Ten years ago, North Carolina A&T State University established the Office of International Programs in attempt to address the reality of globalization. Ten years later, that office celebrated a decade of success with the announcement of a fund to support students to study abroad.

The Board of Trustees, Tuition and Fees Committee, and N.C.’s Board of Governors, all recently approved a $5 international education fee per semester. It will take effect for the 2010 – 2011 academic year.

“The office was established in March of 2000, but I came here in September of 1999,” said Minnie Battle-Mays, Director of the Office of International Programs. “Chancellor Renick had just arrived and there wasn’t one place he could go to and ask what the university was involved in on an international level. So, he invited me to come. I did research for sixth months about what was going on at the university, wrote a report suggesting what we needed to do to make things work better, and that was the creation of this office of international programs.

“We will now have a fund to support students to go abroad,” said Battle-Mays. “I see it as so positive because it will allow us resources which we don’t have now to help students who want to go abroad. None of that money will be used for anything other student oriented activities.”

During those first ten years the OIP has followed through on its mission statement of “promoting global awareness, understanding, and education” by sending more than 250 students study abroad to over 200 universities in 60 different countries. The OIP has garnered specific international exchange partnerships with universities in Ghana, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and Bulgaria, as well as a service learning initiative in Malawi.

The new fund will allow support for even more students to travel abroad during the next decade of growth for the OIP.

But nothing may represent a greater symbol of the OIP’s growth as the new General Classroom Building being constructed at the roundabout, which will serve as its new home beginning in the Spring of 2011.

“We have enjoyed the space here at C.H. Moore, but we know that this is not the ideal location because we are off campus, and I think that has been part of our challenge as well for people knowing about us, for people seeing us and being curious about what we were doing,” said Battle-Mays. “And then it’s a hike for people to get over here. I always tell people if you can figure out how to get over here than you’re ready to go abroad. But being on campus will be a tremendous benefit for the campus and the campus community. But this space was a start, and we’ve enjoyed it. We just had a student dub this the “Embassy of A&T”.

One of the biggest, and most obvious challenges, for students is the jumping over the financial hurdle of international travel. The OIP has committed itself to credible avenues such as the American Institute for Foreign Study, the School for International Training, and the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, which has an 85% success rate of sending students abroad.

“I studied abroad in China for a semester and that was actually a really good experience,” said Brittany Haney, Program Assistant for the Office of International Programs. “It didn’t change me as a student, it changed me as a young professional because studying abroad exposed me to so many different opportunities. Especially now, with the job market crashing in America, I realized I don’t have to work in America, I’m not limited to finding jobs here. It just exposed me to a whole new world. We are not limited to the United States. We were born here, but we can go anywhere.”

That is one of the major points that Battle-Mays and the OIP wants to stress, specifically to HBCU students and African-Americans in general. They hope that their office will represent an outlet for students to recognize that reality, and address it.

“By traveling the world and learning a foreign language, you learn more about yourself,” said Allegra Johnson-Laing, Study Abroad Coordinator. “It made me a more tolerant person, and more tolerant of Americans that are different. Me going to France, and living the world from their perspective, when I’ve come back to the States, it allowed me to be more tolerant of Americans of other backgrounds.

• Malcolm S. Eustache