Internationalizing U.S. Master’s Universities: Emerging Opportunities for Marketing Faculty

One of the faster growing sectors of higher education in the US over the past three decades has been the master’s university. Another fundamental trend over this period has been the consistent increase in expectations of students, parents and business employers that international experiences and competencies become part of the curriculum at the undergraduate level. Opportunities for marketing faculty from master’s universities to add international perspectives to marketing courses have expanded over the past decade. The growth and re-shaping of faculty grant programs such as the Rockefeller, Rotary and Fulbright grants reflect this opportunity. In particular, the U.S. Fulbright Commission and the bi-national Fulbright commissions have enhanced international opportunities for master’s university faculty, making them flexible and, thereby more accessible to faculty at institutions with significant teaching loads. In the last decade, traditional student scholarship programs as well as newer programs like the Gilman Scholarship, have focused on increasing international study among minority students, both on the part of traditional student international scholarship funders as well as the Gilman Scholarship program. Regional master’s institutions typically serve more diverse student bodies. Taken together, these trends argue for a review of the opportunities for internationalization in regional master’s campuses across the US. The increasing global mobility required of business graduates, the critical role of faculty in guiding students toward greater intercultural competence, and the development of more flexible grants, offers marketing faculty seeking to deepen the international focus of their courses a more powerful way forward. This paper reviews data supporting these trends—and examines the types of grants now offered by the German Fulbright Commission as an example of this expanding interest in flexibility, master’s level universities, and minority students