Moving from International Vision to Institutional Reality: Administrative and Financial Models for Education Abroad at Liberal Arts Colleges

Abstract

The recent efforts of liberal arts colleges to examine the administrative and financial structures of their offices and programs has been prompted in part bythe desire of these institutions to internationalize so as to better respond to the pace of globalization and is in part in response to the increasing attention being directed to international education at all levels, including judicial. Byintroducing the concepts of autonomy, authority, and responsibility with regard to administrative and financial structures, this article seeks to move the discussion of international program administration at liberal arts colleges beyond the centralization-decentralization dichotomyto a consideration of forms and functions that will allow the international office to better translate the institutional international vision into an operational reality.