What it means to be an international university

24 July 2012

Along with crowds of local school children, I watched the Olympic torch being carried past our University in Sheffield on its way to London and the opening ceremony of the 2012 games. Sharing the excitement, I was filled with hopes for an event which will bring athletes from 205 countries to a re-imagined festival of international sporting talent.

A day earlier I had seen an advert for a stage version of Chariots of Fire, the Oscar-winning film that tells part of the story of the 1924 Olympics. It gave me a burst of memories of the film and the time it came out.
Why would I remember that film and time so well? Like almost all who saw it, I found the scene with athletes running across the sands to the music of Vangelis magical. I also remember the powerful story of Eric Liddell, a Scotsman born in China where he later returned to serve as a teacher, defies the authorities to keeps the precepts of his faith.

But there was more for me.

When the film first came out I was working in the United States and decidedly homesick for Britain. My career was going well at a great science institute in Boulder, Colorado. But the scene at the end where Blake’s words and Parry’s music ring out at Harold Abrahams’ memorial service really got to me.

The story of Chariots of Fire is one of dreams becoming reality and determination to live according to your beliefs. Yet to succeed for Liddell was more than just coming first. His speed was ‘an extension of his life, his force’. He believed that ‘as the proud possessor of many gifts’ it was his sacred duty to put them to good use. He stood for a vision of success with a meaning which went beyond yourself.

That story and its setting built around friendship across divides struck a chord and helped make me want to come home to Britain and be part of the academia that had given me so much.

I was lucky and returned to the UK having a learned a lot from my experiences in America. One of the truly important things I had learned was how much the US had benefited from keeping its academia open to the talent of the world.

My own career in the UK was boosted by brilliant international scientists. My students’ own work was promoted and enriched in a way that would not have been possible, without the expertise and global network they provided, and the vitality of an internationally based research effort.

At Sheffield we are certainly committed to being the best place for students from around the world, and many leading UK universities speak of internationalisation and global ambitions. But there are also counter voices, with attendant worries that we are too open, and questions about whether our motivations are principled and honourable. Perhaps we sometimes feel like Harold Abrahams: “I am forever in pursuit and I don’t even know what I am chasing.”

There are those concerned that pursuing internationalisation may neglect British students, that somehow welcoming others will mean rejecting our own or having less to share. This drum beat is increasingly heard in our media and politics, and sits uneasily with our values. Yet it is a natural concern when times are tight and University entry difficult.

Our future on the scales

My own view is that the scales weighing the benefits versus challenges of having international students fall overwhelmingly in favour of us being the welcoming institution we are, and that anything less would be a desperate loss for us all. Far from pulling back from internationalisation, we should take it more deeply into ourselves and be challenged and developed by the power of that exchange.

This does not mean that it is always easy to teach students from different backgrounds.

Creating an international home where each voice can speak and be heard in safety takes dedication, broad vision and preparedness to hear new things. Yet the richness which comes from this conversation, from friendships which shape and change us for the better, which lift our eyes, is in itself an education.

In Sheffield, we have staff and students who know what this means because they have experienced it, rejecting any sense that our international students are simply generators of cash, somehow inferior in quality or merely consumers. Such a view insults them and us.

Our Students’ Union is also completely committed to making the time our international students spend in Sheffield effective and enjoyable. They understand that this is a point of genuine exchange and mutual growth. Their President this year grew up in Sheffield and as a pupil was mentored by an international student at the University.

Challenging isolation

But this view of a vibrant international community of connection and learning goes against the grain in a world fearful of change, shaken by momentous challenges on every side and increasingly drawn to the familiarity of nationalisms.

As a community we are determined to represent a different vision. One which does not retreat into isolation or seek to lock in privilege, but which maintains that by sharing it will multiply, expand, benefit all. The University and Students’ Union will work with partners outside of our institution on a Sheffield Campaign for International Students, one which values our friends and colleagues in all ways, not just financially.

A different vision

So what do we want our University to be?

We are called as never before to help our country in perplexing and troubling times, providing intellectual leadership out of an economic crisis. In Sheffield we are absolutely committed to this vision of taking our privilege and putting it to work. But we cannot ‘build Jerusalem’ by ourselves. We can only make the prized difference to our region and nation’s economy by looking beyond our borders to international partnerships.

In times of constrained resources, uncertainty and fear it is too easy to turn inwards, for UK Higher Education to retreat into a narrow fight for competitive position, or to forget the first principles which inspired its founders.

But I believe there is also a real resistance to that loss of belief. Staff, students, the children who came to watch the torch, whose future depends perhaps more than we can imagine on them being fully engaged in the world, want something better. They and we need more than ever a place of truce where those of talent can come together, putting aside their divisions, to compete like the ancient Olympians for the trophies not of conflict but of peace.

We can unite around these principles, and they can give energy and expression to our work. Then when we find our values or efforts under pressure, we can ‘renew our strength’. We can inspire one another. We can ‘run and not be weary’.

Professor Keith Burnett
Vice-Chancellor, The University of Sheffield