High. Learn. Res. Commun. Vol. 3, Num.
2 | June 2013
Internationalization at Harvard
Ned Strong*
Harvard University, United States
Submitted: May 27, 2013 | Editor-reviewed: May 27, 2013
Accepted: June 4, 2013 | Published: June 12, 2013
Abstract: The aim of this essay is to describe internationalization at Harvard University.
Founded by European colonists in 17th century New England, Harvard has historic
international roots. By the mid 1900’s it had become an international powerhouse
attracting top students, academics and scientists from around the world. Yet, the
University is international almost by default as it has reacted to world affairs. Looking
toward the future, President Drew Faust has outlined a strategy to become “intentionally
global”. One model, begun ten years ago, serves as an example for the future. In 2002
the University established its first overseas office designed to represent the entire
institution. The theory was that a modest local infrastructure would encourage students
and faculty to expand international collaborations and make a difference in the region
benefiting from this presence. The results have been highly successful. The Regional
Office in Santiago Chile, representing Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay, has
catalyzed engagement of over 3000 faculty and students in the last ten years. Over
50 significant collaborative research programs have benefitted thousands of preschool
children, pioneered new approaches to disaster relief, improved health care,
revolutionized public housing, and led to scientific breakthroughs. This model of a small
physical footprint exerting large academic influence will be one of the central strategies
as Harvard looks toward the future.
Keywords: Internationalization, Harvard, students, university, international expansions,
programs
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
* Corresponding author (ned_strong@harvard.edu)
Suggested citation: Strong, N. (2013). Internationalization at Harvard. Higher Learning Research Communications,
3(2), 4-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v3i2.117
High. Learn. Res. Commun. Vol. 3, Num. 2 | June 2013
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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
References
Faust, D. G. (2012, September/October). Toward a global strategy for Harvard. Harvard Magazine.
Retrieved from http://harvardmagazine.com
Faust, D. G. (2013, May 16). The Harvard Campaign- Office of the President. Retrieved from
http://campaign.harvard.edu
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Internationalization at Harvard 13
