BUILDING AN INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION IN ENGINEERING
AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

The Béthune campus of the Université d'Artois in northern France contains the Institut Universitaire de Technologie (IUT) and the newer Institut Universitaire Professionel (IUP). The former grants degrees in technology, the latter in engineering. The Penn State College of Engineering at University Park is home to the School of Engineering Technology and Commonwealth Engineering (SETCE). This academic department is responsible for the delivery in a multi-campus environment of associate and baccalaureate engineering technology programs and lower division core baccalaureate engineering courses at 18 Penn State locations.

A collaboration between IUT/IUP and SETCE was begun in 1994. It now embraces faculty exchanges, joint conferences, short-term student industrial placements, distance education and teleconferencing, and research collaboration. These efforts have also expanded to include and interdisciplinary Science Technology and Society (STS) courses, the College of Liberal Arts languages courses, and several branch campuses in the Penn State system. This paper identifies what the critical inputs were, what the enduring obstacles are, and what the present success and future promises are. As the exchange has developed, personal ties and information technology have emerged as more significant than money and formal agreements between the universities.

INTRODUCTION

In his prophetic book, The End of the Nation-State (Le Fin de la Democratie), Jean-Marie Guéhenno notes the increasing mobility of capital, ideas, information and people, with the concomitant weakening of the significance of territory and nation states. (Guéhenno, 1993) The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Centre for Educational Research and Innovation's study Internationalisation of Higher Education, contains similar conclusions. Internationalizing higher education, in this view, means internationalizing the curriculum to support the global economy, including local and shared curricula, and the increasing international movement of faculty and students (van der Wende, OECD, 1996).

The OECD document reports different histories in different countries for internationalizing the curriculum. In 1985, Australia decided to treat education as an international trade industry, and, by 1994, it was earning over a billion dollars (U.S.) a year from foreign students. They have since followed the economic route more by focusing on their Asia/Pacific trading region. Since the late 1970s, Japan has been acting to overcome isolation. About 90% of their more than 500 universities now have international agreements. Countries such as Denmark and The Netherlands, who have long compensated for their minority language status at the faculty level, now embrace international experiences for their students, also. Even countries with strong research and industry, like Germany and France, have similarly moved assertively to internationalize their curricula in the last decade. Despite such very different histories and characteristics, all these countries are taking the same paths.

While the trend to internationalize higher education is moving steadily in the direction predicted by Guéhenno, there is still room to study the objectives, means and outcomes of the process. The OECD document provides a comparison of activities in The Netherlands and Australia. Rather surprisingly, both countries had the same three categories comprising 50% of all types of international curricula. These were: curricula with an international subject, traditional curricula augmented with an international component, and curricula which prepare students for defined international professions. The collaboration described in this paper falls into this third category. (The main differences noted in the study were that the Australians reported a strong emphasis on area specific studies and the top category for the Dutch was curricula designed for foreign students.) (van der Wende, OECD, 1996, pp 47-8).

THE D'ARTOIS-PENN STATE CONNECTION

The University d'Artois is a new university in northern France. It is composed of four campuses which until the early 1990's were part of the University of Lille. Today the University d'Artois houses programs in engineering, engineering technology, and management at its Béthune location, liberal arts and related disciplines at its campus in Arras, natural and applied sciences in Lens, and law programs in Douai⁽¹⁾

. As a new university in the French system it has a strong commitment to internationalism, which is being directed from the Béthune location and which initially focused on engineering and engineering technology. Graduates from both the IUT and the IUP must satisfy a foreign language proficiency requirement (for two foreign languages in the case of the IUP) and an industrial placement component in their curricula each year.

At Penn State's main campus at University Park (UP), the baccalaureate engineering degree in twelve undergraduate majors is offered. However, annually more than 50% of the College's engineering majors begin their engineering education at one of eighteen non-UP locations. Additionally, each year approximately 40% of the college's baccalaureate engineering graduates experienced one or more semesters at a non-UP location. Many of these non-UP locations also offer associate and selected baccalaureate degree programs in engineering technology ⁽²⁾. The faculty and curricula at these non-UP locations are members of the SETCE faculty and the curricula are the responsibility of the College of Engineering.

While Penn State has a large variety of international initiatives in virtually all disciplines, including engineering, none of these have involved engineering technology faculty, few have involved faculty in any discipline at non-UP locations, and only limited opportunities have existed for faculty involved in lower division (freshman and sophomore) and introductory engineering courses. In addition, while the majority of international exchange opportunities are center on gaining language competency; those in engineering focus more on technical course equivalents with English speaking universities. The typical engineering exchange expects students to make normal progress toward their degree and simultaneously gain an international cultural experience. The typical foreign language exchange is in the "semester abroad" model.

New instructional technologies, especially those involving electronic media, are rapidly changing and simultaneously challenging many of these traditional exchange program paradigms. The new activities involving the IUT/IUP and SETCE are increasingly involving new instructional technologies and electronic media.

The primary motivation of the IUT/IUP is to expand their faculty and student awareness of "American" English and American culture. They are also in a position to commit significant financial resources to the support of their faculty for short term exchanges to the US and for the limited support of SETCE faculty for short term exchanges to Béthune. Because of the English language proficiency requirement in both their engineering and engineering technology curricula, they expect US faculty to teach courses (more accurately these should be referred to as modules of selected courses) in English.

The primary motivation of the Penn State SETCE is to develop international experiences for faculty in first and second year introductory and design courses, in engineering technology at the associate (2 year degree) and baccalaureate (4 year) level, and for engineering and engineering technology faculty at non-UP locations. Less direct financial support has been available from Penn State and the SETCE for this initiative; however; significant resources have been committed in time and support by faculty, staff, and administrators.

While these were the primary initial motivations of the respective institutions, both have been supportive of initiatives and opportunities beyond the scope of these initial motivations.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF EXCHANGE DEVELOPMENT

The current exchange was initiated in 1994 by an invitation from the IUT for one to three Penn State instructors to teach a 24 hour course module in a variety of engineering topics at Béthune. Instruction was required to be in English (American). Initially only one faculty member took advantage of this opportunity and taught classes in solid modeling and technology assessment. The initial exchange was also to a more limited degree motivated by the faculty member's desire to experience the French culture, particularly the wine, the cheese, and the cuisine.

Following a short term visit, six months latter by the SETCE head, intended to assess programmatic levels, facilities, and the local environment, three faculty accepted opportunities to teach in May of 1995. Some had good French language skills and consequently began to develop personal, as well as professional, linkages with the Université d'Artois faculty and staff. These personal ties have subsequently contributed as significantly to the development of the exchange as the professional ties.

In 1996, five Penn State faculty traveled to Béthune to teach and observe in several departments. Two were involved in the development and conduct of a two day conference on green engineering, "L'Ingenierie Verte," in collaboration with the Béthune campus and local industry. Additional Penn State faculty from the University Park and Harrisburg campuses participated as presenters in the conference via compressed video, PictureTel. Two Penn State students spent two months in industrial placements in Béthune and Lille.

During the following fall semester faculty from Béthune visited to discuss the development of a cooperative green design course for delivery dung the spring of 1997. This was a direct follow up to the two day conference organized the preceding May. Early in the spring 1997 semester, seven sessions of the course "Design for Society" were delivered from Penn State to the IUT via PictureTel. This will be followed with on-site sessions in May. Also, in early 1997, another faculty member for Béthune visited Penn State to discuss possible research collaboration. As a result of this visit, collaboration will begin this summer with several students traveling to the IUT.

A total of five Penn State faculty from two campuses will attend Béthune in May 1997 to teach and to collaborate on a conference on the use of information technology in engineering and higher education. Two Penn State students will also have industrial placements in northern France through the IUT. In addition, three Béthune students are currently in central Pennsylvania participating in industrial placements.

In addition to the continuation of these faculty and student exchange activities, future objectives include the continued development of cooperatives courses and projects, the short term exchange of larger groups of students for intensive seminars, workshops and cultural experiences, and the expanded use of new instructional technologies to supplement other courses. With the background which has been established it is hoped that some external support can be obtained to support some of these expanded activities.

SIGNIFICANT FACTORS

The OECD study lists ten general factors that they found contributed to successful development of efforts to internationalize higher education in OECD countries. We will follow their categories while observing that our focus is on international collaboration, while theirs was more general. (van der Wende, OECD, 1996, p71).

Sufficient Institutional Autonomy

In France, this was a major issue as the government exercises considerable control over all levels of education. Since 1989, there has been a 4-year contract between the State and institutions and through this mechanism the institutions can now bargain for their own goals. Increasingly, international cooperation has been encouraged by the State in these contracts. This contractual opportunity has allowed the Béthune campus to pursue international agreements aggressively. At Penn State, itself largely autonomous, it was individual autonomy within the university that allowed the faculty to engage in the collaborations. While university policy at Penn State has increasingly stressed the importance of such activities, the incentive system has not. Nevertheless, there are various modest support mechanisms and freedoms that allow faculty to develop their involvement in international activities. In addition, the semester at Penn State ends 6 weeks before d'Artois which creates the most actively exploited time interval.

Sufficient Flexibility in Curriculum Regulations and Restrictions

This adjustment was largely made by the Béthune campus and it required significant efforts by the Director to open up an already full curriculum to allow for foreign faculty from various countries to come and teach there. The curriculum at Penn State has not yet been affected beyond a joint PictureTel class session.

The Idea Represents an Academic Challenge

There is no doubt that this represented an academic challenge at both ends. It is hard to see this as a positive force, however. It is not recognized as innovative and not rewarded as such. That is why it is a challenge. And when the idea is sold, it is invariably linked to economic reasons rather than academic ones. As Guehenno notes, globalization is happening whether we want it or not. The visionaries embrace emergent history, but they do not control it, nor necessarily get rewarded by it.

A Strong Innovator Leads the Process

This has been the most important factor. The main driver of the collaboration has been Professor Jacques Lesenne, the Director of the Béthune campus. His commitment to innovation at his own campus rests on adding mandatory industry experience each year for his students and internationalizing the curriculum - including a requirement for the students to gain a working knowledge of foreign languages. The latter he supplements by bringing in faculty from other countries to teach in foreign languages, often English, about their specialties in their own countries. The countries are typically European and North American, but Asian collaborations are also being pursued. At Penn State, Lesenne's counterpart has been Professor Wayne Hager, the Head of SETCE, who has managed his autonomy successfully to bring Penn State resources into the collaborations.

A Broad Involvement and Commitment of Staff

Building the pyramid of involved personnel at each end is both cause and effect in the development of an international relationship. D'Artois is much smaller and the faculty and international programs staff alike both report directly to the Director, who knows them well personally and professionally. The Penn State involvement has been at the department level with modest support from the international programs office of the university and, in 1997, modest support for the first time from the College of Engineering and one of the system campuses.

In this category, the most important development is establishing relationships between faculty that enable activities to occur without the prodding of the lead actors on each side. To date, there has been some tendency for D'Artois to send staff to Penn State and for Penn State to send faculty to d'Artois. However, that has begun to change, and faculty, and some spouses, are now going both ways. This is reflected in communications which are now often lateral at sub-leadership levels. This occurs easily because of new information technology.

Endorsement from the Management

This is in place. At d'Artois, the collaboration was initiated by, and is carried forward by, the management. At Penn State, the Head of SETCE has had sufficient autonomy to enter into the collaboration. Further, Penn State, and the French Government, recognize the importance of international collaborations. Unfortunately, SETCE is not given the chance to negotiate international activities into a contract. The contractual model within a large university would be an interesting concept to consider.

Combined Top-Down & Bottom-Up Strategy

This has occurred naturally as the result of scale rather than policy. The collaboration began with a visit or two by administrators followed by first one, and then more faculty, students and staff. It was complemented by information technology, which is inclined to sweep away such distinctions as top-down and bottom-up. (Guehenno)

Consistence with Institutional Mission and Policy

At d'Artois, the institutional policy and the collaboration are established by, and pursued by, the Director. There is a very high degree of consistency including time, money, and curricula. At Penn State, the collaboration is well supported, and increasingly so, by stated institutional policies. But, here, at least the top/bottom distinction still has some meaning. The bottom is doing what the top wants but will not pay for.

Continuous Evaluations

Assessments are done immediately after each event, and the planning for the next events commenced while the lessons are still fresh in everyone's mind. The immediacy is important. So, too, is the wide open nature of the assessments. The candor in the evaluative process follows from the personal relationships, the trust, that has been established over the years.

Budget for Development Costs

The budget allocation for the collaboration has occurred in France. Penn State has used a collection methodology for participation: a little from here, a little from there. Penn State has yet to make a formal budget allocation for the collaboration. There has there been no attempt yet to get third party funding. Despite this, the collaboration has been developing well. This is because of the d'Artois commitment and because it is a ground-up activity which decides on the activity and then finds the cheapest way to do it well.

OTHER FACTORS

The list of important factors for internationalizing the curriculum developed by the OECD provides a helpful starting point for understanding an international collaboration. We would like to build on it, understanding that we are explicitly looking at collaborative activities, whereas they also considered change at a single institution. So our approaches reflect slightly different agendas.

Complementarity

Penn State and d'Artois are quite different. Penn State is old, very large, and a research university. The Université' d'Artois is new, small, and with an embryonic research program. The Béthune campus holds the old IUT, which provides the strong ties with industry for the undergraduate curriculum and employment. Penn State has strong ties to industry for research and employment, but not as strong at the undergraduate level -although its coop program is now 10 years old. A lot of industry is near Béthune, but not much is near Penn State. Penn State wants to internationalize its curriculum; d'Artois is doing it.

From the beginning, the differences attracted and helped make things work. Penn State ends its school year 6 weeks before d'Artois allowing an ample window for collaborative activities. For those who wanted international opportunities this was a great opportunity. Faculty who go there always get visits to major industries, which is hard to do in a rural institution like Penn State. The industry ties at Béthune also made industry coops easy to arrange for Penn State students.

Differences that Impede

American students pay for their education, French students do not. American students therefore get paid for working in industry. French students do it as an unpaid learning experience. This is a major problem for student exchange programs for coursework or coops. Obviously, American students like free education and French students like being paid for coops. It is the two converse situations that present difficulties. French industries to date have been willing to pay something to the Penn State students, and Penn State has provided some support for their students. To date, no students have taken courses at the other institution. In the Spring of 1997, an experimental PictureTel course was run from Penn State for a full class of students at d'Artois. This indicates a way for keeping costs very low if shared course work emerges.

Language is an issue, and again it is the French who have taken the lead. They require all their students to gain a working knowledge of two foreign languages. In the Penn State student-choice approach, a dual major of engineering and French has been set up (there is one for German, also). Of course, only a few students wish to add a year to their degree program to do this. Penn State, too, tends not to recognize either the utility of working knowledge or profession specific language skills. Both principles prevail at d'Artois. The language skills of Penn State Faculty is also a problem. The first faculty member spoke little French and even now, about to go for the third time, his French is not good enough for teaching. Of the five currently active Penn State faculty, one is expert, two have rudimentary skills in French, and two have none. The few Penn State students involved have good French skills. Unquestionably, language skills improve the quality of the collaboration. The many French faculty, staff, and students involved have English skills that range from rudimentary to expert. It is noteworthy that faculty with the best English, such as those that teach it, have played a very significant role in the program to compensate for language weaknesses on the American side.

Information technology has also been an issue. The telephone and FAX is the preferred mode at d'Artois, but by 11:00 am EST they are leaving their offices. At Penn State, email is the primary means for even slightly remote communication. The Internet was resisted in France for a long time and it was not possible for d'Artois to get connected. This is now changing and the Béthune campus will have its first student Internet computer lab in the Spring of 1997. PictureTel and multi-media technologies has been at both campuses and used thoroughly. Teleconferencing by Internet is at Penn State and will probably soon be at Béthune. This will play a major role in the future. Penn State is now installing Pro-Share. Since this is compatible with PictureTel, it will immediately improve communications.

Personal Relationships

There are two dimensions to this topic. First, the development of friendships has been a great benefit. When intrinsic rewards are modest, non-existent, or negative (publishing time foregone), then it is the intrinsic values that motivate. Lesenne, from the outset, wished to cultivate relationships rather than use new people all the time. This has worked, and there are at least four institutional visits each year, counting both directions. These visits always include strong social components.

Secondly, the role of information technology is very important. As the use of the Internet between the two universities has emerged, the quantity, quality and speed of the exchanges has improved. But more than that, as Guehenno predicts, there has been a flattening of hierarchy and direct (lateral) functional relationships have taken over.

Interestingly, Guéhenno is very concerned with the loss of public life (political sphere) that occurs with the decline of the nation state. He sees this globalization and functionalization of relationships in this networked world as being accompanied by no higher purpose, no larger human meaning, no cultural memory. He worries about a world "that is no longer defined by the human groupings (national or corporate) that it is composed of, but only by the problems with which it must deal." (p.26) In the present context we might quip - it is a world in which we are all becoming engineers. In our experience, however, he may be partly wrong. Any weakening of national sovereignty is accompanied by both friendships and empowerment, and it promotes peace. We can correctly point to the economic benefits for our students when they are prepared to work for an increasingly dominant global economy. And we can be aware of the benefits of learning of other technologies and other institutional policies. But, when we explain our own involvement, we should also remember the role of friendships and the attractions of diversity and foreign travels.

REFERENCES

Guéhenno, Jean-Marie. The End of the Nation-State. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

Van der Wende, Marijk. Internationalisation of Higher Education. Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 1996.

1996 ABET Accreditation Yearbook, Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc. Baltimore, MD, 1996.

¹ For purposes of this paper, equivalent US terminology of disciplines and program areas are used; actual French terminology will differ,

² The distinction between engineering and engineering technology is formally defined be the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET); for the benefit of the reader the major difference is in the focus on engineering theory in engineering and the focus on engineering practice in engineering technology. Few other countries make this distinction in the "engineering" profession or practice.

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