International Education: Now, More Than Ever

The following pages were assembled by the BPD International Committee to highlight the benefits associated with pursuing, conducting and maintaining an international program for social work education. Interspersed among the articles are student reflections and perspectives on their international experiences. We hope this issue stimulates further creative thinking about how to expose our students and ourselves to the diversity of our world, and the many faces of human need.

In addition to the assembled articles here, our hardworking Committee has initiated several projects including: BPD Board sponsored workshops, development of the BPD International Committee website (http://www.bpdinternational.usm.edu), distribution of a survey to all CSWE accredited BSW programs with international course offerings, and the origination of the BPD International Committee listserv (to join, contact Tim Rehner, Tim.Rehner@usm.edu). We are committed to finding ways of communicating this information to BPD members as usefully as possible.

What has made the efforts of International Committee so exciting is the deeply held belief apparent in each of our committee members of the potency and power inherent in international social work education. We know how international social work education experiences change us as teachers and learners, empower us in ways we never dreamed, and continuously challenge us to understand ourselves as global citizens. We are also made acutely aware, by failure of diplomacy and by our nation's enmeshment in hostilities, how difficult it is to achieve and maintain the role of global citizenship in certain political and social contexts. Our nation's choice of war over diplomacy highlights the need to facilitate student experiences in other countries to learn the culture and language, and help shape social services. Today, more than ever, we need to teach our students that we live in a single world community. All of us have come to recognize that though we have made strides forward in the past three years, our international journey has only begun.