President Bowen to Speak on International Education at Chicago Conference

NEW PALTZ — SUNY New Paltz President Roger W. Bowen has been invited to speak at the 52nd Annual Conference of the Council on International Educational Exchange to be held in Chicago, November 10 – 13. He will be leading a session on “Globalizing International Education: ACE, AASCU, ERASMUS, FIPSE.” All are acronyms for higher education organizations in the United States and Europe that have an international education component.* Bowen will be delivering his talk on Friday, November 12.

The aim of his speech is to discuss how America’s higher education community can unite and press for a national policy that would emulate the European Community’s ERASMUS program, a model of cooperation among more than 1600 universities in 27 European nations. Of particular interest to Bowen are the organization’s efforts related to student and faculty exchanges.

Panel members who will be commenting on Bowen’s proposal are: Madeleine Green, vice president and head of international programs for ACE, the American Council on Education; Pablo Amor, science technology and education counselor for the European Commission, ERASMUS; Thomas Bartlett, president of the U.S.- Japan Society; and George Mehaffy, vice president for academic leadership and change for AASCU, the American Association for State Colleges and Universities.

International education has long been a major interest of President Bowen. Since coming to SUNY New Paltz in 1996, the university’s international programs have expanded to include many new countries, and the number of participants is at an all-time high. Bowen has traveled to Japan to conduct research more than a dozen times in the past 20 years. In 1990-91, he directed the Colby-in-Cork program in Ireland and lectured at University College Cork. Bowen has also conducted research in England, Ireland, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Canada, and Egypt. In 1993, he was a member of the Atlantic Council delegation that visited NATO headquarters to discuss the future of NATO in the post Cold War period.

Bowen serves on various boards, including the Board of Trustees of New York College (Athens, Greece), both the President’s Network for International Education and the Commission on International Education of ACE, and he is chair of the Committee on Global Priorities and Responsibilities for the AASCU.

In 1997, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by Tashkent State conomic University, and this December, he will receive an honorary degree from Espiritu Santo University (Ecuador).

*ACE American Council on Education
AASCU American Association of State Colleges and Universities
ERASMUS European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students
FIPSE Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education