Institute for

          International

                 Liberal Education

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Current Projects

Who We Are

The Institute for International Liberal Education offers a variety of programs in international liberal arts education.  Our projects are located in countries and regions that are undergoing rapid political and economic transformation; including Russia, East Central Europe and South Africa.  Our partners are leading universities with an interest in educational reform.

IILE also organizes conferences and other events that raise awareness of international issues for students, educators, and the general public.

Mission Statement

The Institute for International Liberal Education was formed at Bard in 1998.  Its mission is to advance the theory and practice of international liberal arts education.

We believe that in the post-Cold War era international educational partnerships must be based on mutuality and equality, and that it is important for international exchange to occur at the undergraduate level.  Our long-term partnerships are characterized by the exchange of students, faculty, and curricular elements.

Comprehensive exchanges afford the best possibility for the participants, both in and out of the classroom, to enter into direct, sustained dialogue on intellectual and cultural issues—precisely the kind of international dialogue that is needed to respond to the global challenges of the 21st century.  Unlike the unilateral "exchanges" of the past, substantive academic partnerships based on mutual respect and understanding enrich learning and teaching for all the students and faculty involved. The IILE does not seek to export American models and methods.  Rather, our aim is to create dynamic relationships through which we and our partner institutions can learn from each others' ideas and experience.

Toward a Truly International Education for the Twenty-First Century

by Susan Gillespie, Director of IILE, Bard College

       Almost a decade after the end of the Cold War, it is evident that global technology and the spread of free market forces do not automatically usher in peace and democracy. Among and within nations, the forces favoring international cooperation and democratization face powerful opponents. This is true both in the United States and abroad—most evidently in those nations that have recently emerged from dictatorship.

      At the same time, instant communication and growing economic interdependence among nations make it increasingly urgent—and possible—to address such burning international problems as war, infectious disease, economic instability, environmental degradation, and the status of women, to name only the most obvious. Leaders of supra- and international organizations, including governments and NGOs, are keenly aware of both the dangers and the potential for enhanced cooperation.

    Why, in this context, is so little attention being given to cooperative international educational projects and initiatives? Where, when it is clear that none of the above-named problems can be seriously addressed without the involvement of educational institutions and of creative, critically trained leaders whose actions are grounded in a cosmopolitan world view, are the multilateral programs to explore new paradigms in international education?...more