Name: Giovanni Anzola
Position: Head of International Affairs
Institution: Universidad de La Salle, Colombia
Leadership Institute Topic: Campus Internationalization: U.S. Graduate Education

“It has been almost eight months since my participation in the U.S. Graduate Education Leadership Institute and I miss every single person I met and gladly remember the places that I was able visit. It is certainly an initiative that encourages participants to utilize international education to promote mutual understanding and build their leadership skills to transfer the acquired knowledge back in their home countries. With no doubt, the program has given me a different mindset regarding the coherence and comprehensiveness of a multi-level education system that it is beyond geopolitical boundaries. The program covered a wide range and crucial academic topics and provided new and updated information related to higher education in the US. Another important aspect to highlight about the Leadership Institutes is the possibility of having a culturally diverse experience. Through discussion with colleagues from a variety of countries, we were able to learn from each other’s practices and our dialogues and activities always turned into very interesting academic debates and/or living experiences. The high quality of the Leadership Institutes has given me important tools for my professional development in Colombia. This initiative promotes educational and cultural diversity and encourages participants collaborate with prestigious scholars and institutions. The Leadership Institutes have allowed me to deepen my understanding U.S. higher education and I thank IIE and ECA for having given me such a gratifying and enriching opportunity. “

Name: Adriana Maria Martinez Arias
Position: Director of International Relations
Institution: Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga, Colombia
Leadership Institute Topic: Campus Internationalization: Institutional Structures to Support Inbound & Outbound Student Mobility

“The EducationUSA Leadership Institutes have been one of the best experiences in my career as an international educator. Not only did I learn a great deal about how to improve internationalization efforts at my local university, but I now have a global network of colleagues who inspire me in my professional and personal life on a daily basis. Through additional funding from the Department of State and IIE I was also able to develop follow-on workshops with U.S experts in my country, Colombia, and contribute to the advancement of our universities. I highly recommend this program because it plays an important role in educational diplomacy and building bridges of understanding between cultures.“

Name: Danish Imtiaz
Position: Assistant Manager, Career Development Centre (CDC)
Institution: Institute of Business Administration Karachi, Pakistan
Leadership Institute Topic: Campus Internationalization: U.S. Graduate Education

“The opportunity offered by the EducationUSA Leadership Institutes truly helped me to enhance my academic knowledge and expand my professional horizons. Being a young university administrator with just over seven years of professional experience, I believe this global exchange program proved to be an amazing platform for me to experience diversity in higher education firsthand. The program focused on establishing and maintaining international collaborations, understanding the U.S. higher education system, and learning about opportunities and challenges of higher education both in the U.S. and internationally. This exchange has been a wonderful networking opportunity where government officials, college/university administrators, and other qualified participants got together to learn about each other’s perspective on higher education in their parts of the world. Spending time with fellow participants from different parts of the world provided participants with a lifetime opportunity to experience other cultures, customs and traditions. I am honored to be an alumnus of such an amazing, one-of-its kind academic, cultural and social exchange program. Thanks to IIE and ECA for all the effort put into this program and for organizing such a remarkable experiential journey!”

Name: Jhanghiz Syahrivar
Position: Lecturer in Marketing Studies and Director of International Office
Institution: President University, Indonesia
Leadership Institute Topic: Campus Internationalization: Institutional Structures to Support Inbound & Outbound Student Mobility

“The EducationUSA Leadership Institutes have helped me and my university, President University, Indonesia, to enhance our campus internationalization efforts. Through this extraordinary program, I was able to broaden my knowledge about campus internationalization and create strategies that benefit my institution in the long term such as restructuring the International Office to meet the University’s internationalization objectives and creating international programs to attract international students and scholars. In 2015, I received a follow-on grant from IIE and the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) which enabled me and my University to share our knowledge and experience regarding campus internationalization with other local university administrators. The generous funding from IIE and ECA has also allowed us to create substantial networks with some top U.S. experts and scholars. I truly recommend that the Department of State continues funding this and similar programs. I strongly believe that many international universities wish to internationalize their campuses and create relationships with U.S. institutions but are unable to do so because they lack the expertise and funds to support their international activities.”

Name: Mizanur Rahman
Position: Professor of Public Policy
Institution: University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Leadership Institute Topic: Private-Industry Sector Linkages & Innovation

“The EducationUSA Leadership Institute on Industry-Private Sector Linkages and Innovation, which I completed in February 2015, was a remarkable experience for me and all participants. We visited several top ranking universities in Colorado and learned their best practices on university-industry linkages from them. We were able to observe how U.S. universities have developed their innovation ecosystems in a framework of shared responsibilities.

After I returned to Bangladesh, I shared the experience with top policy makers in the Ministry of Education, the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC) and the vice-chancellors of a number of public universities. Another outcome of the program is that last year the vice chancellor of the University of Dhaka, my employer, asked me to develop the Dhaka University Technology Transfer Office (DUTTO). The university appointed me as the team leader of this project and we applied for funding from the World Bank. The World Bank awarded the University of Dhaka with a grant of $250,000 for this project.

This is a two-year funding opportunity with the goal to afterwards include the DUTTO into the central budget of the university. The planned DUTTO has a component of international cooperation whereby we plan to adapt innovation ecosystem of the University of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado State University to our local setting. I strongly recommend that the U.S. Department of State will further augment this program and continue to facilitate its alumni efforts to promote university-industry linkages around the world.”

Name: Tinatin Gakhokidze
Position: Program Coordinator
Institution: LEPL International Learning Center, Georgia
Leadership Institute Topic: Campus Internationalization: U.S. Graduate Education

“The Leadership Institutes represented a combination of theoretical courses, panel discussions, meetings with key education experts and officials, job shadowing, strategic planning discussions, site visits to U.S. higher education institutions and relevant organizations, and other interactive activities. The program turned out to be very beneficial for me. On the one hand the training enhanced my professional skills, knowledge and experience while on the other hand I got lucky to make friends with new people working in the field of education. The EducationUSA Leadership Institutes are an amazing program for three reasons: 1) The combination of participants from different countries is very interesting – participants with different cultural and socio–economic background working on the same level, in similar fields; 2) the length of the program – 16 days are just enough for this kind of training; 3) The program is very well structured.”