2018 marks 60 years since the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was signed into law. The NDEA’s Title VI funding underwrote the dramatic and transformative expansion of language and area studies at all levels of education across the U.S.  Today, Title VI is far from the only model or source of funding, and yet it continues to sustain and advance international education as well as adapt to a changing landscape.

In the past 60 years, the need for global learning, international understanding, and language and cultural skills has only become more pressing.  IU’s history as a leader in Title VI centers and programs since the earliest days of the NDEA, coupled with the fact that William Riley Parker, the first chief of the Language Development Office for Title VI at the Department of Education, was a member of the IUB faculty, makes this campus the perfect site for a symposium to assess the current state of international education, and to explore directions for the future.  The inclusion of this symposium in the Bicentennial series speaks to the university’s longstanding investment in this field, and how, indeed, the university views global and international studies as a vital part of its past and future alike.

This symposium seeks to take stock of the current environment and needs, and to identify ways of addressing them.  It brings together experts in language, area, and global studies with policy makers and other scholars to discuss the future of international education. The symposium explores international education within diverse educational and practical contexts as well as considers our responsibility to craft new narratives, practices, and modes of funding within a rapidly changing socio-political landscape, while recognizing the vital though sometimes mercurial role of education around the world. Ultimately, the symposium looks to the future while exploring the many crossroads currently faced by the field.