1982K2

As international student, my ideas and expectations from the program thought the description given at the university website. I was open to new ideas, I wanted to learn the US way of administrative work and leadership at higher education institutions, to understand the transition from K-12 in higher education, and was interested learning about assessment and accreditation of higher education. However, the courses I took in this program up today has shaped my interest of research and I realized that the higher education administration is not a vague or abstract concept, but it is certain, and consist of colorfully detailed sections or set of sections, including diversity both multicultural and international, leadership within all levels of higher education, student development process, international and comparative studies, internalization issues in higher education in the US and all over the world, and also the most important topic and the intercultural and international sensitivity.    Multiculturalism or the concept of diversity in higher education institutions is becoming broader today. In the beginning the diversity was mostly used to describe the racial and ethnic differences. However, today diversity issues includes starting from race, sex, social status up to professional, intercultural and international diversity. One of the recent issues on diversity is how to make the campus population diverse, and how to build a healthy community within the diverse groups in higher educations. Moreover, the diversity in higher education is not the diversity of student body or faculty; it is also diversity of both academic and cultural programs, diversity in teaching and learning, and diversity in research, in budget increase, and in collaboration with both domestic and international educational institutions and business corporations.    Next, leadership is one of the actual themes in higher educations. It is important to understand how the role of a leader in higher education functions at different levels of management. Today’s leadership in educational institutions differs in many ways from those in the past. The traditional concept of a leader is shifting to a modern one where the leaders collaborate and do not only have followers, but they also create leaders. Finally, developing the philosophy of one’s leadership is important in becoming the future leader.    Another topic in the HIED program is how to apply the student development theories into practice or how to use the theories effectively to assist the students develop their identity from the psychological, social, and cognitive or moral development point of views. The major concern is how to assist the student develop once racial, sex, religious, national, ethnic identity. However, challenging topic in higher education is student outcomes. The studies focus on the student’s’ outcome based on students’ professional, educational, cultural, intercultural and personal development. Since the student population is the important part of higher education system, how student affairs stuff, faculty and administrators assist the students to become professionals gaining theoretical, practical, cultural and international experience throughout the program.    <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: blue; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Currently, the newest and the attractive topic in higher education in US and in the world is internationalization of the educational institutions. In today’s mobile world, the educational organizations work globally and gain achievements not nationally, but also internationally. The issues in higher education is becoming globally important and preparing the internationally competent specialist who can work cross-culturally in any society. The benefits of internationalization for the higher education institutions overweight the budget of the institutions, the challenges the international diversity, and promotes the internationalization of the program content. Besides, the internationalization of the institutions includes the study abroad programs, faculty exchange, internationalizing the curriculum, and developing the international research programs. <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: blue; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: blue; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The international and comparative studies are one of the aspects of the higher education and deals with the comparative studies mainly. It also studies the globalizations and its effects to the higher educational institutions and organizations all over the world. These studies focus on comparative research in international issues. By comparing one institution or program with the other we evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of the institution or program. However, when we compare internationally, we can evaluate the program or institution at international and global level. Each country or each geographic region has its own needs, interests and challenges in education. The one theory ( it could be leadership or student development) used in one cultural context may not be always applicable for the other context. <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: blue; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: blue; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">Finally, as the continuation of internationalization topics, yet independent from other international topics, is the role of intercultural and international sensitivity educational institutions. The intercultural communication play important role in the process of internationalization of the institutions and international research and comparative studies. To develop the skills those help us to recognize the intercultural differences and ability to accept them, the cross-cultural differences in the process of learning and teaching, counseling are the issues of the topic discusses. In fact communication is the nature of human being, and successful communication results the establishment of healthy relations, networking, and collaboration. Therefore, intercultural and international communication is very important part of working globally and collaborating cross-culturally.