A Study On The Development And Management Of Internationalization Of Higher Education

When the world is overwhelmed by economic globalization, Chinese universities are faced with unprecedented challenges. The key issue is to take advantage of the opportunity of internationalization and cultivate talents with global competitiveness. Although Chinese universities have been opening up together with the country since the late 70‘s of the last century, national policy did not openly encourage internationalization until last year. Yet when universities are turning their faces to internationalization, they find themselves perplexed as to exactly what internationalization means to them, and where the way out is. In trying to solve these problems, this thesis made careful studies in the following areas.A careful analysis was done concerning the history, development, connotation and significance of internationalization of higher education, and reached the conclusion that internationalization is the essential feature of higher education. Ever since their inception, universities have never been stopped by national borders. The freedom of academia has brought about its unique feature of internationalized development. Key concepts like internationalization, globalization,nationalization and diversity were differentiated, and the definition of internationalization was enriched. The next step was to study the experience of internationalization of flagship universities in developed countries including Britain, United States, Japan, and Singapore. Through careful study, the finding was that in face of globalization, these universities have devised strategies of international development through which scattered efforts could be organized to attain the university goal of excellence. Based on the analysis of theory and practice, the factors and domains contributing to internationalization of universities were sorted out, and upon which hypnoses of factors contributing positively to university internationalization were established. These hypnoses helped establish a Performance Model of University Internationalization. After testing the reliability and validity of the Model in a pilot study, the Model was improved. When the first university in China, Tianjin University, was trying to establish a strategy of internationalization, the model was applied by means of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to study the fitting degree of the Model from the samples selected from the University. When satisfactory results were obtained from the analysis, key factors to the realization of university internationalization were also found. Then the Model and the study results were applied to drafting the Outline of Action for Strategic Development of Internationalization of Tianjin University.This is an example of applying the theory of university internationalization to the practice of developing a strategy of international development for a university in China, and it will provide material for further study of university internationalization in the time to come.