The Elephant in the Room: Humanizing the International Higher Education Practitioner-Faculty Relationship

Abstract

This study explores how International Higher Education (IHE) practitioners at public universities in the United States perceive interactions with those in the faculty role when working to achieve internationalization aims. Additionally, this study explores the insights these practitioners have for developing and sustaining generative relationships with those in the faculty role. The findings of this study demonstrate that IHE practitioner-faculty relationships are essential to the advancement of the field yet are stymied by hierarchy and elitism in higher education. To assist the IHE practitioner-faculty relationship, this study provides recommendations for (1) empowering and developing IHE practitioners, (2) emboldening constructive behavioral choices, (3) fostering cooperative cultural values, and (4) establishing egalitarian structures. This study also suggests that to enhance internationalization efforts, leaders at institutions of higher education should (1) become aware of the negative impacts of hierarchical power structures on IHE practitioner-faculty interactions, (2) make elitism and hierarchy discussable at their institution, (3) acknowledge that IHE practitioners are not responsible for faculty engagement in internationalization, (4) enlist IHE practitioners and faculty in collaborative efforts to advance internationalization goals, and (5) recognize that generative IHE practitioner-faculty relationships are a likely site for the emergence of new IHE concepts and practices.