Internationalizing the Campus 2010: Profiles of Success at Colleges and Universities showcases efforts across higher education to better prepare students for a global economy and an interconnected world, and takes an in-depth look at the five distinguished recipients of the 2010 Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalisation: Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania; Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York; Loyola University Maryland; Northeastern University in Massachusetts; and University of San Francisco in California.

A hallmark of these 2010 Simon Award winners is the support and participation of their campus leadership, faculty, visiting scholars, staff, students, and communities in creating an integrated global approach to the curriculum, campus programmes, and outreach on their campuses.

Three other institutions included in the report received the 2010 Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award for outstanding and innovative work in a specific area or programme related to international education. They are the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York, La Roche College in Pennsylvania, and the College of the Atlantic in Maine. Named for the late Senator Paul Simon (D-Ill.), both awards seek to recognise institutions where international education is infused into the learning environment.

Senator Simon was a strong advocate for international education throughout his career in public service. His efforts were instrumental in the creation of the National Security Education Programme, and his visionary leadership remains central to current efforts to establish a national programme to dramatically increase opportunities for American college students to study abroad.

The 2010 NAFSA selection jury included Ron Roberson (jury chair; Howard Community College), Mary Devins (Connecticut College), Jeff Riedinger (Michigan State University), Neal Sobania (Pacific Lutheran University), and Priscilla Stone (Washington University in St. Louis).

For more information on the awards, visit: www.nafsa.org/SimonAward.

Where possible, the list includes “school-related data on number of students, tuition, application deadline, undergraduate enrollment and admissions contact information directly from each institution’s website.”

The Top 15 of the 25 were:

1. Pennsylvania State University
2. Texas A&M University
3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
4. Purdue University
5. Arizona State University
6. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
7. Georgia Institute of Technology
8. University of Maryland, College Park
9. University of Florida
10. Carnegie Mellon University
11. Brigham Young University
12. Ohio State University
13. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
14. Cornell University
15. University of California – Berkeley

To view the full list, along with information on each institution, visit the Wall Street Journal article.

Three additional schools are being recognized with the 2010 Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award for a specific international program or initiative on campus. They are the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York, La Roche College in Pennsylvania, and the College of the Atlantic in Maine.

Named for the late Senator Paul Simon, (D–Ill.), these awards recognize outstanding and innovative efforts in campus internationalization. Sen. Simon was well known as a strong supporter of international education and foreign language learning. His leadership in these areas was especially evident in his robust support for the creation of the National Security Education Program, which addresses critical national security deficiencies in language and cultural expertise, and in his vision of a national program to greatly expand Americans’ knowledge of the world, which was the inspiration behind the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act.

The Simon Act, which has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, is currently awaiting action in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress, and carries the endorsement of nearly fifty higher education and international education organizations.

Each of the institutions selected for internationalization awards this year will be featured in NAFSA’s report Internationalizing the Campus: Profiles of Success at Colleges and Universities, to be published this fall. This annual report recognizes institutions that are leaders in the growing effort across higher education to better prepare students for a global economy and an interconnected world. The awardees will also be recognized on June 4, 2010 at the International Plenary and Luncheon during NAFSA’s 2010 Annual Conference & Expo in Kansas City, MO.

The NAFSA selection jury included Ron Roberson (jury chair; Howard Community College), Mary Devins (Connecticut College), Jeff Riedinger (Michigan State University), Neal Sobania (Pacific Lutheran University), and Priscilla Stone (Washington University in St. Louis).

For more information, visit www.nafsa.org/SimonAward.

(republished with the kind permission of NAFSA)