It doesn’t take long for someone new to Cal State Fullerton to learn of one of its core values: fulfilling an educational responsibility to help students be competitive and thrive in an increasingly interdependent world.
Providing both students and faculty with international experiences can give them a leg-up in their careers and in their intellectual development. They develop sophisticated knowledge of the world and the way it works, and they bring vital global perspectives back to the classroom. At the same time, students from around the world, with diverse backgrounds, ideas and contributions, enrich the educational environment on campus.
“Many American students have a one-dimensional view of the world,” says President Milton A. Gordon. “Their education is enhanced by seeing what life is like in the rest of the world.” Gordon recently was invited to speak on international issues by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
“When I graduated from college, the competition came from the United States,” he recalls. “Today, our graduates have to be prepared for worldwide competition.”
Especially in the midst of the dramatic downturn in the economy, “we have to do things smarter, become more competitive,” both in terms of the university and its curriculum, says Jeannie Kim-Han, director of the Center for Internships and Community Engagement. “We need to negotiate different cultural boundaries.”
“Global competency is critically needed in our current economic situation,” concurs Lay Tuan Tan, acting director of the International Education and Exchange program.
Toward that end, Cal State Fullerton has appointed Paula Herberg acting associate vice president, international programs. Herberg is charged with oversight of the international programs on campus in conjunction with the International Education and Exchange office, and for linking Academic and Student Affairs’ interests in internationalizing the campus. She also helps to determine ways the university can meld globalization into the curriculum. She notes that there are a multitude of ongoing activities focusing on globalization at Cal State Fullerton, including faculty and student exchanges, collaborative research grants, and study abroad programs.
“A global outlook means a lens that looks both ways, inward and outward, to help us appreciate that the world is connected,” Herberg says. “It means that students, faculty and staff know that the world is mutually impacting, not insular. It permeates the way we all learn and interact with each other.”
The university also has two Academic Senate committees dedicated to the globalization concept. Andi Stein, assistant professor of communications, chairs the International Education Committee.
“When you go to work for an organization now, there’s a good chance it is part of an umbrella organization that could be based halfway around the world,” Stein says. “That wasn’t the case even 10 years ago.”
Morteza Rahmatian, an expert in resource and environmental economics, spent the summer in Tehran working with the United Nation’s Bureau of Sustainable Development’s Department of Environment. Rahmatian is pleased to use his UN experiences extensively in his economics classes. “Paper theories become real to them,” he says of his students. “They are thrilled to see how economics works in reality. They take it seriously.”
Though numbers cannot tell the true story of the university’s global outreach, here’s a brief look at some of the ways Cal State Fullerton is involved internationally:
- More than 1,200 international and exchange students studied at Cal State Fullerton in fall 2008 from a total of 77 countries.
- About 200 students studied abroad in 19 countries in fall 2008, most of them traveling to Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, South Africa, France, Germany, Australia, Costa Rica, South Korea, Mexico and Japan.
- Cal State Fullerton has approximately 70 international agreements and partnerships with universities around the globe.
- More than a dozen visiting scholars from throughout the world have spoken, studied, conducted research or lectured at Cal State Fullerton in the past year. Many more Cal State Fullerton professors have traveled abroad to research and teach.
- The American Language Program provides international students with intensive English courses to prepare them for university studies. Students from more than 63 countries have attended, and many have completed their degrees on campus.
“It’s part of our mission to be a comprehensive university with a global outlook,” notes Lisa Xue, director, International Programs, Asia in University Extended Education. “This would be a better world if we understood each other. I firmly believe that international education and outreach programs can help us do that.”
Fullerton has many programs in place to ensure international opportunities, says Richard Deming, professor of chemistry. Deming travels to Thailand with a group of students each summer and currently sponsors a visiting Thai professor. “It’s most effective when the faculty initiates things. It’s important to have agreements with other countries, but it’s the students and faculty who can make them active.”
Fullerton’s changing student demographics – more than half of the student population is minority – and the hiring of new faculty with international perspectives and experience infuse Cal State Fullerton’s classrooms with new perspectives. “That translates into a global vision,” says Irene Lange, professor and chair of marketing.
“In a smaller and smaller world, dialoguing and communications are the most important actions Americans can take,” says Angela Della Volpe, acting dean of the College of Health and Human Development. “The best way to do that is to have students study abroad. They get out of their own culture and perspective, and see
how others see them.” 
Dr. Raphael Sonenhein in Paris
Rober Istad 
Dr. Tam Nguyen 
Linda Vasquez 
Grant Nakagawa 
Brittany Franck 
Sharon Ting 
Dr. Stan Breckinridge in Poland