Rapid changes at the heart of twenty-first century globalisation require adjustments to the curriculum of undergraduate education that entail internationalisation and students’ increased exposure to the world lying beyond their country’s borders. Mounting global economic interdependence signifies that students’ career realities are ever more linked with dynamic cross-national structural and political conditions. Aspiring twenty-first century students must increasingly be aware of the unique cultural, social, geopolitical, and economic circumstances of their own country as juxtaposed with the varied peculiarities of the wider world in which their home country is nested. Curriculum internationalisation involves diverse pedagogical and programmatic efforts, and we focus on two that are both significant and suggestive, and they are occurring in one academic unit at one American university (School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona, Tucson) with which both authors have affiliation. We examine one development within the classroom, where course content is internationalised and students are exposed to diverse cultures and national political experiences through contemporary technologies and more learner-centred activities. And we look beyond the classroom, to an unusual study abroad opportunity, where students engage with one such culture and political setting first hand.

The idea of ‘internationalising the curriculum’ has been subject to wide-ranging debate. Our efforts detailed here are intended to articulate international learning outcomes important to the political science discipline, to share outcomes relevant to the political science academic community, and to illuminate ways in which faculty may incorporate an international aspect into both their teaching and the learning experiences of their students.

‘… an electronic (so-called “Steve Jobs”) delivery model that relies on an iBook, YouTube/Vimeo videos, Twitter, and Facebook …’

Within the classroom, ‘The Politics of Happiness’, introduces students to a diversity of national experiences in advancing human well-being and happiness.Footnote 1 Using a balanced teacher and learner-centred hybrid approach, with an electronic (so-called ‘Steve Jobs’) deliverymodel that relies on an iBook, YouTube/Vimeo videos, Twitter, and Facebook, this course brings the outside world to the localised lecture hall. The course provides considerable contextual information, images, and ideas that transcend students’ own national setting and life experience. Especially directed towards first-year undergraduates, most of whom have little life experience beyond their own country’s borders, ‘The Politics of Happiness’ overviews the varied thinking and experience of nine countries. Since most participants come from the disciplines far removed from world politics study, this course is often participants’ only academic exposure to the global scene. This on-campus internationalising experience contrasts nicely with the University of Arizona’s ‘Arizona in Yalta’ study abroad programme, a 4-week academic experience that takes a small group of approximately 1–2 dozen students to intensive engagement of the Slavic, Russian–Ukrainian world in Yalta and the Crimea.Footnote 2 These generally upper division undergraduates, having completed courses such as ‘the Politics of Happiness’ that offer some exposure to the Slavic world in Arizona lecture halls, now go abroad to complete curricular and extracurricular activities that provide an intensive, first hand illumination of that world. Courses are focused on politics and society, with students also engaging culture and the Russian language; Russian, Ukrainian, and American professors guide discussions.

The first four offerings of ‘the Politics of Happiness’ (2013–2014) yielded 2,000 undergraduates with a broad exposure to international experiences, while 8 years of the ‘Arizona in Yalta’ Summer study abroad programme (2006–2013) yielded more than 100 students. In juxtaposing and illuminating these two substantively interconnected academic experiences, we argue for the value of a modern internationalised undergraduate curriculum. We contend that such internationally focused on-campus and study abroad academic opportunities profoundly broaden and enrich the undergraduate experience; we see these experiences as complementary and mutually reinforcing. While the on-campus happiness course does reach more students, providing many of them a first formal exposure to cross-national human realities, its study abroad counterpart has an especially profound impact on the longer-term worldview and academic–career interests of is participants. In both cases, however, internationalising the curriculum leaves students sensitised to the broader cross-national environment, strengthening not only their substantive awareness of – but also potentially enhancing their tolerance and empathy for – the diverse human condition.

THE POLITICS OF HAPPINESS

‘… happiness commissions or indices reinforced the centrality of happiness to the common good’.

Happiness is a universal goal that motivates individual intent and collective action and, as such, can effectively serve as the prime substantive focus for an undergraduate course motivated to enable students to engage diverse polities and cultures. Given that happiness is tied to human well-being – social, economic, and political – and has been the focus of political thinking, institutions, and policy programmes since humankind’s earliest days, it is not only an appropriate substantive base for all undergraduates, especially first-year undergraduates, but a suitable curricular base upon which to internationalise the undergraduate experience. While therehas been considerable scholarly attention to happiness over the past decades, especially in the social sciences (Christensen et al, 2006; Bok, 2010), the decisions of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and subsequently British Prime Minister David Cameron to form happiness commissions or indices reinforced the centrality of happiness to the common good.Footnote 3 This scholarship and these political initiatives reinforce the value of a politics of happiness course for all undergraduates, regardless of their background or area of specialty.

The University of Arizona’s ‘Politics of Happiness’ course (first offered in Spring 2013) is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first such course in the United States that is focused on cross-national politics, human happiness, and well-being.Footnote 4 The wide appeal of the subject matter draws students from all majors and disciplines around the university.Footnote 5 When the course was formally presented to undergraduate advisers from over 1 dozen colleges at the university, a strong advising-institutional link was forged that has resulted in a continuing, university-wide high profile for the class for each subsequent academic semester’s course registration.Footnote 6

The substantive focus of the ‘Happiness’ course entails an overview of nine polities, spanning Western and non-Western countries, and including pre-modern, modern, and post-modern settings. The overriding goals are developing participants’ awareness of – and tolerance and empathy for – human diversity, as realised through cross-national, comparative political study. While we would never claim that any pedagogical approach or substantive focus can ensure student empathy for other peoples, we believe that awareness and education are conducive to empathy. This is especially true when students engage lecture material, readings, and assignments that provide them direct exposure to the weltanschauung and experience of other peoples and cultures. And it bears mentioning that most students, certainly those aged eighteen to twenty-two, have had little or no direct international experience, their understanding of other peoples unformed or limited. In this context, ‘The Politics of Happiness’ juxtaposes quite varied political systems and national political cultures, a core intention is to emphasise human diversity, and special substantive attention is given to populations long subject to marginalisation (i.e., based on race, nationality, religion, gender, and sexual orientation).Footnote 7 The course’s substantive hook for student interest is happiness and well-being as a universal value common to all people, with our intrinsic human diversity naturally yielding diverse political ideas, institutional arrangements, and public policies.

The cross-national coverage of ‘The Politics of Happiness’ begins, for an overwhelmingly American student audience, with the ‘American Dream’, a relative terra firma for this audience, but also the first national case wherein the notion of the pursuit of happiness was set out in a founding document.Footnote 8 Here, as in all other cases, students are exposed to substantive issues core to the given national case, the US experience prompting discussion of individualism and property rights. Using Rifkin’s notion of the ‘European Dream’, by which Rifkin (2004) illuminates modern Europe’s focus on social justice, collective responsibility, and community, we briefly examine three polities, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands. The interconnections between – and juxtaposing of – the American and European experiences enable us to highlight commonalities and differences among Western societies and political systems. Meanwhile, we can make students aware of alternative social justice thinking (Sweden and Folkhemmet [The People’s Home]), approaches to advancing women in politics (France and the 1998 Gender Parity Law), and historical traditions of tolerance (the Netherlands and sectarian and, more recently, sexual orientation tolerance).Footnote 9 We especially desire including these national cases given that the American public discussion has often offered negative, cartoon character stereotyping of Swedish ‘welfare statism’, French political values, and Dutch ‘liberal’ political culture. Internationalising the curriculum helps in challenging the stereotypes held by a national student cohort as it engages other nation-states. Our subsequent look at another European polity, Germany, permits students to reflect over nationalism, both for and against; we introduce students to the eighteenth- to twentieth-century German-speaking world and the Central European Jewish civilisation as we consider the complexities of intercultural relationships (Elon, 2002). In comparison with other parts of the world, our students often have more knowledge of Germany and of the complicated German–Jewish experience. Hence, this is a case where we can tackle the multifaceted topic of nationalism and challenge students to develop a more sophisticated analytical framework.

Internationalising a curriculum helps students operating in one developmental setting, perhaps a modern or post-modern one, begin to appreciate the differences in weltanschauung and life (and political) experience that inhere in another setting. We purposely devote considerable attention to the modernising Russian and Chinese national cases, exposing students to different political ‘logic’ and institutional arrangements as set in their proper historical context. Bringing in national-cultural background is essential, whether in reading short pieces by literary masters who come from the ranks of a society’s mainstream and who reflect their common perspective,Footnote 10 or reading speeches by contemporary officials whose articulated vision and related policies build on such perspectives.Footnote 11 Meanwhile, brief examinations of smaller nations with ancient histories are equally valuable. Lebanon represents a valuable case for considering human well-being in a highly sectarian and war-torn setting, its unique confessional political system novel to Western students who are accustomed to religion being separated from political institutions and public policies. Remote Bhutan provides a highly intriguing case with which to conclude our cross-national overview, this pre-modern country’s 1972 initiative of Gross National Happiness (GNH) setting out ideas that are stimulating to post-modern Western societies (Thinley, 2005). Overall, this array of nine national cases permits a consideration of various political and developmental issues with which today’s students should be aware, while concomitantly exposing them to pre-modern, modern, and post-modern values and experiences.

INTERNATIONALISING THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE WITH AN ELECTRONIC (STEVE JOBS) DELIVERY MODEL

An important way to minimise the limitations of studying other nations from without, in the lecture hall, is to use contemporary technologies, well-known to students, which convey considerable information with sensory experiences. While reliance on slide show presentation programmes such as PowerPoint is common, using social media such as YouTube and Vimeo videos, Twitter, and Facebook, among others, can bring fresh information, images, and student interactive experiences that profoundly strengthen students’ engagement of cross-national diversity. This is especially true when using sources from other countries. In adopting an electronic delivery model, we were inspired by the 2012 Dutch plan, ‘Education for a New Era’, which proposed using a wide array of technologies in creating so-called ‘Steve Jobs schools’ in Amsterdam.Footnote 12

‘The Politics of Happiness’ uses an iBook specially developed for the course, the iBook including most course material, this material completely accessible without the user being connected to the internet.Footnote 13 Our course intends that students be exposed to a wide array of images, ideas, and experiences, and among the 3 dozen YouTube/Vimeo videos embedded in our iBook are concert performances of high-profile artists with politically important messages, presentations by scholars and political officials, and videos that are idiosyncratic – but culturally suggestive (e.g., a cyclist doing wheelies through Beirut, with unexpected images of a modern and prospering Lebanon). We believe such sensory experiences, when carefully presented, bring a level of exposure to other nations that far transcends lectures and readings alone.

A course Twitter account to which most students subscribe, and which is only used during the lecture meeting, permits students, in ‘real time’, to share ideas and questions, with the 140-character Twitter limit keeping these inputs manageable as the lecture meeting proceeds. Today’s students clamour for immediate, ‘real time’ interactions with a lecturer: something difficult to achieve in a lecture hall with many hundreds in attendance. In large classes, Twitter provides an effective avenue for time-efficient interaction. Moreover, when the course subject matter is focused on nation-states never visited by most participants, the ability of some participants to tweet comments and share experiences is especially valuable. International students, often less confident in expressing themselves in English in the large lecture hall, especially like using Twitter, and they account for a disproportionate number of tweets.

Finally, a course Facebook page serves as an informal course student lounge, permitting students to meet and interact virtually, not only exchanging information, but helping one another with exams and assignments. In our case, the Facebook student lounge is set up and managed by a class participant, a teaching assistant serves as a liaison to assure all is in order, and the course instructor never visits the page. Thus, students interact informally and comfortably, knowing this virtual student lounge provides a support system. We find international students often feel especially comfortable in, and are especially active contributors to, this virtual student lounge.

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

‘… find international students often feel especially comfortable in, and are especially active contributors to, this virtual student lounge’.

With four offerings of ‘The Politics of Happiness’ now completed, it is difficult to assess definitively to what extent the overriding goals of increased student awareness of – and tolerance and empathy for – human diversity have been fully accomplished. Our evaluated assignments are intended to facilitate students developing their own knowledge base while engaging their peers’ thinking. Weekly electronic discussions enable students to refine their own knowledge base while interacting with peers, the computer-generated groups (each numbering five students) usually including at least one international student. Students attempt to understand the worldview of other peoples in a semester-long series of reflective essays, while examinations are intended to enable students to fine-tune their command of cross-national experiences. Meanwhile, required meetings of all students with their teaching assistants, occurring at the beginning and then the end of the semester, are intended to enhance student comfort with the course, while bolstering student learning success.

Overall, after the course’s fourth offering, we can report that:

  1. 1)

    average student attendance, taken at an introductory level notorious for poor attendance and negligible participation, has risen from roughly 50 to 75 per cent;

  2. 2)

    more than 80 per cent of students are subscribed to the course Twitter site, with the average number of tweets posted during a given lecture meeting growing to roughly 2–3 dozen;

  3. 3)

    nearly 90 per cent of students participate in the required weekly electronic discussions, conducted through a student information management system; and,

  4. 4)

    more than 65 per cent of students follow the course Facebook page, our course student lounge. While we cannot assess the intellectual value of student participation in the Facebook student lounge, since it is only open to students and off-limits to the course coordinator and teaching team, we are aware there is considerable dialogue and interaction and we believe the Facebook student lounge does empower those students who choose to use it.

Considered together, these outcomes point to heightened student engagement of the course material. We attribute this overtime trend to many elements, but we believe what has been central is (1) the intriguing nature of the subject matter, (2) the reliance on social media that students both know and enjoy, and (3) the emergence of a learning community in which students feel both comfortable and motivated to participate.

While overwhelmed with the numerous informational and technological challenges of offering this large lecture course with over 500 students, with the attendant time-consuming activities surrounding the social media central to the delivery model, we would like to create pre- and post-test surveys to rigorously assess student learning outcomes. We will need to develop a nuanced survey instrument to assess human tolerance and empathy outcomes. However, at this point, and impressionistically, countless students do report in course evaluations and unsolicited conversations with Teaching Team members that ‘The Politics of Happiness’ has transformed their thinking regarding other nations and cultures.

‘ARIZONA IN YALTA’: ENGAGING THE MISPERCEIVED SLAVIC WORLD

While many students do not have the means to study abroad, an effective internationalisation of the undergraduate curriculum will permit those who are motivated and financially able to do so. As research suggests, study abroad programmes can serve as an effective tool to enable students to transcend the constraints of analysing other societies and political systems at home. Understanding this, the idea of an ‘Arizona in Yalta’ study abroad programme as a common project of the Political Science Department and the University’s Study Abroad Office arose in 2006, the most immediate goal being to diversify opportunities for studying abroad for political science majors, while also attracting students with majors in other social sciences and related areas. Both our academic home department and the University of Arizona traditionally had strong curricular offerings involving Russia and the area of the former Soviet Union (FSU), but given logistical challenges of constructing a semester-long programme in the Slavic world, we opted for a short-term (i.e., 4 weeks) programme. Encouraged by the strong student interest in studying in the FSU, we were also motivated by a desire both to tackle common American student misperceptions of the Slavic world and to craft a study abroad programme that would help bridge the North American academic scene to the Slavic setting.

Scholarly research has demonstrated the profound value of study abroad experience as students develop a global perspective and experience personal growth through stimulating international exposure (Zorn, 1996). Since 50 per cent of our ‘Arizona in Yalta’ programme participants had no previous international experience, we knew the potential for such growth was especially significant. With an interest in exposing students to the oft-misperceived Slavic world, our selection of Yalta and Crimea as a study site reflected our thinking that a non-traditional – but culturally and historically rich – location would more effectively provide a growthful cross-national experience while avoiding the cartoon character stereotypes that might come with more mainstream study locations (e.g., Moscow). The historical and political significance of Crimea entails developments and events (e.g., the 1945 Yalta Conference) known to potential participants from various classes taken at their home university. Courses developed for the ‘Arizona in Yalta’ programme naturally built on this curricular foundation, transcending traditional Russian politics and foreign policy offerings to include comparative political revolutions, emerging and evolving democracies, and the politics of Eurasian energy. We contend that developments in post-Soviet countries do not receive sufficient and accurate coverage in conventional media, with the selective cherry-picking of facts conducive to misperception and misunderstanding. Accordingly, Yalta courses were chosen on the basis of their relevance to the politics, geopolitics, and societies of Russia and the Slavic world. Indeed, we found that most of our over 100 students arrived in Yalta with decidedly negative stereotypes, albeit that most had taken courses such as ‘The Politics of Happiness’ intended to contradict such stereotypes. Participants arrived with expectations of finding oppressive authoritarianism with citizens having little personal freedom, severe economic deprivation, and widespread anomie. In fact, none of these are true, and most such stereotypes fell away during the first week of the programme as students experienced Yalta and Crimea both inside and outside of the classroom. Importantly, all participants quickly learned to appreciate and manoeuvre between the ‘public and private faces’ of Eastern Slavs. We contend that perhaps the most important consequence of the ‘Arizona in Yalta’ programme has been to break through the wall of misperception of the contemporary Slavic world, with the culturally and economically vibrant Yalta proving an especially appropriate setting for taking on these widespread – but inaccurate – expectations.

Reasoning that a short-term study abroad programme would be fundamentally different from a semester-long experience, we developed an experiential learning model that would be appropriate to the FSU setting. We followed Kolb’s (1984: 41) definition of experiential learning as ‘the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience’. If we apply Kolb’s ‘learning cycle’ model to a short-term study abroad programme, we expect that the concrete experiences students receive during the programme can form what Kolb describes as the ‘basis for observations and reflections’, with these reflections distilled into abstract concepts from which new implications for action can be drawn. These implications then can be actively tested and serve as guides in creating new experiences (Kolb et al, 2000). In developing the ‘Arizona in Yalta’ programme, much of our thinking was focused on forming this basis for observations and reflections. Our approach is for (1) the ‘living abroad experience’ and organised study-tours and field trips to yield the information and observations that can be assimilated and distilled during (2) intensive follow-up Yalta in-classroom sessions. More abstract concepts are formulated during in-class discussions, with (3) students drawing implications that are intended to extend beyond the Yalta and Crimean settings to the broader Slavic world, and even further. A final step (4) is for each programme participant to test these implications through independent study research, with the participant drawing implications that serve as ‘guides in creating new experiences’. These independent study efforts generally reflected research topics that would have been unthinkable to participants before they arrived in Yalta, including Crimea’s political evolution before the 1783 annexation by Russia, the Crimean Tatar socio-political experience, and an overview of the post-Soviet Russian–Ukrainian gas wars. An especially notable independent research project that reflected the payoffs of the full ‘living abroad experience’ entailed an analysis of the impact of the 1853–1856 Crimean War on nineteenth-century international politics. The participant, energised by a field trip to the Sevastopol battle site, follow-up readings, and subsequent discussions with fellow students and faculty members, took on a topic that would have been unknown to him before his participation in the programme.

While there is no denying the benefits of full academic year study abroad, we agree with Dwyer (2004: 161) that ‘[In] some categories of factors, summer students [are] as likely or more likely to achieve sustainable benefit from studying abroad in comparison with semester students’. Our reliance on a short-term Summer programme format, however, was also the product of several logistical challenges tied both to the students drawn to the ‘Arizona in Yalta’ experience and to the faculty members serving as part of the teaching team. Regarding the former, most undergraduates, especially at state universities, confront financial challenges in participating in a Summer-long study abroad programme. Beyond the much heftier costs that inhere with being abroad for 10–15 weeks, the Summer is a time when less affluent students, in particular, work to build up financial reserves to defray regular academic year expenses. Accordingly, during the 8 years of our 4-week programme, we have drawn a wide diversity of undergraduates, with an even balance of males and females, students from various socio-economic backgrounds, and a demographic mix that has ensured considerable diversity in life and educational experience. The overwhelming majority of participants majored in political science and most were drawn from the University of Arizona, but approximately 20 per cent of participants were majors in other social sciences. Each Summer, at least one student came from another US university, and altogether almost twenty students from other universities participated in our programme. Meanwhile, most potential faculty–instructors drawn from the American home university are not able to make the lengthy – full Summer – commitment to teaching abroad, but they can be available for a more manageable 4-week period. Accordingly, during these 8 years, beyond the primary programme organiser, a diversity of faculty members from the School of Government and Public Policy has participated, including full professors with active research agendas who jealously protect their productive Summer months.

ASSESSMENT

Eight years of conducting the ‘Arizona in Yalta’ programme yielded both more and less predictable learning outcomes. In addition to bolstering awareness of the Slavic world, the programme lent itself to students expanding their international interests. Beyond attention to Russian and Ukrainian relations with international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and NATO, participants engaged broader interests involving the global economic and security systems. Participants returned to their home university with enhanced motivation to complete related coursework, with approximately 50 per cent subsequently registering for courses on Russian and FSU politics, society, and culture (and this included some students beginning Russian language study). Meanwhile, 30 per cent followed up with other study abroad opportunities as they continued their undergraduate programme. Participants’ longer-term commitment to Slavic and European studies was evinced in approximately 20 per cent of them applying to relevant graduate and professional programmes, while another 10 per cent built on their first experience in the Slavic setting to pursue private sector FSU internship and work experiences.

Finally, the Yalta experience fostered an esprit de corps among participants that continued beyond the programme, with programme alumni forming a Facebook group that permitted continuing interactions. Indeed, we believe that the logic of participants’ shared experiential group learning strengthened their skills in team-work and collective action overall, with some participants returning to Arizona classrooms as a self-aware Russian studies cohort. Nearly all participants maintained the personal–academic connections forged with Crimean Russians and Ukrainians, while most also followed up with programme faculty long after the programme’s conclusion.

REFLECTIONS

‘The Politics of Happiness’ course and ‘Arizona in Yalta’ study abroad programme are but two suggestive examples of how an increasingly internationalised curriculum can help meet the changing educational needs of contemporary undergraduates. Those changing needs necessitate that students can analyse different peoples even as they concomitantly better appreciate world interconnectedness and interdependence. Today’s students must be able to successfully communicate with different people, in the process learning strategies for mutual understanding and mutual respect. An internationalised curriculum can help show students how to develop relationships with culturally diverse co-workers, whether or not those students ever work outside of their home country and culture. Both initiatives we have detailed here have become established at our home university, and while offering each entails considerable time and energy, we and our academic department have made a long-term commitment to continue. The dramatic events of Spring 2014, with Crimea joining the Russian Federation and political chaos overwhelming Ukraine, temporarily halted the ‘Arizona in Yalta’ programme. But our strong desire to continue such a unique short-term study abroad programme in the Slavic world remains. Meanwhile, student interest from across the campus in ‘The Politics of Happiness’ ensures the continued easy filling of the 538 seats that are available as the course is consistently offered in the university’s largest lecture hall.

‘An internationalised curriculum can help show students how to develop relationships with culturally diverse co-workers …’

While summarising successes in offering the ‘Happiness-Yalta’ initiatives, we would be remiss in not acknowledging considerable logistical and attitudinal challenges. Considerable technological resources are needed to create and deliver an iBook, have in place student management systems and social media platforms, and have the teaching team positioned to conductweekly electronic discussions involving many hundreds of students. Likewise, infrastructural needs and expertise are considerable to insert Western students into an Eastern Slavic setting where the intention is for students to flourish both inside and outside the classroom. Needless to say, intimate familiarity with the administrative routines and academic procedures of countries as varied as Ukraine and the United States is essential if the basic foundation is to be laid. Perhaps even more challenging are attitudinal obstacles, spanning students who have never experienced a balanced teacher–learner centred course, never taken responsibility for meaningfully engaging weekly electronic discussions, nor assumed a more pro-active posture in mastering course content. Likewise, many faculty peers, without experience in applying a balanced teacher–learner centred approach or in working with these fast-changing technologies, can be sceptical. We conclude from our experience that those desiring to internationalise their curriculums along the lines attempted here must remain flexible, be willing to adjust to dynamic logistical circumstances, and intensively work with university administrators and technical specialists to ensure their programme’s long-term success.

Our commitment to the ‘Happiness-Yalta’ initiatives reflects our strong belief that an internationalised curriculum can, among other ends, help to address cross-national misperception and misunderstanding, while opening up new study and career opportunities for motivated students. We have been especially surprised at the level to which participants in both of these settings have expressed to us their own sense of having experienced significant changes in worldview and greater comfort with cross-national diversity. Meanwhile, we have been equally impressed by the way that the curricular structure and the assignments of the two initiatives have fostered enhanced student esprit de corps and have contributed to the building of a learning community, and both within each course and programme, and beyond.

Internationalising the undergraduate curriculum requires faculty committed to the generally time-consuming requirements to establish courses and study abroad programmes. Equally important, this internationalisation also requires department heads and administrators who are willing to commit dear resources to see promising initiatives become established educational opportunities upon which interested students can depend. Our intention, joined with those of the others contributing to this symposium, is to champion the considerable educational payoffs that can result from an internationalised undergraduate curriculum. Mindful of the challenges, we view such internationalisation as a core task for the evolving curriculum of the twenty-first century university.