a graduate
student, about her views on the role of senior leadership in supporting internationalization
initiatives at the university. She exclaimed quite strongly that:
I think the senior administrator’s job is much more focused here at home…to
tell the story and what do I need to be doing with potential donors and alumni
to facilitate that…But this notion of let’s jet around and charter planes and
spend a whole lot of money and roll out the red carpet and take these
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administrators to all parts of the world doesn’t seem of very great value to me
because the relationship is not with those people. At that point in time I really
think that the relationship is between the faculty member and their partnerships in
country. And we can do all this happy crap of signing linkage agreements with
other institutions and everything else but, you know what, it’s a piece of paper
and two file cabinets – our file cabinet and the, our linked partner, their file
cabinet. That piece of paper does not make anything happen.
Her sentiments, while somewhat critical of upper administration, also echo the
notion that these same administrators have the ability to benefit the institution by
supporting what faculty and staff members do on a day to day basis through enabling
their good efforts by funding and institutional support.
The next section highlights promising practices that the researcher found being
implemented at Land Grant State University. While the researcher can not attest to their
impact longitudinally, these efforts appear from his vantage point to be novel at worst,
and at best what Lloyd Armstrong refers to as activities which go beyond the traditional
higher educational model and that “potentially signal the beginning of a fundamental
reconceptualization of the traditional place –based connect of the university” (2007, p. 3).
Creating a structure that supports and encourages these internationalization initiatives,
particularly those initiatives which are novel, demonstrates that senior leadership at the
university are engaged in utilizing the structural frame of leadership presented by Bolman
and Deal (2003).
Promising/Novel Practices
Middle East Campus. The Middle East campus in particular stands out in
Armstrong’s framework as a novel approach to internationalization that does not fit in
what he describes as the traditional hub and spoke model response to globalization
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(2007). Mr. Merlin, a prominent faculty member who served on leadership committees
that worked on opening the Middle East campus suggested that:
The president, as senior leader, basically concluded we need to have an
institutional presence in the Middle East. We have not been there. We need
to be there more significantly. The president identified the specific location
as the place for a variety of reasons. And, it was not the first place to be looked
at. But it became the place now. So that is an executive decision.
Mr. Merlin’s position suggests that the current president analyzed where Land Grant
State University was missing a presence in the world and concluded that the institution
needed to expand into the Middle East. This strategic decision, to create a separate
campus outside the borders of not only the state, but the United States itself, is rare
among institutions of higher education. Additionally, the requirements set out by Mr.
Arthur prior to the endeavor allow for a high degree of control by the home university.
These requirements are listed in the table below and are drawn from a document supplied
by Mr. Arthur (Vice President for Internationalization of Land Grant State University,
2008, p.5)
Necessary Prerequisites
• Full LGSU control over academic programs
• Comparable to main campus in terms of program quality, requirements, and
standards
• Opportunities for teaching, research, and engagement
• Preserve LGSU’s core values and inclusivity
• Place no home campus resources at risk
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The Middle East campus is finishing its first year of operation and has faced
mixed success in student recruitment and retention levels. A major goal that has been
met for the university, however, is the president’s vision of creating an institutional
presence in a part of the world where the university previously had none.
Professor dual appointment. Another novel internationalization endeavor that the
university is engaged in involves a joint effort with Sun Tzu University (pseudonym) in
Hangzhou, China. This initiative involves a joint appointment of a faculty member that
serves half time in each university. While the tenure process is completely controlled by
Land Grant State University, the salary of this faculty member is a totally collaborative
effort with each university splitting the cost equally. Mr. Gawain will be supervising the
faculty member in this position and he explained:
The faculty will spend fifty-percent of their time in Hangzhou to teach, and then
to conduct research, most importantly, what they want this person to do is to
really bridge the gaps. How you can bring your teaching style, the teaching
philosophy, research to Sun Tzu University and vice-versa. How you, any
advantages you see here and Sun Tzu University, do we, they can bring back to
Land Grant State University, so you understand the two systems better and also
you are bringing, you are mixing the good things, you know. And this person will
be evaluated, not only based on the research productivity as well as teaching
courses, but also how this person will be bring these two together and how this
person getting the faculty engaged in discussing future projects, future
development like courses.
Mr. Gawain was very enthusiastic about the possibilities of the position and the doors
that it may open for future positions of this nature once it is proven to be successful.
Additionally, he indicated that he has not heard of this being done at any other institution
in the United States.
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Use of Open Education Resources. Another interesting initiative at Land Grant
State University has its basis in their land grant mission of helping the community. The
office working with the initiative is called the Center for Entrepreneurial Activities in
Academia and Mr. Percival and Ms. Guinevere clarified how their work is impacting
global communities. In essence, the office works with a system referred to as Open
Educational Resources, which is a process that allows faculty to share their work with
others for free. Mr. Percival explained that he works to provide:
Digital quality content, whether it’s course materials from university level, lesson
plans, or learning resources and opening it up with a license that allows people to
reuse it, or repurpose it and localize it in an open and free way. What that entails
is that, by opening up this content, it allows people in developing countries or
students or self-learners or other instructors to utilize that content in a way that it
brings value and they localize it to whatever their immediate audience is. What
we do is as we’re talking to a faculty or other constituents, is we open up that
aspect…You have this product, you have this content, would you be open to
perhaps licensing it in a way that makes it available for others to use and
therefore, broadening the scope or the dissemination of their, of their work. I
think that that is definitely a global context and especially with some of our
projects, we are hoping to create open educational resources for our programs in
Africa and India, and so that people all over the world have access to quality
information.
Mr. Percival went on to explain that the content that they provide to others comes
with an agreement that if one utilizes it and improves upon it, they must share back the
information. This improvement could be as simple as translating the information in to
another language. This “share back” allows the content to continually grow and be more
valuable to the global community. Because this is all provided free to communities, there
is no monetary gain. The university does gain, however, from the reputation building
nature of sharing free and novel information to local, national, and global communities.
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“Global Encounters.” Ms. Lancelot, the Executive Associate Provost, shared with
me a final and relatively effortless initiative which the university engaged in that
involved bringing students, faculty, and staff together. These meetings were called
“Global Encounters” and they involved pulling everyone together affiliated with the
university who had an interest in a specific part of the globe to discuss how they could
assist one another and facilitate each other’s success.
These encounters lasted approximately a day each and several of them have
occurred at the university – each focused on a different area of the world. While Ms.
Lancelot did not discuss utilizing alumni in the meetings, one could make the argument
that alumni constituents could easily be integrated into the program. Because of the ease
in which this initiative could be implemented at other institutions, this novel practice
stood out as the accessible initiative that other universities could consider applying in
their own setting.
Research Question Two: Challenges Facing Senior Leadership
The challenges facing the senior leaders at Land Grant State University in their
attempts to internationalize are many. This section outlines the most prominent of those
challenges, and focuses mainly on issues facing the Middle East campus. This focus
arose from the responses to interviews and from the documents reviewed. While there is
some overlap from the previous section, particularly with respect to obtaining constituent
support, this section will focus mainly on challenges faced. The themes that arose in this
section include time, constituent understanding and approval, and quality. While these
themes are not all encompassing, they do paint an in depth picture of the challenges
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facing the leadership in their attempts to internationalize the university, and more
specifically, ensure the success of the Middle East campus.
Time
“Middle East time.” One major challenge includes nimbleness of response to
international issues. An example of a problem in this area occurred on the Middle East
Campus. One reoccurring issue mentioned by the Vice President for Internationalization
was the idea of “Middle East Time.” When he mentioned this concept, he was not
referring to actual time differences between campuses, but instead the idea that each
campus operated, or needed to operate, at different speeds. This issue was exacerbated
by the fact that the Middle East campus was still in its first year of operation, and the
home campus is significantly larger and older. The Middle East campus operated on a
much quicker “Middle East Time” than the main campus and this fact created challenges
for the leadership overseeing internationalization efforts. Specifically, the timeline for
turning around information moved much more quickly abroad than on the domestic
campus. The Vice President for Internationalization indicated that:
It was important to get established and to behave in Middle East time rather
than in American higher education time. Middle East time usually has days
associated with it and American higher education time usually has centuries
associated with it to get anything done.
One of the obstacles faced by the senior leadership with respect to the Middle
East campus was timely response from people on the domestic campus. The Vice
President for Internationalization explained how he overcame this problem by saying to
those he was working with:
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I need your input on this. I need it by tomorrow. Uh, well, I can’t give it to
you by tomorrow. I’d say, we’ll I have to have it tomorrow so I’ll go ahead
without you, if you can get something for me, please do. Mostly, that led most
people to put in their two cents worth and I would get what I need. It only took a
couple, three times for me to move forward without someone’s input and I said,
I’m on Middle East time, I’m not on your clock. Okay? And, that began to
change.
In a sense, his strategy was to deny others input into decisions until they began to operate
on his time table, which appears to have modified the structure of how others respond to
him. The problem of timely response seems to extend beyond the Middle East campus to
the institution as a whole, and Ms. Gareth confirmed this notion by commenting that:
Many universities are not structured in a way that other businesses are.
They’re not structured in the same way federal agencies are and when there
are opportunities that come up for this office to move the institution into the
limelight and really capitalize on its strengths, we, we can’t turn it around fast
enough.
Her thoughts illustrate a problem she faces in her office, and suggest other schools face
the same problem. These thoughts complement Armstrong’s (2007) notion of the
difference in response to the forces of globalization between institutions of post
secondary education and the transnational business community.
At the same time, one of the prerequisites for opening the Middle East Campus
was that it would need to be “comparable to the main campus in terms of program
quality, requirements, and standards” (Vice President for Internationalization, 2008, p. 5).
So the institution is faced with an interesting dilemma with regard to the international
campus. They are seeking to maintain the same standards as the domestic campus, but to
increase the response time on issues and to constituents such as investors abroad and
students. The question then becomes, does having a different response time on one
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campus translate into having differing standards? Closely tied to organizational
nimbleness is the need to modify processes to meet the goal of timely response.
Changing home processes to function effectively abroad. The structural role of
senior leadership with respect to the newly created overseas campus seems to be creating
a sound structure that does not overestimate the need for services. Mr. Arthur spoke
about the fact that:
The danger in this kind of operation is that people here use a Land
Grant State University mega concept for what things ought to look like in the
Middle East. If you try to staff all the positions that you have on this campus
there, we would have been financially under in the first day.
A goal of the senior leadership then seems to be both reducing resources
comparatively to the main campus, yet increasing organizational agility to respond
abroad. Interestingly, while staffing resources were quite small in terms of numbers on
the international campus, the staff and faculty ratio per student far exceeded the home
campus. The challenge of leadership appeared to be having to constantly educate
individuals and groups on the main campus of the differing structural needs of the
international campus.
One issue that serves to prohibit a timely response is the fact that home policies
and procedures are oriented to serve the local population and not global constituents. Mr.
Arthur suggested that:
Like any other large university we’re a big bureaucracy and, like most large
universities, some of our rules and regulations, procedures have been
designed to be responsive to the local situation. And, it’s very difficult in the
face of almost any argument you could make that ought to force a change to
get folks to think out of the box and behave differently on some of the
procedures.
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An acute representation of this issue can be found in an examination of the
admissions processes for the Middle East campus. At the start, senior leaders had to
work extensively with the home office of admissions to suggest that home procedures
may not work in international settings, or at the very least, these local procedures may
detract from the overarching goal of successfully internationalizing the university. Mr.
Arthur reports:
I’ve had some challenges in trying to get our admissions people here on
campus to stop thinking about admitting international students to the
domestic campus and thinking about the fact that really what they’re doing is
engaged in admitting students to the LGSU Middle East setting. It’s been very
tough…dealing centrally with admissions to the university at the undergraduate
level and if it’s an applicant to the LGSU Middle East campus, it’s still processed
through our Admissions Office here, just like if it was an applicant to LGSU main
campus. There are a set of procedures that have been set up here to reflect the
fact that we get approximately 25-30,000 international student applications a year
and we’re admitting…15-20, out of which we’re admitting…A small portion of
that. In the Middle East, it’s a different story. We’re in start-up and, to be more
customer friendly, I think they ought to do it here as well, you know, we take
three months to give an answer here. That doesn’t work that way there. Not
changing the standards, it’s being more customer friendly and responsive in a
very different environment.
Mr. Arthur’s comments suggest that there is a fine line between changing standards or
quality and tailoring an approach to a different locale. The issue of quality will be
explored more in depth later in this chapter.
Operations calendar differences on campuses. A final issue related to time
involves the academic calendar on the Middle East campus. This issue has ties to quality
of experience, and constituent support as well. In April of 2008, prior to the opening of
the Middle East campus, a reporter from the student newspaper ran a story detailing the
lack of fairness in an academic calendar change at the university (Cook, 2008). In short,
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the student reported that the Middle East campus would be operating under a modified
academic calendar which allowed students there to observe the religious holiday of Eid
al-Fitr. This decision applied only to the Middle East campus. The author argued that
the biggest dissatisfaction occurred is that students have been trying to include the break
in a new religious observance policy at LGSU’s home campus for some time. The article
implied that students at the Middle East campus were being given preferential treatment
that students on the home campus did not benefit from, despite their prior long term
efforts to enact this same change on the home campus. Mr. Arthur shared in the article
that this change in calendar was due to the administration attempting to “acclimate to
common practices” (Cook, 2008, p.1). As previously discussed, an institutional
requirement ensuring that Land Grant State University’s core values and inclusivity were
maintained was mandated prior to the opening of the Middle East campus. Interestingly,
this article appears to illuminate that not only were these standards maintained, but
potentially surpassed by the campus abroad. This fact does not encourage domestic
student support, and is a challenge for the senior leadership. The difficult task of
balancing domestic student support with the specific needs of internationalization efforts
appears to be an issue that will not be easily overcome.
Constituent Understanding and Approval
Constituent understanding and approval was determined by the researcher to be a
key part of senior leadership’s role of changing the culture to internationalize the
institution. This section outlines three areas of this theme that are challenges for Land
Grant State University. Specifically, this section examines this issue and outlines the
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impact of budget issues, historical land grant commitment issues, tensions between local
and international diversity, and the experience of faculty in internationalization efforts.
Budget issues. When asked about challenges to internationalization during the
case study, a majority of individuals interviewed expressed that budget challenges
impacted their day to day operations. It is important to note that these challenges went
beyond simply not having enough money, but also impacted constituent approval of other
internationalization projects. Simply put, if an individual believes they are underfunded
and perceives the institution to be unwisely spending funds in another way, their support
for the funded project may dwindle. This lack of support translates into disapproval and
may impede the role of senior leadership in changing the culture of an institution toward
internationalization.
The opening of Land Grant State University’s campus in the Middle East provides
potentially the clearest example of the need to consider conflict from constituents.
Because Land Grant State University is taxpayer supported, and because of the historic
land grant mission at its core, it seems on its face illogical to divert resources to the
Middle East for a campus serving a population not only outside of the state, but in fact
outside of the country. Justifying this initiative required the institution’s leadership to
highlight the benefits of such a move to taxpayers as well as to minimize, in some cases,
the negative impacts and consequences.
The leadership at Land Grant State University approached the task of highlighting
the benefits with a keen eye toward the political frame in how they represented the
initiative. They suggested the opportunities that an international campus would provide
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to the home state in terms of new markets and resources outweigh the potential costs.
When examining potential expansion locations, the leadership established that the
international campus would be funded externally, place “no campus resources at risk”,
and be “financially self supporting” (Vice President for Internationalization, 2008, p.5-6).
Most importantly however, the Vice President for Internationalization indicated to the
constituents that any surplus revenue generated from the campus abroad would be
reinvested back not only into the Middle East campus, but also the home campus (Vice
President for Internationalization, 2008).
One aspect of budget that is sometimes overlooked is time spent on an initiative
that could be spent on something else. These opportunity costs impact the university not
in terms of direct dollars spent on a project, but instead as missed potential opportunities.
In commenting on how the Middle East campus has impacted faculty on the home
campus, Mr. Merlin indicated that:
Organizationally, it’s affected us because it’s really added to the work load.
You’ve got to pay attention to it. One of the points I made when we were in
the Middle East in March 2007, I said, if we’re going to do this, let’s just not
fool ourselves. This isn’t going to be, okay, its eight o’clock at night and I’ll
work the next hour on the Middle East Campus. It is going to involve us in
ways that we have not been involved in the past. Significant engagement and
it’s done administratively. How is its influence on the home campus at this
point? I would say it’s imperceptible. To be blunt about it, it is too early to
tell.
His statements suggest that while he is confirming that faculty members, and presumably
staff members, have had to commit extra time to ensuring that the Middle East Campus is
a success, he also indicated that the impact on the home campus is not currently known.
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Land grant commitment issues. Another major challenge related to building
constituent support for internationalization is related to Land Grant State University’s
historical mission of serving the local and state population. Earlier in the chapter, the
argument was made that internationalization has long term benefits for the local
population and examples were given to prove this point. While the point remains
debatable, the challenge of educating the local populace and garnering support remains a
difficult endeavor for senior leaders. If individuals see internationalization as an activity
which takes away from efforts at home, as opposed to enhancing them, obtaining support
will be problematic.
Mr. Galahad, Associate Dean for Graduate Academic Affairs, suggests that one of
the major tensions involved in internationalizing the university:
Is the whole idea of not abandoning the land grant mission and that’s
something that definitely has played out. But I think the argument that we
improve the education of our state citizens by bringing the world to them or
sending them to the world, has taken care of that issue fairly well. So that there’s
no conflict of interest, they are mutual interests.
So while some see this issue as being handled fairly well, others still view this as an
ongoing problem. Land Grant State University has experienced this problem in the form
of student outcry. While this criticism has not been pervasive, it is important to note that
constituent support has not been achieved, and this lack of support has some roots in an
“us versus them” mentality that views internationalization as a secondary goal behind
serving the local and state population. This outcry is demonstrated in the following quote
written by a student to the campus newspaper:
Reading about LGSU’s recent expansion into the Middle East got me
wondering: What about the students right here in our state? Why is it that
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expansion into other countries seems to be more important to our president
than providing excellent, quality, global grant education right here at home?
(A. Peasant, 2008, p. 1).
Some of this concern may be coming from the shift in where and what the
university is doing internationally with respect to the Middle East Campus. Historically,
Land Grant State University has helped developing nations with knowledge and
assistance. Mr. Merlin suggested that the Middle East campus will be a departure for the
university in that the kinds of activities that will be occurring on the campus will not be
the type of activities that they have traditionally occurred when the university was
engaged in an international setting. Specifically, he referred to this as a departure from
Land Grant State University’s focus on “development work” and “outreach scholarship.”
The Middle East campus is very different in nature, as Mr. Merlin describes:
What I think is going to evolve is research and I would guess that a good share
of that research will be proprietary research that essentially enables closer
connections with the corporate sector…the Middle East campus is primarily
focusing on degrees. So you’re not talking about scholarship in or scholarship
about, you’re not talking about outreach, you’re not talking about development.
You’re talking about undergraduate and graduate degrees that are offered in an
external locale. Historically, we’re more likely to help another institution develop
a graduate program, let’s say in Africa, than to offer a graduate program in Africa,
we don’t. So the whole notion of, of first of all, having, basically have degree
programs somewhere else, we’re used to having students from other countries
come here to do their graduate program or the undergraduate program. So, this is
really new to us.
His in depth illustration suggests that resistance to the Middle East campus may be in fact
not resistance to internationalization, but instead resistance to a retreat from the
traditional land grant tenant of serving the average person in a non-wealthy community.
Tensions between local & international diversity. With respect to constituent
approval, Mr. Galahad shared a fascinating conflict related to diversity. He suggested
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that he saw a conflict between domestic diversity and international diversity in
competition for scarce university resources. He claimed that in some cases the
internationalization efforts of the university were challenged by those who suggested
resources would be better spent on recruiting from diverse populations within the state
itself. He suggested this conflict is a microcosm of the larger conflict of “this land grant
tradition conflicting with the internationalization efforts and ‘global grant’ agenda.”
He specifically argued, “I have colleagues that say, why an Associate Director for
Admissions for internationals and not one for underrepresented domestic minorities?”
This tension between domestic and international diversity is a microcosm of the tension
between the larger issue of serving the state versus serving the world. Because Land
Grant State University has made a commitment to be a global grant institution, it is not
likely to disappear in the near future.
The experience of faculty engaged in internationalization efforts. Ms. Gareth
suggested that despite the institution’s commitment to supporting the internationalization
efforts of faculty, the reality of the situation was quite different:
When you think about how faculty are rewarded for their work, and you lead
with a charge of we’re now global grant and the faculty have to carry this flag out
into the world and there, there’s no incentive program for them…many
departments on this campus do not recognize and reward faculty for their
international work. In some school situations, junior faculty are dissuaded from
doing international work and that’s a real problem. If I were the president, it
would be problematic because I would be thinking that I have no infrastructure in
place on this campus to really move this thing and let it get some legs and launch
itself.
This perception stands in stark contrast to Mr. Merlin’s recommendation to other
universities wishing to internationalize when he suggests that they should provide
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“recognition of international activity in college and department visions, priorities and
reward systems, and reflected in budget allocations” (Vice President for
Internationalization of Land Grant State University, 2008, p.3). The difference between
what senior leadership views as crucial, and the perception of what is actually happening
by employees is a challenge for leaders at the institution.
With respect to diversity issues the faculty may face in the Middle East, the
institution required that the campus “Preserve Land Grant State University’s core values
and inclusivity” (Vice President for Internationalization, 2008, p. 5). This institutional
commitment was echoed in the interview with the Vice President for Internationalization
who explained what he told the Middle Eastern counterparts who they were working
with:
We made very clear to folks that if we couldn’t admit men and women on equal
status, if they couldn’t sit in the same classroom together, none of this
different classrooms, curtain down the middle, any of that kind of crap, okay,
same thing with faculty, including students and faculty who were Jewish, okay?
This clearly sets the expectation that while on the Middle East campus, faculty, staff, and
students should be able to expect the same commitment to and respect for diversity that
they would experience on the home campus.
On an individual level, this diversity component is experienced in a practical
sense in a different way. While the diversity and commitment is valued, practical and
respectful advice is given to employees. The Vice President for Internationalization
explained:
Okay, so what do we do in the Middle East Campus is we say, you need to
respect the local culture, you’re in it, you’re a member of it and you know,
that if you do this, you are going to be in big problems with the authorities,
don’t be stupid. Okay? Don’t wave a red flag in the face of a bull.
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I had gay faculty members on this campus ask me, well if we want to go to
Middle East Campus, what are we going to do? And I said, go to the Middle
East and don’t be stupid, if your intention is to go to the Middle East, and
demonstrate and raise a red flag, I can’t help you. If you are asking if I will, if
I can send you to the Middle East as a Land Grant State University faculty
member who is culturally sensitive to the morays there, just like it should be
any place you go, say, great, away we go.
It is clear then, while the institution is committed to valuing diversity on campus in an
effort to ensure employees are feeling valued, the leadership is also quite candid about
the need for individuals to also respect cultural norms while outside of the campus
proper. This policy is something that could be made clear, and unfortunately at this point
it appears a somewhat undefined “Don’t ask, don’t tell” style approach, similar to the one
utilized in the United States military is in effect. This may change as issues occur on the
Middle East campus.
This stance by the university on inclusion demonstrates an institutional
commitment to employees that they are valued, even while abroad, for the unique aspects
of their identity. At the same time, the need to have this commitment, or even the fear
that it may not be a reality, could be enough to dissuade some faculty members,
especially those with marginalized identities, from participating. If this is the case, then
students would get a different experience from the home campus, as a function of a
homogenized faculty not representative of the home campus.
Quality
One of the main requirements set forth by Mr. Arthur prior to the agreement to
open a campus in the Middle East being reached was that educational quality must be
maintained and equivalent to the home campus. Tension exists between maintaining this
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quality and meeting other needs of the campus abroad. Specifically, the quality
maintenance is challenged by the academic preparation of the entering student body,
which affects recruitment at the onset and retention longitudinally.
During an interview with the researcher, Mr. Merlin described how the leadership
is shaping challenges with the international campus so that they seem more palatable than
they actually are. One issue that has arisen since the opening of the campus in the Middle
East is that the university is having trouble finding qualified applicants, as well as
problems with academic preparation for admitted applicants. This problem is not unique
to Land Grant State University, and when George Mason University closed their campus
in Ras al Khaymah, they cited academic preparation as one of many issues that led to the
withdrawal (Lewin, 2009). Mr. Merlin notes that:
We are finding out that the students over there are not of the same quality and
there are two things going on there, actually three things going on. One, that,
you know, you may have to reduce your admissions standards a bit but that’s
not really long term. Second, you’re going to face, inevitably, higher
rescission rates. So, you may have twenty students to start but you may not
have twenty students move into their sophomore years and you just have to
deal with that and that can’t be anything more than, you see, we’re discovering
what the market is. Then the third thing that’s really important is, is inevitably
and we’re doing this in year two, you’re going to have remedial programs.
You’re going to have programs in place, remedial programs, for students who
may be admitted but need help to be able to sustain their admission.
In an effort to avoid complications, and to reduce the number of students who are
dropping out, the leadership has decided to create a remedial program for students.
According to the Vice Dean, euphemisms are being utilized so that the program name
does not imply that there is a problem with student preparation. He indicated that:
The remedial program in the Middle East will be called the Middle East
Academy and it will start next academic year. We can’t call it, you know,
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remedial or call classes 047, we’ll call it the Middle East Academy and it almost
sounds like it’s something that you want to be in.
This use of wordplay shows that the leadership is conscious of perceptions from
constituents who could see this program as a sign of weakness, and it also demonstrates
that the leadership is proactively shaping how their remedial efforts are perceived. The
need to be conscientious of outside constituents’ perceptions due to power implications
and conflict over scarce resources directly relates to the political frame proposed by
Bolman and Deal (2003).
Mr. Merlin suggests that the development of this center was an unexpected
learning opportunity for the university. He explains:
We talk all the time about a learning organization but we ordinarily approach
things as a knowing organization. We know how to do these things. Well,
we’re finding that we don’t know how to do these things and that’s what really
stretches people and institutions, by doing things you’ve not done before...So
we’re going to have the Middle East Academy. You know, if we, if we had been
through this before, maybe we would have said, we need a Middle East Academy
the first year.
So this challenge facing the institution is one in which they were able to respond quickly
and to learn. Whether the intervention they are implementing will be a success remains
to be seen.
Conclusion
This chapter examined the narrative case study in four parts. An overview of the
institution was provided including an introduction, its history, its numerous
internationalization offices, and key individuals working on internationalization issues.
Next, the first research question was explored regarding the role of senior leadership in
internationalizing the university. In this section, the role of leadership was examined
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through themes of creating a major culture shift through reframing the institution’s
mission, building constituent support, and finally creating and supporting initiatives.
Then, the second research question regarding challenges for leadership was explored
through three themes including time, constituent understanding and approval, and quality.
This second research question focused mainly on the Middle East campus, while the first
focused more on broad internationalization initiatives.
This case study illustrated that the central role of senior leaders at Land Grant
State University who were attempting to internationalize their campus involved changing
the campus culture to reflect internationalization at all levels. The university appears to
be aided by an internationally focused organizational structure that began long ago. This
advantage did not overcome the fact that while much of the university was supportive of
global efforts, much of it was not as supportive to complete internationalization of the
organization. Consequently the senior leadership needed to internationalize through
broadly changing the culture. This ongoing process was furthered through the refocusing
of the university by the current president’s renaming of Land Grant State University as a
“global grant” institution. Additionally, internationalization efforts, most notably the
campus in the Middle East, have increased the institution’s presence globally. Leaders
focusing on these efforts faced challenges related to time, garnering and maintaining
constituent support, and quality. The data illustrated that leaders benefitted from
engaging in reframing (Bolman & Deal, 2003) and in utilizing multiple frames to
internationalize the university. Finally, the university appears to be rising above many of
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the pitfalls that other historically place-bound universities encounter when attempting to
internationalize as posited by Armstrong (2007).
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CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION
Synthesizing the Results
The literature reviewed in the second chapter of this study examined leadership,
globalization, and the impact of both upon contemporary institutions of post secondary
education. Specifically, the literature explored the concepts of globalization and its
impact on education, organizational change and how it occurs within educational
institutions, the role of mission statements as part of organizational shifting, borderless
education and international campuses, and finally the changing nature of land grant
institutions from their historical focus.
The literature also examined at length the two main frameworks used to analyze
the data gathered, specifically Bolman and Deal’s (2003) frames of leadership and
Armstrong’s (2007) framework of the impact of globalization on post secondary
education. The literature demonstrated that Bolman and Deal’s (2003) frame approach
would be useful for analyzing the data in the case study of the leadership at Land Grant
State University. The literature supported that Armstrong’s (2007) framework was
indeed valid and worth testing. Furthermore, Armstrong’s (2007) framework was
utilized to identify that Land Grant State University was in fact succeeding on multiple
levels as an internationalized university where many others were failing to meet criteria
laid out in his framework.
Land Grant State University is an outlier compared to many other post secondary
educational institutions with respect to its internationalization efforts in response to the
forces of globalization. The university has been the first to successfully open a campus
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internationally in a specific area of the Middle East where no others have succeeded.
Additionally, the university’s multifaceted approach to internationalization is vast, deep,
and spans decades. It appears that the university’s historical and relatively long standing
practice of international involvement has assisted the institution in expanding its
internationalization efforts by providing a solid base, reputation, and organizational
culture from which to draw upon. At the same time, the main role of the leadership in the
institution appeared to be changing the culture of the institution toward
internationalization at all levels. This changing of culture was symbolized by the
president’s vision of Land Grant State University’s renaming as a “global grant”
institution. While this shift was viewed in multiple ways by constituents, it is clearly a
refocus of institutional priorities internationally at a symbolic and espoused level.
The president’s “global grant” reframing of the land grant institution is indeed
symbolic leadership and also demonstrates elements of multi frame leadership in all other
categories of Bolman and Deal’s (2003) framework. This new name and concept of the
institution has been perceived in vastly different ways by leaders at Land Grant State
University, but in general, all agree that the institution is itself a leader in its
internationalization efforts.
Globalization is impacting vast sections of the world in many differing ways.
Educational institutions are not immune to the impact of globalization and many argue
that these institutions are being uniquely impacted in various ways (Armstrong, 2005;
Scott, 2006; Stromquist, 2002; Ulukan, 2005). Armstrong (2007) suggests that most
institutions of post secondary education are lagging behind their counterparts in the realm
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of business. The purpose of this study was to examine how the leadership of one post
secondary educational institution successfully transcended its place bound nature to
internationalize itself on various levels and overcome challenges that held back other
universities seeking to do the same.
The data collected were obtained through interviews and document analysis. The
researcher interviewed various members of the institution outlined in Appendix C of the
dissertation. The researcher also examined several internal institutional documents as
well as publically available materials such as the official university website and mission
statement.
Currently, Land Grant State University appears to be a leader in internationalizing
itself when examined through the lens of Armstrong’s (2007) framework. The university
has an extensive history of international involvement and has redefined itself from a
traditional land grant institution into what the President of the institution refers to as a
“global grant.” This term exemplifies the mission of the institution and symbolically
recognizes its past international efforts while at the same time charts a course for future
engagement.
One could argue that the institution is still lagging behind the business world in its
efforts, because it is still seeking to bring a version of itself to its campus abroad.
Specifically, the institution is seeking to bring the Land Grant State University
experience, quality, and values to the Middle East campus. The challenge in engaging
internationally this way is that while you are bringing your reputation and brand to the
world, you are not modifying your processes to meet their specific needs. The researcher
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found that the tension between meeting these needs while maintaining domestic campus
values and quality was an ongoing tension and major challenge to the leadership
attempting to succeed in internationalizing the university.
The success of the leadership at Land Grant State University appears to be
complemented by the ability of the leadership to implement efforts, motivate others, and
structure the organization with multiple frames of leadership. These multiple frames are
defined by Bolman and Deal (2003), and the authors suggest that the use of a multi-
framed approach to organizational change can increase success. While this can not be
ultimately proved through the case study focused on Land Grant State University, the
researcher did find evidence to support that each frame was being utilized in various
ways to implement internationalization efforts or to make meaning from successes and
challenges facing the institution.
Implications
This study outlines one institution’s path toward internationalization efforts and
how some leaders were able to succeed in these efforts. The study also outlines
challenges faced and analyzes success through two distinct frameworks. In general, this
study suggests that leaders seeking to internationalize their institutions may find value in
reframing their approaches using Bolman and Deal’s (2003) model of leadership. Value
was found in utilizing all four frames in leading internationalization efforts across the
institution.
Additionally, this study suggests pitfalls that institutions may encounter and may
do well to prepare for in a proactive manner. Land Grant State University faced
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challenges related to response time, constituent understanding and approval, and quality.
While other institutions may not face the same challenges, this study provides a starting
point for leadership seeking to proactively anticipate and address challenges related to
internationalizing a post secondary educational institution.
The information contained in this study could be useful to researchers examining
the impact of globalization on post secondary educational institutions or to those seeking
to explore internationalization efforts that are being utilized by leading institutions.
Additionally, the data contained in this study could also inform leaders who are seeking
to internationalize their post secondary institutions. Finally, this study would be
particularly useful to administrators who are working with public research institutions or
land grant institutions who are struggling with the impact of globalization.
These leaders and administrators would be served well by heeding the challenges
faced by the leadership at Land Grant State University, specifically if they are seeking to
open a campus abroad. Response time was a significant challenge for the university, and
if other institutions are seeking to internationalize in similar ways, putting measures in
place to ease this challenge would be crucial to overcoming this pitfall. It seems clear
that organizational agility is critical to success in internationalization, and if an institution
is not prepared to respond quickly to the needs of constituents abroad, then those
constituents may look elsewhere.
The theme of constituent understanding and approval is a crucial issue to
university internationalization. Failure to garner and maintain stakeholder support could
be disastrous for an organization seeking to expand internationally. An example of this at
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Land Grant State University could be if domestic students perceived the university to be
focusing too many resources internationally, then those same students may decide to
attend a competing university. Maintaining domestic quality and support could be a
difficult challenge if this situation arose for any university. An institution would do well
to clearly communicate its aims and reasoning repeatedly. This communication, if
managed effectively, has the benefit of both generating constituent support and educating
constituents on the benefits of expansion abroad. It is important to note that education of
constituents is a key component of this, and this is because if perceptions are false about
the university’s use of resources on internationalization efforts, the results could be
equally disastrous, regardless of the actual benefit to the domestic population.
Finally, institutions seeking to learn from the experience of Land Grant State
University will need to be cognizant of the tension between maintaining institutional
quality and meeting the diverse needs of international constituents. Tensions related to
diversity, program quality, and experience for domestic personnel serving the university
abroad are all considerations that other universities could face and should proactively
address before expanding internationally. Land Grant State University experienced this
is several ways, and an example of this is when the university newspaper reported on
domestic student outcry regarding the granting of religious holidays abroad but not at the
home campus. The implication in this case was that students abroad have a less rigorous
academic schedule than domestic students, or that they quality of their experience was
better because they received more accommodations.
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It is important to note that while Land Grant State University is seeking to
internationalize while maintaining its historical ties to the state, the leadership are not
seeking to become completely globalized and shed their place bound nature. In fact, the
leadership markets their university brand and touts its quality as a selling point to
international constituents. Based upon the criteria posited by Armstrong (2007), this tie
to place prohibits complete globalization as exhibited by many entities in the
transnational business community. In this way, the historical ties to place and efforts to
maintain these ties as a public institution of higher education are factors in keeping the
organization non-globalized. Perhaps private institutions with little historical ties to place
may have an advantage over institutions with a long history. Certainly, newly created
institutions of this type could be structured to overcome some challenges facing Land
Grant State University, such as organizational agility, tensions related to quality, and
tensions related to competition for resources among diverse constituents. Conversely,
these newer institutions would not possess the benefits of international ties, brand
recognition of educational quality, or arguably even tested and proven domestic methods
of serving constituents. It remains to be seen which type of educational institution will
succeed globally, and if efforts to internationalize, as opposed to completely globalize,
are enough to keep up with the rapidly changing and increasing globalized world.
Future Research
As a result of the findings of this study, future research is warranted in several
areas to increase the level of understanding regarding the impact of globalization on
higher education. First and foremost, a longitudinal and comparative look at various
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leading universities engaging in successful internationalization efforts would be
beneficial both academically to researchers and practically to leaders in other institutions
seeking to expand internationally. Because this descriptive case study only examined one
institution and was bound by time and individuals, a longitudinal study could provide
much needed data that could be generalized beyond the scope of a singular university.
Assessing other institutions based upon Armstrong’s (2007) framework will increase its
usefulness and potentially secure it as a benchmark by which institutions can measure
their progress in internationalization efforts.
Additionally, an examination of schools who are failing in their attempts to
expand on the international front could benefit other institutions by examining what not
to do in the face of globalization. An examination of globalization efforts from a
university president’s perspective would provide a rich source of data for researchers to
explore, and this endeavor is one that would truly allow for deep exploration of data from
a person with extensive position power.
A comparative study between a place bound institution with historical ties and a
newly created institution seeking to globalize would be fascinating and greatly contribute
to sharpening the understanding of which institutions are best prepared to succeed in the
international world. Examining the difference in organizational agility, the impact of a
recognized brand of educational quality, and how the need to respond to differing
constituents could inform our understanding of how best to address the current and future
challenges facing United States post secondary education in the increasingly globalized
world.
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Finally, an examination of constituent’s perceptions of internationalization efforts
could benefit institutions wishing to engage in consensus building. The results of such an
endeavor could also inform institutions wishing to internationalize about the value of
educating constituents on the benefits of internationalization to the local campus and
surrounding populous. As demonstrated by this narrative, not all constituents interpreted
the actions of university leaders in the same manner, and understanding why this is so
seems crucial to enabling future success in internationalization efforts.
Conclusion
Leaders at Land Grant State University faced many obstacles in their effort to
internationalize their campus and expand their global presence abroad. Tensions between
quality and individualization, between domestic diversity and international diversity, and
between organizational agility and traditional practices have all presented themselves as
difficulties. Reshaping the institutional culture and garnering staff buy in across the
entire university has not been achieved totally, but it appears the university has been
successful in many ways and that its long history and presence internationally has
assisted the leadership in achieving their goals of internationalization.
Land Grant State University is internationalized but not globalized when
compared to the transnational business community in the framework outlined by
Armstrong (2007). While they have made significant strides, if they truly wish to be
viewed as completely globalized, they may need to reinvent themselves completely and
move away from their land grant ties. Perhaps the place bound nature of the institution
prohibits this from occurring, and certainly leaders at the university are focused on
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internationalizing while maintaining a connection to the population they have historically
served.
It seems likely that organizational history is something that precludes institutions
from shedding their ties to place and moving towards being completely global entities.
This idea has not stopped the leaders at Land Grant State University from implementing
many novel and exciting initiatives, including the Middle East campus, which break the
mold of traditional land grant institutions and face the globalized world with a renewed
sense of purpose.
In conclusion, Land Grant State University is a leader among universities seeking
to internationalize, and leaders there appear to be achieving this through changing the
culture of the institution from one in which internationalization is valued by many to one
in which internationalization is the norm across most levels of the organization. Other
institutions seeking to do the same can benefit from learning from both Land Grant State
University’s successes and the obstacles that the leadership there is currently facing.
Additionally, it appears that there is benefit in utilizing the leadership model posited by
Bolman & Deal (2003). The university does not appear to be globalized according to
Armstrong’s (2007) framework, and this is in large part due to the fact that the leaders
there are not seeking to shed place bound and land grant ties to the local community
which they historically serve. It remains to be seen how this approach will fare in and
increasingly globalized world where they may face competition from newer institutions
without place bound connections or history.
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108
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL FOR SENIOR LEADERS
Research Question #1: What is the role of the senior leadership in a public research
university in the development and implementation of internationalization initiatives both
inside and outside the boundaries of the United States?
• What led the university to decide to expand itself from the traditional land grant
focus to a more global perspective?
• How did the idea to open a campus in the Middle East specifically come about?
• What role did you play in leading the institution’s global initiatives?
• In your view, who were the key players involved in leading the institution’s
commitment to reshaping itself as a global presence in the world?
• What roles did each of these key players fill in changing the institution’s global
presence?
• How did you inform your constituents about your specific globalization endeavors
and the opportunities they provide?
• Do you view the institution’s stance on globalization as having symbolic meaning
to its constituents? Do you do anything in your position to motivate or lead your
constituents in a symbolic way?
• As a leader in changing the institution in response to the forces of globalization,
did you need to restructure your office or endeavors to achieve success? What
intentional steps with regard to office structure or hierarchy are important to
success in your view?
109
• Strategically, how do you navigate the politics of negotiating the
internationalization initiatives that you manage?
• With respect to your leadership, did you do anything on a human resources level
to influence the opening of the branch campus or the followers involved?
Research question #2: What are the challenges for public research universities in creating
and facilitating initiatives which expand and magnify the university’s presence in the
global arena?
• What is the biggest challenge or obstacle that you face (or have faced) in your
department’s work expanding and magnifying the university’s presence in the
global arena?
• Was the aforementioned challenge expected or unexpected? If it was expected,
what is the biggest unexpected challenge that you face (or have faced)?
• Did you encounter international legal (issues/problems) in your work expanding
and magnifying the university’s presence in the global arena?
• Do cultural differences and differing global perspectives impact your work? How
do you respond to these challenges?
• Who do you collaborate with both inside and outside of the university in your
work expanding and magnifying the university’s presence in the global arena?
Does this create challenges or barriers?
110
• How did you go about selecting and attracting faculty and staff to work at the
institution on issues of global expansion what incentives do you provide to make
this endeavor worthwhile?
• Does what you do globally change or affect the home campus, student body, or
faculty in any way? If so, how have they changed, why have they changed, and
how do you know change has occurred?
• How are your initiatives funded? Does being a land grant institution impact how
you fund global initiatives and if so, how does this impact manifest itself?
• How is your office integrated into the land grant mission of the university?
111
APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW PARTICPATION CONSENT FORM
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education, Doctor of Education Program
INFORMATION SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
********************************************************************
CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH
“Leading While Expanding: A Case Study Examining the Changing
Nature of an American Land Grant Public Research University in
Response to the Forces of Globalization”
You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Jonathon Hyde, candidate
for the Ed.D., and Dean Karen Symms Gallagher, Ph.D., from the Rossier School of
Education, Doctor of Education Program at the University of Southern California. The
results of this study will contribute to Jonathon Hyde’s doctoral dissertation. You were
selected as a possible participant in this study because you are a senior administrative
leader at Land Grant State University. You should be at least 18 years old to participate
in this study. Your participation is voluntary. You have been selected to participate
because you have been identified as a leader in Land Grant State University’s global and
or international initiatives.
You should read the information below, and ask questions about anything you do not
understand, before deciding whether or not to participate. Please take as much time as
you need to read the consent form. You may also decide to discuss it with your family,
friends, or colleagues. You will be given a copy of this form.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
We are asking you to take part in a research study because we are trying to learn more
about how administrators in positions of leadership at Land Grant State University have
created institutional change by responding to the globalization in an effort to redefine the
scope of the institution.
Response to the interview questions will constitute consent to participate in this
research project.
PROCEDURES
You will be asked to participate in a one-on-one, individual interview at a place of your
choice on the Land Grant State University campus. The initial interview should take
approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour of your time. You will only need to identify your
title during the audio recording; your name will be omitted so that the interview can by
112
transcribed. Pseudonyms will be utilized in the place of actual names for identification
purposes. If you are not available to interview in person on the Land Grant State
University campus, video conferencing or a phone interview may be employed.
Following the initial interview, and if you agree to it, the researcher may contact you
post-interview by email or phone in case follow-up information is needed. The amount of
time spent for follow-up questions, either by phone, email or in-person, should not
exceed more than 1 hour total of your time.
POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no anticipated risks to your participation; you may experience some discomfort
in answering the interview questions or you may be inconvenienced from taking time out
of your day to complete the interview. Questions asked that make you feel uncomfortable
may be skipped or not answered.
POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
You may not directly benefit from your participation in this research study. However, it is
hoped that researchers may learn about institutional efforts during the interview process.
PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
You will not receive any payment for your participation in this research study.
CONFIDENTIALITY
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified
with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as
required by law. The information which has your identifiable information will be kept
separately from the rest of the data.
Only members of the research team will have access to the data associated with this
study. The data will be stored in the investigator’s office in a locked file
cabinet/password protected computer. The institutions name, Land Grant State
University, institutional partnerships and programs may be identified for the purposes of
the study. Personal information collected, such as your name, will not be disclosed during
the study. Pseudonyms will be utilized in the place of actual names for identification
purposes. Your title/role at the institution will not be used (ex. President, Vice President,
Dean or Director) to identify your position at the institution, and your actual title will be
replaced by a Pseudonym. Additionally, the institution’s name will also be replaced by a
Pseudonym.
The data will be stored for three years after the study has been completed and then
destroyed. Before the interview begins, you will be asked by the researcher if the
interview can be audio taped and notes taken. The researcher will be the only person with
access to audio tape recording and notes gathered. Information recorded during this time
will be used for purposes of the research study. If you decline the option for audio
recording or note taking, you may continue to participate in the study.
113
When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no
information will be included that would reveal your identity. Only the principal
researcher and the faculty sponsor will have access to the data collected. Furthermore, all
information collected will be kept in a secure location on the University of Southern
California campus. Only your title/role associated with the institution will be disclosed.
As the subject of the study, you have the right to review/edit the tapes up until the
completion of the study.
PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
You can choose whether to participate in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this
study, you may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. You may also
refuse to answer any questions you don’t want to answer and still remain in the study.
The investigator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise which
warrant doing so.
ALTERNATIVES TO PARTICIPATION
Your alternative is to not participate.
RIGHTS OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS
You may withdraw your consent at any time and discontinue participation without
penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your
participation in this research study. If you have any questions about your rights as a
study subject or you would like to speak with someone independent of the research team
to obtain answers to questions about the research, or in the event the research staff can
not be reached, please contact the University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for
Research Advancement, Stonier Hall, Room 224a, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213)
821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu
114
APPENDIX C: INTERVIEW DATA TABLE
Table 2
Interview Data Table with Locations
Position (Pseudonym) or Title Name
(Pseudonym)
Utilized data in findings for
(Chapters & Themes):
Vice President for
Internationalization
Mr. Arthur
Throughout Chapter 4.
Assistant Dean of the Global
Studies Program
Mr. Bedvidere
Chapter 4: Shift from land grant to global
grant name
Vice Dean of the College of
Agriculture and Conservation
studies
Mr. Merlin
Chapter 4: Shift from land grant to global
grant name
Director for the Office of
Global Development
Ms. Nimue
Chapter 4: Program & efforts toward
internationalization
Assistant Director for the Office
of Global Development
Ms. Gareth
Chapter 4: Shift from land grant to global
grant name; Creating and supporting
internationalization initiatives
Director of the Center for Earth
Change and Observation
Mr. Gawain
Chapter 4: Promising and novel practices
Director of the Center for
Entrepreneurial Activities in
Academia
Mr. Perceval
Chapter 4: Promising and novel practices
Coordinator for Creative
Technology Implementation
Ms.
Guinevere
Chapter 4: Promising and novel practices
Associate Dean for Graduate
Academic Affairs
Mr. Galahad
Chapter 4: Shift from land grant to global
grant name
Executive Associate Provost Ms. Lancelot
Chapter 4: Introduction; Shift from land
grant to global grant name; Promising and
novel practices
Director of the Center Global
Agriculture
Mr. Gaheris
Chapter 4: History of the university & its
internationalization efforts; Why reframe
the institutional mission?;
Shift from land grant to global grant name
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Using the methodologies of document analysis and interviewing, this dissertation examines the ways in which leaders at one post secondary educational institution were able to shape internationalization efforts and overcome challenges facing their response to globalization. This qualitative case study utilizes the frameworks of Armstrong (2007) and Bolman and Deal (2003) to analyze the success and methods of leaders at a large land grant institution.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Hyde, Jonathon Michael
(author)
Core Title
Leading while expanding: a case study examining the changing nature of an American land grant public research university in response to the forces of globalization
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Education (Leadership)
Publication Date
08/07/2009
Defense Date
06/15/2009
Publisher
University of Southern California
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Tag
Globalization,Higher education,land grant,OAI-PMH Harvest,postsecondary education
Language
English
Contributor
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Advisor
Gallagher, Karen Symms (
committee chair
), Diamond, Michael (
committee member
), Merriman, Lynette S. (
committee member
)
Creator Email
jhyde@lsu.edu,jonathon.hyde@gmail.com
Permanent Link (DOI)
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