The first annual Internationalization Summit took place on campus last Friday, April 11, and consisted of over 40 sessions throughout the day focused on the topic of internationalization. Check in and same-day registration started at 7:45 a.m. and the last sessions ended around 4:30 p.m. Sessions took place mostly in Ruffatto Hall, as well as two rooms in Sturm and one in the Daniels College of Business. The event was hosted by the Office of Internationalization, in conjunction with the Morgridge College of Education, Conference and Event Services, and Sodexo.
“The summit was hugely successful,” said Associate Provost of Internationalization Luc Beaudoin. “We had almost 250 people check in and we had a full day of sessions and a great keynote speaker. Most of the sessions were really well attended. It really showed that we needed this kind of event.”
The sessions at the summit included workshops, poster sessions, research presentations and roundtables. Most of them fell under five interest groups: Engaging Cultural Diversity at Home; Global Service and Work Experience; Teaching, Curriculum and Pedagogy; International Education; and Research. The keynote speaker at lunch was Richard Stenelo, international director at Lund University in Sweden.
Online registration for the summit closed early because it reached overcapacity. However, Beaudoin remarked that they probably could have left registration open, because people would come to some sessions and then leave. He said next year they might make it clearer on the registration form whether people plan to show up for one session or more than one.
“Overall, I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” said Beaudoin. “The idea was to talk about internationalization at this point in DU’s history, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Beaudoin said he has heard nothing but praise from students, staff and faculty who attended the event. He added that the Internationalization Summit will happen again next year, and every year for the foreseeable future.
“What people especially liked, I think, was having the opportunity to meet other people from the university who are doing international things,” said Beaudoin. “Internationalization is something that is organically part of lots of areas of campus, if not all areas. To gather people together to talk about it requires that people really think about internationalization, so they don’t take it for granted.”
The summit was preceded by pre-summit workshops on Thursday, April 10, in the International House. It was followed by the 31st Annual Festival of Nations on Saturday, April 12, in the Ritchie Center.
“What I’d like us to be able to do,” said Beaudoin, “is to continue the conversation that we began to have at the summit throughout the year with different events.”
