As an undergraduate, Brustein spent his junior year abroad at the University of Rouen, France, an experience he calls “transformative.” Given the world we live in, with its rapidly shifting economic, political, and national security challenges, it is an experience he thinks a university striving to be a global leader should encourage many more undergraduates to

Last year, Illinois was ranked eighth among peer institutions by the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors report for study abroad. Brustein believes that, with imaginative curriculum development, Illinois can become the leading public university in this arena of undergraduate education. The key, he believes, is internationalizing the classroom, where study abroad becomes an integral part of an on-campus course itself, not an “add on.” This is an idea he calls the IFTA—Integrated Field Trip Abroad. In this model, on-campus learning and discussion prepare students to study the classroom subject from a comparative perspective when they travel abroad with the course instructor.

To illustrate this idea, Brustein gave an example from University of Pittsburgh, where he was Director, University Center for International Studies, from 2001 to January 2006. There, a class in the history of U.S. state reform traveled to Estonia and Finland with their instructor for a three week IFTA, capping the course. In Europe, they then studied state reform from the perspective of two quite different countries. Pittsburg was able to price the “field trip” within the students’ means by thinking outside the box about funding, creating a mix that included external donor funding and Title VI funding. Programs similar to the IFTA concept currently exist at Illinois and Brustein is excited to be part of encouraging the concept and increasing the number of options. By increasing support for innovative learning abroad experiences, he believes, Illinois can move from its current eighth place ranking, (“which is fantastic” he emphasizes) to first place in the number of students who study abroad. Doing so will help position Illinois as the preeminent public research university.

Brustein is enthusiastic about the potential to “globalize” Illinois further by involving both graduate and undergraduate students in faculty research conducted abroad. He has been inspired by the Boyer Commission’s report of 1998, which called for research universities to do a better job of involving undergraduates in the research experience—that is, enabling them to contribute to the mission of the research university by shifting the “delivery system” of undergraduate education from transmission (lectures/notes) to “learning as inquiry.” This shift aligns undergraduate teaching at places like Illinois more closely with the defining characteristic of the institution—faculty research—by involving undergraduates in the research process.

While at the University of Pittsburgh, for instance, he was instrumental in developing the Research Abroad Program (RAP), a model he’d like to build at Illinois as well. At Pittsburgh, faculty in all disciplines were recruited to lead RAP programs where honors undergraduates became junior research partners and embarked with them on a focused field research project abroad, supported by university funding. Typically, these programs involved three or four students abroad for four to eight weeks. Both students and faculty benefit from this close collaboration, with students experiencing first-hand what it means to do field research and faculty being energized by their students’ diverse perspectives. Brustein’s own experience with such projects while at the University of Minnesota—supervising a team of four undergraduates and four graduate students in 1989 to comb through Nazi archives in Berlin—demonstrated to him the effectiveness of this collaborative method. It allowed him to undertake and complete a vast research project examining the social origins of Nazism. In the process, the project provided a framework for students to complete publishable research of their own, some using it as a basis to go on to advanced graduate work. As we think about funding in an era of increasingly tight state budgets, Brustein points out, the RAP model is an important one: some students whose later work built on his project leveraged their work on the project to secure additional National Science Foundation funding. Across disciplines, this can be a win/win model and he hopes to encourage the idea here at Illinois.

Brustein emphasizes that study abroad in all its forms enriches and empowers individuals intellectually, a mission important in and of itself. At the same time, by internationalizing the classroom, these kinds of programs help prepare students for globally-focused careers in academia, business, or the professions. For instance, faculty members are increasingly engaged in international research collaboration, because many of today’s great discoveries result from international cooperation. Future faculty with international research experience and contacts are, thus, well prepared to continue that work. International experience also helps make students attractive hires for global companies, Brustein points out, because although they may be hiring a human resources specialist or an accountant, global companies are also looking for individuals not afraid of confronting obstacles, with demonstrated capacity to function effectively in other cultures. People having lived abroad are more likely to understand the values and sensitivities of different cultures and be nimble and flexible in the ways they need to be to succeed. These are people likely to fast-track in these companies. But if numbers persuade more effectively than ideals, Brustein points to a report1 by the Committee for Economic Development that puts U.S. business losses due to ignorance of foreign cultures or to insensitivity at two billion dollars a year.

For Brustein, a global university is a university whose boundaries are not just determined geographically, and this includes the composition of the student body. International students on campus, he says, contribute to the knowledge base and help internationalize the university through their interactions with U.S. students. We “must get away from ghettoization of international students while on campus, though, because they can play such an important role while here, then serve as our ambassadors around the world to further cement ties between Illinois and other countries.” But what about competition with in-state residents? All public universities are confronted with the challenge of making sure top students can go to the flagship university, Brustein observes, because there are so many great students these days. However, in the discussion, “one should not lose sight of the benefits a large international student body brings. We can reach a balance and must, because of the benefits these students bring.”

And Illinois is in a good position to attract foreign students, he emphasizes, because these students look for programmatic excellence; the opportunity to work with cutting edge faculty; a hospitable living environment; and a place that’s affordable but known for excellence. Illinois has the stellar faculty and programs to attract top-notch foreign students, he says. In addition, with eight Title VI National Resource Centers focusing on global, area, or international business studies, Brustein believes that this package is unbeatable. Still, there is a challenge—getting the word out more widely. “Part of it is going to have to be marketing—it’s very competitive out there,” he notes, “and we have to capitalize on the college town location and amenities of the university.” “I want to place on the agenda becoming the preeminent global university,” he declares, because “the universities that will be around in 50 years will be the global universities, ones which are not bound by geography.” And, he asserts confidently, Illinois has the potential to bring together the resources that can make it the number one global university.

1 “Education for Global Leadership: The Importance of International Studies and Foreign Language Education for U.S. Economic and National Security”