Kennedy has been at the U-M since 1986. One of the greatest opportunities and challenges before us at the International Institute is to deepen and extend our university s engagement with the world. That is part of the opportunity, and challenge, of my new job. I want to recognize and facilitate the range of international engagements across this university. And by grounding these engagements in diversity and collaboration, I seek to elaborate not only a core mission for the International Institute, but to work with others to develop a coordinated sense of Michigan as an extraordinary university of the world.
All universities engage the world.
Studies of ancient civilizations have long been an important aspect of higher education. Travel beyond one s nation was assumed to be the proper extension and refinement of university learning. These practices had been embedded historically in privilege, but World War II and its aftermath significantly extended the international in American universities. Both refugees and returning GI s brought dispositions and experiences from across the world into the American classroom. During the Cold War, our sense of national security depended not only on knowing the great powers but also the rest of the world where the battle with communism would be waged.