Fanshawe looking to go global in the future

After taking a yearlong sabbatical one Fanshawe employee is hoping that her experience will not just bring the world to Fanshawe, but take the college international.

Wendy Curtis, the colleges' manager of international partnerships, proposed a sabbatical to the college so she could take a correspondence Master of Integrated Studies with Athabasca University.

“The specialty that I focused on was global change,” Curtis explained. “People think of global change in terms of the environment but what I focused on was the institutional response to globalization- how do college's respond, and how has Fanshawe responded to globalization?

“And in my opinion the way to respond in a very pro-active and positive way is internationalizing what we do here.”

It was those processes that Curtis was interested in looking into, ensuring that Fanshawe is attuned to what's happening outside of this London community of relative wealth and opportunity.

Curtis sees internationalizing the college as incorporating global approaches to the teaching, learning, research and programming already at Fanshawe. And in doing so being attentive, not just to the local community, but the needs of the larger, and therefore global, communities.

“Years ago when colleges were set up they had a prescribed geography,” Curtis continued. “So they were set up to serve the local communities. But as those boundaries disappeared much of what we do has been deregulated and suddenly our market place is much broader.”

And Fanshawe, Curtis believes, has focused on broadening their horizons, so to speak, with programs like the international business studies, which are relatively new, but address the need for a broader learning base.

“We also now have some study abroad programs,” Curtis said. “Students can go to Japan for example, or we have an exchange with the Netherlands coming up. So just facilitating our domestic students to have opportunities outside of this very local geography is an asset for an institution like ourselves.”

And it's that reach that helps to make students employable because upon graduation, their skills, and education, can transfer between cities, countries and even continents.

Curtis likens that sort of experience based education to a form of literacy, that when students have that international thinking and approach it enables then to be competitive, which is important because a lot of students will likely find themselves moving out of London for a job.

“What we do is strategic,” Curtis continued. “What we're thinking about is how we approach this to ensure that our students are always employable and not just in the four-county area. And if they do stay in this local area, if they've had those experiences here, where they've been able to have the broadest possible vision to employ their learning, they'll be better employees. They'll keep London really strong and competitive.

“So whether they choose to live overseas, or choose to live here, they're showing what Fanshawe is able to offer the world.”