At Penn State, we appreciate our faculty and staff. They bring in their distinguish strengths and make Penn State a unique place. The People at Penn State column features our faculty and staff who have contributed tremendously to the internationalization of Penn State. In this article, we interviewed Dr. Roger Brindley, Vice Provost for Global.
Dr. Roger Brindley joined Penn State as Vice Provost for Global in April, 2020. In this role, Brindley oversees a staff of nearly 100 professionals who manage education abroad programs, advise and support international students and scholars, and facilitate the University’s many international partnerships around the world. As Vice Provost, he promotes Penn State’s comprehensive international strategy and works with senior administrators to guide Penn State’s international agenda. His responsibilities include securing funding to support Penn State’s international activities and programs as well as representing the University to external constituents worldwide.
Can you share a bit of your background and what has inspired you to work for higher education?
Dr. Brindley: I grew up in England and attended university in London for my bachelors degree. I loved playing soccer all the way through high school and college, and fortunately was good enough to be able to come to the United States and be an assistant college soccer coach in the state of Georgia. What I found out from this experience was that while I loved the tactics and strategy of soccer, I enjoyed mentoring, coaching and guiding young adults even more. So I made a decision to take graduate work in education, completed my doctorate at the University of Georgia and then worked in higher education. When I became an assistant professor at the University of South Florida in 1996 I worked to build education abroad programs for students and helped grow an overseas master’s program. After 13 years teaching in the College of education, I was invited to join the central administration efforts to build the university global footprint. It was wonderful to start new exciting initiatives from scratch and I learned a great deal about international scholarship, and from working with students and scholars from around the world. I came to Penn State in the spring of 2020.
How do you see international students and scholars enrich Penn State community, both academically and socially?
Dr. Brindley: Did you know only 42% of U.S. citizens own a passport? I have always been convinced that if we want the next generation of future leaders in the United States to understand their world, we must bring the best and brightest international students from around the globe to work with them and alongside them. International students enrich not only the classroom teaching environment but all of campus life, and represent an opportunity for US students to become more familiar with different cultures and to learn multiple perspectives and a worldview. So, I encourage all international students to speak up and to get to know your American counterparts. Invite them to your meetings and I hope that by challenging yourselves to become actively involved on your campus, you will enrich the whole of the student campus life. International students are the core of our mission and our values, and along the way, we believe that international students will get a great education in the United States and have the opportunity to change their home societies in the future.
With the political tension between U.S. and other counties, how would this affect academic and research collaboration among higher education institutions across borders? What can Global Penn State do to minimize any negative impact?
Dr. Brindley: I believe in an interconnected world and I see our global systems inextricably linked together. Penn State is a research university, and it will be critical that our faculty and students serve our global community by finding solutions to the grand challenges of the 21st century. These include issues of climate change, artificial intelligence, demographic growth, green energies, disruptive technologies, pandemic health, pollution, land conservation, food security, sustainability education, equity in society, etc., just to name a few. As we move through this century of challenges, we are going to be reliant for the future of our planet on the cutting edge research that is developed and shared across leading universities around the world. I am not a politician, and so I will not even try to speak as one. What I will say, is I am convinced that the Earth will be a better place for the future of humankind if economic superpowers work together to realize significant solutions for the extraordinary planetary challenges that we all face.
Since the pandemic, students were taking online classes last year or some are taking World Campus classes this semester. Would you consider the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) mode as an innovative way for future teaching and learning ? COIL allows students to internationalize their curriculum and share intercultural competence through interaction with peers from other countries without going abroad. What are your thoughts on this?
Dr. Brindley: I realize that for many students the face-to-face interaction with faculty and other students that comes with an in-residence experience is a vital part of their university aspirations. However, I also recognize there are many students, particularly in a global pandemic, for whom mobility around the world is not an option. Between the needs of their families, national travel restrictions, availability of airline flights, etc., those students don’t have the option of being at Penn State in-person. I believe that online learning, when it is done well, can be a highly effective alternative. Luckily, World Campus at Penn State has been a leading online option and one of the highest ranked online platforms in the United States for well over a decade. In fact, with six majors/programs ranked in the top ten online programs in the United States, we have more top ranked majors/programs than any other university in the country. For the students who cannot join us in Pennsylvania, World Campus is a great alternative. More than this, however, World Campus allows students who couldn’t afford to come to the United States at this time, or who have to stay home to take care of aging parents or some other family responsibility, to continue their studies uninterrupted at a world class university. I hope that our international students studying at the World Campus will be able to join us in the spring of 2022 in-person, but if they are unable to do so, they will be able to succeed through our World Campus platform and receive a full Penn State degree. In fact, as the number of young adults in the 16-25 age range increases rapidly around the world in the upcoming years, a great many of whom have aspirations to study at university, I think highly interactive an engaging and expertly delivered online coursework is going to be critical for access to higher education.
As the Vice-Provost for Global Programs, what is your vision for this unit, both short-term and long-term?
Dr. Brindley: In the short term, Global Programs has a critical role to play in helping our students and scholars maintain their academic progress towards graduation in the middle of a global pandemic, with all the unprecedented needs that these students and scholars have. However, looking past COVID, this office is going to lead the university in extending and promoting our global profile. One of the critical ways we will do this is through a new office dedicated to international development, alumni affairs and global outreach. We want our alumni around the world to still belong to the Penn State family long after they graduate. We also want to help the university establish global learning in every major in the university. We must ensure we graduate globally competent citizens who will be the next leaders in society around the world. To do this, we must encourage students to be reflective, analytical, problem solvers who are solution oriented, but they must also be compassionate and caring. We look forward to increasing global learning experiences in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum, including education abroad, virtual and experiential learning, internships, etc. Finally, we want to build our research footprint as a globally engaged Land-grant university. We want to support research that has applied outcomes that are culturally situated in locations around the world for the betterment of society. We seek to strengthen global university partnerships and hope to pay particular attention to the “global south” (Africa, Central and South America, etc.).
