Internationalization at Harvard

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Internationalization at Harvard
Harvard was founded in 1636 on the banks of the Charles River by European colonists seeking to replicate their scholarly experience in Christ's College, Cambridge. Over its nearly four centuries, it evolved from its colonial origin as an outpost for European higher education to a university by the 19th century. In the 1900's it grew from an influential national university to become an international powerhouse. Over 50,000 international alumni come from all but a five countries around the globe. Leading international research centers are found in virtually every corner of the University. It attracts the top scholars from around the world to serve as faculty and researchers. No Internationalization at Harvard 5 less than 70 languages are taught to Harvard students. Global collaborations shaping the world's future motivate faculty and students alike in emerging fields in the social and natural sciences. Heads of state, captains of industry, leading thinkers from around the world obtained degrees at Harvard. Yet, until recently, Harvard did not deliberately seek to be international; rather, it was international by default.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, as higher education faces a number of strategic questions, the most important can be placed in three broad categories: a) the benefits and challenges presented by borderless educational technology and new ways students learn; b) opportunities presented by emerging nations; and c) the future needs of the world's environment and its people. To face these challenges, Harvard President Drew Faust appointed the International Strategy Working Group in 2010 led by Harvard Business School Dean, Nitin Nohria, to help define the University's long term goals and strategy for international engagement. The work of the group led to the conclusion that Harvard will become more intentionally global in the years to come, uniting and leveraging its extraordinary intellectual and programmatic strengths to ensure that teaching and research have the optimal potential to make a positive difference. What we do next will have an impact not just on the University's future, but on the world's future, a future in which knowledge and education will play an ever more important role. (Faust, 2012, p. 6) In announcing Harvard's upcoming capital campaign, President Faust has emphasized the need to become more deliberate in its international engagement. Recently, she wrote, "We will enhance our global reach and impact, as well as the integration of global perspectives into our research and teaching. We will ensure that Harvard students and faculty can understand their fields and their lives within a global context enriched by the content of the curriculum, the cosmopolitan nature of our campus, and the opportunities for significant international research, study, and engagement." (Office of the President, Letter to the academic community, May 13, 2013) The international focus of the campaign will have lasting positive contributions. As the University strengthens its global nature, students will become better prepared for world challenges. Faculty will enhance their contributions to their disciplines as they will be further encouraged to engage in global problems with international colleagues. Through initiatives such as edX, Harvard will expand its mission to share knowledge globally. Finally, there will be enhanced efforts to recruit the very best students, faculty and staff on a worldwide basis.
How can this vision translate to reality? What experiences to date will inform the University's future? How will higher education incorporate the changing landscape of information technology? This paper provides a concrete example of one effective way to meet the objectives Harvard has set for itself. 6 N. Strong

A University-Wide Overseas Office
Harvard has traditionally had a significant international presence through its professional schools and research centers. Harvard Business School has a network of research centers in five countries. Since the 1960's, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences maintains the Villa I Tatti in Italy, a center focused on Italian Renaissance Art International collaboration in astronomy and medicine date back to the early 20th Century. Multiple centers have similar focused mandates and have established international programs and operations. However, until 10 years ago Harvard did not have a center representing the entire University outside of Cambridge. It established its first University-wide office abroad under the auspices of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies in Santiago, Chile in 2002. This office, called the DRCLAS Regional Office, has a mandate to advance international research and learning in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay. It also has tested and proven the hypothesis that an enhanced physical international presence would facilitate Harvard faculty work and collaboration, as well as greatly expand opportunities for students to work, carry out research, and study, all while addressing some of the largest issues in the region. It has become an example of the new approach to Harvard's international engagement, in which Harvard seeks to have a modest physical presence, yet provide a significant intellectual footprint.
Since its founding, the Regional Office has engaged 135 faculty members in academic and research programs. As of 2013, 1005 Harvard students have studied or participated in internship programs organized by the Regional Office. Recruiting efforts for Harvard academic and visiting fellow programs as well as targeted funds have contributed to a total of 1875 students and scholars from the five countries to study at Harvard over the last 10 years.

DRCLAS Regional Office Statistics (2002-03 to 2012-13)
Harvard faculty and leaders in the region 1 3 Harvard students participating in programs 1 0 Students and scholars from the region at Harvard 1 8

Faculty Programs
How has the Regional Office encouraged and enabled faculty to undertake their work as teachers, scholars, and learners in the broadest possible geographic context and to address some of the most pressing issues facing the world? Faculty-led programs facilitated by the Regional Office have contributed to disease prevention, disaster recovery, improved education, astronomical discoveries, new models for land conservation, and biotechnological breakthroughs. New knowledge has been produced Internationalization at Harvard 7 through collaborations with universities and scientists in the region in biotechnology, astrophysics, climate change, and air quality. The results of these programs have more than met the objectives established for the Regional Office, which are to:  Expand opportunities for sustainable faculty initiatives that continue to have a long term impact in the Region.  Continue to serve as a link between regional foundations and Harvard for their continued support and sustainability.  Provide additional opportunities for faculty to travel to the region to promote field course work, summer programs, and term-time study.  Increase faculty support of the student programs.
Faculty support by the Regional Office includes collaboration in program design, start-up funding, identification of contacts and collaboration institutions, co-sponsorship of events, and logistical coordination. The following are some examples of programs demonstrating how these goals are met.

Un Buen Comienzo (UBC). Harvard's Graduate School of Education, Harvard
Medical School faculty and the DRCLAS Regional Office helped to found and have supported the development and expansion of Un Buen Comienzo, a pioneering program undertaken under the leadership of Chile's Fundación Educacional Oportunidad. The program has captured the interest of Chile's Ministry of Education, which is hoping to expand its current engagement in 60 schools in Santiago and Rancagua to a national program. The program has changed the way preschool students are taught, parents are involved in the health of their children, and how school directors view preschool education. Harvard faculty members and researchers joined with Foundation leaders to pioneer innovative evaluation techniques adapted from industry and health to provide continuous improvement in the program's classroom interventions. Press coverage has been frequent and outstandingly positive.
Recupera Chile. Chile's disaster recovery efforts have been the subject of great interest to Harvard faculty members. After three years, most of the infrastructure has been repaired and more than 80% of the people who lost houses are in new permanent homes. Much work still needs to be done in economic recovery, post-disaster community stress, and innovations in the rebuilt space. Led by Doug Ahlers of the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), and coordinated and supported by the DRCLAS Regional Office, a multidisciplinary team of Harvard faculty from HKS and the Medical and Design Schools is focused on earthquake recovery efforts in Chile's Bío Bío Region. Over 200 economic stimulus micro projects were identified by graduate students participating in the program in 2011. The majority of these are already funded, providing economic stimulus in the three communities selected for the program, Dichato, Cobquecura, and Perales. Community mental health programs focused on children are in place through an agreement with Universidad de Concepción. New technologies in earthquake and tsunami-resistant building will be pioneered in 2013 in conjunction with the Universidad 8 N. Strong del Bío-Bío. More than ten Chilean universities and organizations are partners in this effort. Faculty members have had made long-term commitments of time and resources to the program.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In 2012, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics joined nine other U.S. and international institutions to break ground for the Giant Magellan Telescope in Las Campanas, Chile. When it is completed in 2020, the telescope will be the largest in the world, enhancing Chile's role as the leader in astronomical observation. The Regional Office helps to coordinate scientific exchanges between Harvard and telescopes at Las Campanas and Cerro Tololo and has begun efforts to recruit PhD-level training of Chilean astrophysicists at Harvard.
Antarctica Museum. Based on the fact that 35,000 tourists now visit Antarctica annually, the Chilean Navy expressed great interest in developing a museum at its Arturo Prat Base on Greenwich Island in the Antarctic Peninsula. A Harvard team of faculty, DRCLAS Regional Office staff, and Harvard alumni is working with the Armada to develop the museum in which educational programs will be developed and linked to schools throughout Chile. James McCarthy, a world-renown expert on polar ecology and climate change; David Ellis, the former president of the Museum of Science of Boston; and Regional Office staff visited Chile's Arturo Prat Naval Base in Antarctica in early 2013 to develop the program in conjunction with the Navy. The Museo Nacional Marítimo, the Corporación del Património Marítimo, and the Instituto Antártico Chileno are principal collaborating institutions.
Conservation land trusts. Beginning in 2013, Harvard is assembling a team of experts from Chile, Canada, and Germany to carry out a comparative study on innovations in private land conservation, the creation of regional land trusts, and the use of conservation easements. Special attention will be focused on better understanding of the how and why of conservation practices in these three Civil Code jurisdictions with the goal of drafting recommendations in conservation practice, land use policy and tax policy that might be replicated elsewhere. In addition to faculty and experts from Harvard, Chile, Germany and Canada, students from Chile and Harvard will participate in the program.
Scientific breakthroughs. The Regional Office facilitates faculty members' collaborations with Chilean scientists and entrepreneurs in scientific research. They include Donald Pfister, who has discovered new fungus species, Drs. José Halperin, Bertal Aktas, Charles Berde, Daniel Kohane, Gary Strichatz, and Robert Sackstein, who are working with Chilean institutions on innovations in biotechnology to fight cancer, a childhood skin disease, and to develop a new anesthesia. U.S. Food and Drug administration approved the anesthesia for human trials in January, 2013. In the field of astrophysics, hundreds of discoveries, from exoplanets to the origins of the universe, have resulted from Harvard faculty collaborations in Chile.

Student Programs
How does the Regional Office educate global citizens prepared to understand their fields of study, as well as their lives and their life choices, within a global context? The Regional Office has greatly expanded opportunities for Harvard students in the region. For example, students engaged in internships have made long-lasting contributions to hundreds of institutions while enriching and focusing their own careers. Among recent participants in programs of the Regional Office, for instance, are a Rhodes Scholar and two Fulbright grantees. One of the students who worked on the earthquake recovery efforts in Chile became the White House coordinator for the U.S. Government response to Hurricane Sandy.
For students, the goal is to expand the enrollment numbers in Harvard summer internship opportunities, study abroad programs, and other programs in Chile, Peru, and Argentina. The number of Harvard graduate and undergraduate students engaged in the region has increased by 80% in the last two years. By the end of the 2012-2013 academic year, 1005 Harvard students will have come to Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, and Peru for academic term studies, internships, and graduate courses developed and organized by the Regional Office. These programs have included new initiatives by Harvard's Summer School and new January programs.
Harvard undergraduate student programs have shown healthy and sustainable growth over the 10-year period. Internship programs, including new programs in Peru for Spanish language and community service, an internship especially designed for pre-med students in Chile, and internships for more advanced Spanish speakers in Argentina have grown since 2002. In 2013, 130 students applied for programs. Summer internships will be arranged for 60 students in Argentina, Chile and Peru. A total of 601 students have participated in the six internship programs offered by the Regional Office. A total of 106 students have participated in academic term study abroad semesters in Chile and Argentina. Regional Office staff members actively promote these programs on Harvard's campus in collaboration with faculty members. In 2012, recruitment via social media has added greatly to student interest. The Regional Office continues to work on new efforts to attract students for these programs.
Thanks to an increased number of January programs, the total number of graduate students participating in the Region is growing rapidly. Programs include the Kennedy School's Recupera Chile Program, where students work in earthquake recovery; the FIELD program at Harvard Business School, where students act as consultants to international clients; and new international opportunities to work on architectural projects through the Graduate School of Design. Graduate students participating in academic programs since 2003 total 298.
The numbers alone do not tell the full story. Clearly, the international experience of students has shaped careers and has also contributed greatly to the region. 10 N. Strong

Students, Scholars and Professionals from the Region Studying at Harvard
How does the Regional Office attract and support the best students, faculty, and staff from around the world? Over the last 10 years, concerted efforts by the Regional Office have increased the numbers of students and scholars from the region at Harvard. A total of 404 professionals and academics from the region participated in visiting scholar and post-doctoral studies. The two flagship programs are the Luksic Visiting Scholars Program, in which 16 prominent Chileans have participated and advanced their research and scholarship in a wide variety of subject areas, and the Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat Endowment, in which 9 senior Argentine scholars have participated. Post-doctoral and special student programs in the fields of astronomy and medicine have attracted many Chilean scholars to Harvard. Programs such as the Niemen Fellows, Radcliffe Fellows, and Berkman Fellows make up some of the many programs attracting academics and professionals from the region.
The Regional Office works to increase the number of students studying at Harvard through recruiting events and by developing new scholarship opportunities. Two agreements signed in 2011-12 will increase the flow of students, scholars, and interns to Harvard from Chile. Chile's President Sebastián Piñera and President Drew Faust signed the Harvard-Becas Chile agreement in September 2011 in Cambridge. This pact will finance up to 60 PhD students over the next five years. Julio Frenk, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Pedro Uribe, the Rector of Universidad Andrés Bello, signed an agreement establishing a new Institute of Public Health that supported internships and studies at HSPH for 55 students and scholars from Chile at Harvard in 2012. The Regional Office played a key role in the facilitation and negotiation of these agreements.
Since 2002, 1,120 students from the Region have studied in degree programs at Harvard. Over the last five years, enrollments have shown a steady increase, thanks in no small measure to the presence of the Regional Office and its recruiting efforts. The Regional Office hosts recruiting events in conjunction with alumni throughout the region. For example, in August 2012, in conjunction with the Harvard Club of Chile, the Regional Office co-sponsored recruitment events for more than 900 students at Chilean secondary schools featuring Constanza Vidal. From the coastal town of San Antonio, she is the first student in history from outside of Santiago to be admitted to Harvard College. Similar events hosted by the Chile office for Harvard's professional schools attracted nearly 200 applicants in 2012.

Internationalization at Harvard 11
Developing Financial and Institutional Sustainability How does the Regional Office sustain this portfolio of activities? The programs are sustained through a variety of funding mechanisms. Core operational support is generated through generous donors and through student fees. Individual programs led by faculty attract funding from external sources. Finally, the Regional Office seeks opportunities through government and foundation support. Similar to other divisions of Harvard, an entrepreneurial approach has been successful in sustaining the programs in the region.
In 2012, the Fundación DRCLAS-Harvard University was established in Chile. Developing the Foundation enables greater flexibility in fundraising, banking, and government relations. For example, Chilean tax laws enable foundations to apply for tax exemptions for donors to specific projects. In October 2012, the Harvard-Chile Innovation Initiative was established with Chile's Ministry of the Economy. This 10-million-dollar fund, when fully executed in 2013, will support at least 30 faculty-led innovation programs with Chilean colleagues over the next three years.

To Build Learning Networks
How does the Regional Office facilitate sharing knowledge in an era in which knowledge is the world's most valuable resource? With the establishment of the new Harvard-MIT electronic platform for learning, edX, new potential exists to engage Harvard in the region. Beyond broadcasting edX courses to thousands of interested students, this new platform could take advantage of unique learning opportunities that only exist in the region and make them available to the rest of the world. For example, the Regional Office and the Chilean Navy's effort to build a museum and educational outpost on the Antarctic Peninsula is in an environmental hot zone where ocean temperatures have risen faster than anywhere in the world. Harvard Professor Jim McCarthy is working to offer a course on climate change from the museum in which, for logistical constrains, no more than 20 students can participate. By streaming or recording the course, it could be available to Harvard students in Cambridge as well as interested people around the world. History and art from Cordoba, astronomy from the high Andes, and cuisine from Peru, are only a few of the potential "place-based" subject areas that can feed this learning network.
The Harvard-Chile Innovation Initiative will further academic and research ties. For example, breakthroughs in biotechnology mentioned above can be stimulated by providing funding to bring together researchers and faculty from Harvard and Chile around specific problems. In addition, in 2011, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and President Sebastián Piñera signed the Massachusetts-Chile Agreement. Designed to advance research and education in the areas of biotechnology, energy, and education, the agreement provides a framework to stimulate joint research and learning efforts. The Regional Office is a founding organization. Finally, the Regional office hosted a 12 N. Strong seminar at Harvard entitled "Rethinking Chile at the Beginning of the 21st Century" in late 2012. The event was live streamed to over 5000 participants in Chile.

Conclusion
The impact on the region and at Harvard of the Regional Office can be measured by the increased number of student and student-centered programs, and by growing faculty participation, as outlined in this report. The types of programs are indicative of the lasting impact of these efforts. For example, Un Buen Comienzo and Recupera Chile are long-term programs that have benefited thousands of Chilean schools, families, and children. Public policies have been reshaped by affordable housing projects and health and education programs. On an individual basis, Harvard students have been able to focus their careers based on internships and studies in the region. Students from the region now occupy the highest levels of government and industry, and have had untold impact on economic growth in the region.
This impact is the most important evidence of the success of the effort over the last 10 years. Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Uruguay are firmly fixed on the Harvard landscape and Harvard has been ever more present in the Region. The fact that Harvard has an infrastructure to support these programs has led to its success.