IIE Announces Winners of the 2018 Andrew Heiskell Awards

Eight Campuses and Their Partners Around the World Recognized for Outstanding Initiatives, Including a Special Award for Internationalizing the Community College

NEW YORK, January 31, 2018—The Institute of International Education (IIE) today announced the winners of the annual IIE Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education. The awards showcase the most innovative and successful models for internationalizing the campus, study abroad, and international partnership programs.

IIE will present the awards at its Best Practices in Internationalization Conference in New York City on March 16. Leaders from the award-winning campuses will make presentations at the conference to help higher education policymakers and professionals advance their internationalization efforts and to promote excellence and innovation. The awards honor the most outstanding initiatives among the member campuses of the IIE Network, IIE’s membership association of more than 1,300 higher education institutions.

The eight colleges and universities that will be recognized this year are notable for their geographic diversity, with campuses in seven U.S. states across the country and a partner in Bahrain, as well as programs in Mexico, Ghana, China, India, Zambia, and around the globe. The winning programs align with IIE’s goals to advance scholarship, build economies and promote access to opportunity, and with the IIE Generation Study Abroad goal of increasing and diversifying the population of students who study abroad.

“IIE created these awards in the belief that international experience is an essential component of a 21st century education that prepares today’s students for the global workforce and equips them to solve the increasingly complex challenges facing our interconnected world,” said IIE President and CEO Dr. Allan E. Goodman. “We congratulate the winners of this year’s IIE Andrew Heiskell Awards for their innovative work. We hope these programs will not only be adapted by institutions for their own campuses, but that they will also spark new creative ideas for internationalization.”

The winners are:

Internationalizing the Campus

• Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond, Virginia for its VCU Globe living-learning community that incorporates globally-focused coursework and service projects with international populations on campus, in the community, and abroad.

• Honorable Mention: Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for a Program in Global Health Studies that combines a dynamic curriculum with research and training opportunities and required study abroad in public health.

• Honorable Mention: Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, for its comprehensive Blueprint for Global STEAM Education.  

Internationalizing the Community College

• The Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster, Ohio, for Ghana Research and Education Abroad, a month-long experiential learning program with integrated research and service projects.

• Honorable Mention: Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, for its Mexico Project connecting PCC students and the Tucson community with Mexico on many levels.

Study Abroad

• University of Massachusetts Lowell in Lowell, Massachusetts, for its Global Entrepreneurship Exchange which brings students from 10 countries together in the United States, China and India to collaborate in small groups on entrepreneurial projects.

• Honorable Mention: Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, for BW in Zambia, a service-oriented study abroad program that provides real world clinical experience for students in the speech-language pathology master’s degree program.

International Partnerships

• West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia for its comprehensive partnership with Royal University for Women in Bahrain that is developing research and student exchanges in the fields of energy, water resources, healthcare, and women and gender studies, to help conquer many of the issues that face both regions as they build skills to help in the shift from energy-based economies.

Read Backgrounder

The members of the Selection Panel for the 2018 IIE Heiskell Awards include international education leaders from a diverse range of organizations: Peggy Blumenthal, Senior Counselor to the President at the Institute of International Education; Arlene Jackson, Associate Vice President for Global Initiatives, American Association of State Colleges & Universities (AASCU); Janice Thomas, Director, International Education Center, Brookdale Community College; Anne Waters, Senior Advisor/Special Projects, Columbia University; and Annmarie Whalen, Vice President for Programs and Resources, The Forum on Education Abroad.

The IIE Heiskell Awards were named for the late Andrew Heiskell, a former chairman of Time Inc. and a long-time member of the Executive Committee of IIE’s Board of Trustees. Mr. Heiskell was a renowned international and cultural philanthropist and a dedicated supporter of international education.

During the 17 years that it has presented the Heiskell Awards, IIE has recognized nearly 140 programs that advance international education on IIE Network member campuses.

Visit IIE’s Best Practices Resource for in-depth profiles of the winners and all of the initiatives that have been recognized since the awards’ inception.

About the Institute of International Education (IIE)

IIE has been a world leader in international education since 1919. IIE works to build more peaceful and equitable societies by advancing scholarship, building economies and promoting access to opportunity. As a not-for-profit with 18 offices and affiliates worldwide, IIE collaborates with a range of corporate, government and foundation partners across the globe to design and manage scholarship, study abroad, workforce training and leadership development programs. For more information, visit www.iie.org

For more information, contact: Sharon Witherell, Public Affairs Lead, switherell@iie.org, +1-212-984-5380