Target Audience: Academics and International Officers 

• Integrating Intercultural Learning into the Classroom and/or Campus: Story Telling and Other Techniques (1 day)

This participant-centered workshop is designed for academics teaching international students or working with international colleagues to start/enhance your existing intercultural communication techniques and add approaches to your toolbox.

You will adapt and use the highly effective UNESCO Story Circles methodology to reap the benefits of emotional connection, storytelling, and listening for understanding in ways that may not be addressed by traditional training. You will practice and become more effective in using specific intercultural communication techniques and learn how to successfully implement these approaches when supporting students and colleagues in developing and strengthening their intercultural and global competence.

• Educating Globally-Ready Learners (1-2 days)

Confronted with rapidly changing economic, political, technological, and cultural realities, higher education institutions are charged with the goal of graduating globally competent students. To undertake — or iteratively enhance — the work of developing globally-ready learners in today’s higher education landscape requires a thorough understanding of what comprises global and intercultural competence as well as the paths to developing and assessing these on a college campus in concert with other educational goals. This workshop will offer a substantial exploration of these topics. It uses Interactive Learning to draw on participants’ own experiences and knowledge as well as evidence-based best practices so that they can begin to design and develop specific plans for integrating Intercultural competence and campus programs and curricula. 

Target Audience: International Officers and other administrators

• Recruiting and Integrating International Students 

The rise in international student enrollment at European universities highlights a critical aspect of higher education internationalization: the presence of a diverse student body. This diversity offers significant potential for enriching learning experiences through intercultural exchanges. When domestic and international students interact effectively, they can broaden their perspectives and engage in profound intercultural learning opportunities. In this workshop, we will focus on exploring firsthand experiences from both domestic and international students at host universities. Together, we will identify effective strategies and approaches to improve student engagement across diverse groups in both in-person and virtual (digital) classrooms. The session aims to provide participants with a practical guide featuring actionable suggestions for fostering meaningful interactions, supported by case studies from institutions such as Melbourne University.

• Digital Transitions: The Online Experiences of International Students

Digital environments are diverse across the world. Digital ‘traditions’ and ‘norms’ have formed very quickly in the last 2-3 decades with cultures impacting on the ways we engage online. Therefore, Universities also need to understand the biases of their own digital environments when they are hosting international students from all parts of the world. Research and practice have shown that often, international students might miss out on crucial information of success and well-being in host countries because of not making the essential digital transitions. This workshop highlights the differences in digital environments and argues that digital transitions are just as important as face-to-face orientations in preparing international students for their new University experience.

Target audience:  International Officers, Academic Tutors, Student Support and Welfare Staff

• Thriving Abroad: Strength-Based Approaches to Wellbeing for International Students 

This is an interactive one-day workshop designed to equip student support professionals with practical skills to promote resilience and positive mental health amongst international students. Moving beyond crisis response, this workshop focuses on proactive, culturally responsive strategies that honour students’ existing strengths and cultural assets. Participants will explore the unique challenges international students face, learn to distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies, and develop confidence in developing preventative approaches that promote a sense of belonging for international students. Through interactive activities and case studies, attendees will gain practical tools for leveraging cultural repertoires of wellbeing, and creating inclusive environments where international students can flourish. Empowering student support professionals to take proactive, preventative approaches that build on students’ existing strengths and cultural resources to promote flourishing.

• Supporting Students in Distress: International Student Mental Health

This one-day workshop equips student-facing staff with the knowledge and skills to effectively support international students experiencing mental health difficulties. Participants will explore the unique challenges international students face and their impact on mental health, whilst developing culturally responsive communication skills and practical support strategies. The workshop covers recognising signs of distress across cultural contexts, managing crisis situations, navigating referral pathways, and maintaining appropriate professional boundaries. Through interactive activities and case studies, staff will gain confidence in creating inclusive environments that foster wellbeing and learn how to help students in distress. Staff should leave feeling confident and competent to identify mental health concerns, have difficult conversations, maintain appropriate boundaries, and connect students with specialist support.

• Attracting International Students through Improving their Study Experience 

Prospective students trust the experiences of current international students and alumni to help them make the final decisions about where they study. They seek to know about the classes, internships, ways to be involved, and the support received (is there somewhere to go with their questions and concerns?). This session focuses on a wide variety of ways that international offices can provide information and opportunities to international students that have been successful in improving the international student study experience and in turn, help attract future students. IORs cannot individually take on all the responsibilities for the international student experience as students seek engagement throughout the institution. This session proposes a strategic approach that uses data to drive priorities and the development of campus partnerships to ensure that international students are not the sole responsibility of the IOR, but rather a university-wide effort is in place to welcome and support students throughout their full academic experience. 

• Improving Communication with International Students: Useful Tips

We communicate with students through many different channels – one-on-one meetings, information sessions, programs and events, email, social media, and institutional messaging. In this interactive session, participants explore the current strategies they use and assess whether they know how well these work for reaching their goals. Drawing upon the creative ideas from fellow attendees, participants will explore ways they can gain feedback and make improvements in the variety of ways they connect with the international community and broader community on campus. Participants leave the session with a variety of tips and ideas for improving communication with international students at their own institution. 

• Developing Intercultural skills for IROs

The daily and strategic work of IROs calls for using intercultural skills with all stakeholders – leadership, instructors, students, colleagues, and at times the community at large. This presentation focuses on practical frameworks that can deepen our understanding of common cultural differences in campus settings – including those that span generations, languages, and lived experiences. Participants will have a chance to reflect on the frameworks and engage in small group discussions focused on applying the frameworks to everyday encounters. We will also describe approaches to providing ongoing professional development for staff to keep them engaged in their chosen professions in higher education and international education. 

Target Audience: Academics and heads of Departments, Curriculum Developers 

Designing and Teaching the International Classroom

The Internationalization of Curriculum (IoC) Series/ Professional Learning Communities on IoC provides support to academics in building new international programs and in improving the quality of teaching of international students. This series can be delivered either as a series of individual workshops or in the form of professional learning community sessions which build collegial networks that support a broader change towards internationalization at an institution/Alliance.

• Where are we with IoC? – An Appreciative Inquiry Workshop 

This workshop aims to support understanding of what is IoC and map out where the current stage of IoC among disciplines and faculties. Appreciative Inquiry is known for its inclusivity, collaborative whole-system approach, and strength-based approach which allows organizations to explore life-giving forces that can lead to effective sustainable change (Cooperrider et al, 2008).  

• Introduction to  Internationalization of Curriculum 

This workshop focuses on an introduction to IoC using an understanding of rationales and concepts connected to Internationalization of Curriculum at Home using the Golden Circle. Navigating stakeholders’ implementation strategies, sharing experiences and examples from abroad and encouraging participants to share their examples. An Appreciative Inquiry mapping exercise allows for collaborative institution-wide participation in building on the strength-based focus that every organization has something that works well. Looking at your programme through the CeQuInt lens. (April/May)

• Internationalization of Learning Outcomes 

This workshop will guide participants how to integrate international dimensions in courses/programs by working with their own syllabi. Internationalized learning outcomes at the level of programs (PLO) and modules (MLO) are considered key indicators for the quality, relevance and consistency of internationalization. Participants ideally bring a colleague that they can work with and discuss the internationalised study programme (June)

• Embracing Diversity in the Classroom 

This workshop focuses on how to teach international classrooms with hands-on tools and strategies to  employ in our teaching. In a Fishbowl Activity, we will unpack the complexity of an international classroom. Using Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory (1980), we will explore how the cultural backgrounds of students impact their learning and teamwork. Particular attention will be given to ways of designing successful cooperative learning activities and support of teamwork in cross-cultural teams (September)

• Design session on COIL (half-day)

This half-day workshop focuses on working with partners and aligning COIL with other internationalisation activities. Participants will work on their articulation of needs for support in COIL and engagement of educational developers in COIL-design and articulating learning outcomes and assessment/evaluation.

• Introduction to COIL Virtual Exchange (half-day)

This energizing event will introduce participants to the fundamentals of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) as a form of virtual exchange–what it is, why individuals and institutions use COIL, and the basics of how COIL is designed and implemented worldwide. The 2-hour workshop will acquaint participants with the COIL design sequence: icebreaker, collaborative task, reflection and examples of COILs across undergraduate and graduate curricula. Benefits for students and faculty, training and support resources, and methods for linking COIL to mobility, research, career advancement, and other strategic goals and programs will also be covered. In the 4-hour workshop, participants will also contemplate ways to introduce COIL into their own curricula, identify potential partners, and try their hands at designing COIL tasks.

• COIL Design Workshop (2 days, in person) 

This workshop leads instructional partners and support personnel step-by-step through the process of designing a COIL exchange to be implemented in a subsequent term. Partners will design pre-COIL preparation activities for their students as well as icebreakers, team integration activities, student learning outcomes, collaborative tasks, and technology toolsets, and learning reflection and assessment activities. The workshop will engage participants in hands-on interdisciplinary and intercultural experiences that will fortify partnerships and intercultural mentorship competencies.

• COIL Start-up Symposium (1 day, in person): 

This event will help teams of student, academic, staff, and administrative COIL supporters develop a one year action plan to start up a new COIL program at their institution. Teams will develop two to three measurable, attainable program goals and appropriate steps and instruments to achieve and evaluate their goals. Designed for institutions that have implemented 0-10 COIL exchanges without the support of a formal COIL leadership or support structure.

Target Audience: Vice Rectors, Vice Deans of Internationalization 

• Leading Internationalization with a Vision

Internationalization requires strong and visionary leadership to help mitigate geopolitical challenges and exploit the opportunities precipitated by globalization. From student and scholar mobility to research collaboration, from global learning to international partnerships, from global rankings to securitization, universities increasingly need capable, passionate and visionary leadership to navigate the global academic landscape of the 21st century.  Participants will therefore be led in an exploration of the critical elements and current trends in internationalization necessary to successfully lead internationalization efforts on university campuses.

•  Comprehensive Internationalization

Internationalization is much more than the traditional preoccupation with international student recruitment and mobility. Supporting faculty in pursuing innovation and discovery within the context of global research networks, preparing students to be globally competent graduates, pursuing international partnerships and collaboration that deepen and broader academic strengths are imperatives and prerequisites for institutional success in the 21st century. Participants will explore the many dimensions of internationalization that are critical to driving a strategic approach to institutional advancement.

• Critical Lenses on Current Concepts within Internationalisation

In this interactive workshop, you will learn about current and emerging concepts within international higher education, such as Inclusive, Equitable, Responsible, Resilient and Intelligent Internationalisation. Critical lens provides us with a perspective on how institutional and disciplinary cultures align with these internationalisation concepts. You will learn how to look through these Critical Internationalisation at your institution and how to use the Pocket Model for institution-wide internationalisation. 

Target Audience:Vice Rectors, Vice Deans of Internationalization, International Officers, Academics, Senior Administrators

• Governance, Power, and Culture in Internationalization: Navigating University Decision-Making

This one-day workshop applies the Cultural Readiness for Internationalization (CRI) framework—a diagnostic model for understanding how organizational culture, governance structures, and power dynamics enable or constrain internationalization efforts. Participants will use the CRI model’s university culture sub-framework to analyze decision-making patterns and develop strategic approaches for advancing internationalization within complex institutional structures.

• Understanding Who Decides: Mapping Power and Governance Structures

Internationalization strategies often fail not because of poor planning or lack of vision, but because of misalignment between who needs to make decisions and who actually has the authority to make them. Using the CRI framework, this opening session introduces diagnostic tools for understanding how decisions about internationalization are made at your institution. Who holds formal authority? Where does informal power reside? How do approval processes create bottlenecks? Through interactive mapping exercises, participants will identify key decision-makers across different organizational levels (faculty, departments, colleges, central administration) and analyze how power flows—or gets stuck—in their institutions.

• The Four University Sub-Cultures: Hierarchy, Anarchy, Oligarchy, and Monarchy

The CRI model reveals that universities don’t operate through a single governance model—they operate through four distinct sub-cultures simultaneously. Hierarchy (faculty governance structures with representative bodies and committees), Anarchy (academic freedom where individual faculty make autonomous decisions), Oligarchy (disciplinary cultures where specialized knowledge determines authority), and Monarchy (campus administration with executive decision-making power). These sub-cultures create competing logics that shape how internationalization decisions get made. In this session, participants will learn to identify which sub-cultures dominate different decisions at their institutions and practice “shifting” strategically between them. Through scenario-based exercises, you’ll navigate real governance challenges and discover how to work effectively across these different organizational logics.

• Tensions and Paradoxes in Shared Governance

Governance structures contain inherent tensions and paradoxes that create barriers to effective decision-making. For example: How can faculty have authority to make decisions but require multiple levels of approval to implement them? How do representative bodies balance institutional interests with unit autonomy? This interactive session uses diagnostic tools from the CRI framework to surface these tensions in your own governance structures. Participants will work in small groups to identify contradictions and barriers, then map strategic pathways for navigating them. You’ll learn to diagnose whether a governance challenge stems from the hierarchy, anarchy, oligarchy, or monarchy sub-culture—and develop appropriate strategies for each.

(Optional: Time Permitting)

• From Analysis to Strategic Action: Navigating Approval Levels and Building Coalitions

Armed with the CRI diagnostic framework and practical tools, this final section focuses on strategic application. Through a governance navigation simulation, participants will practice moving internationalization initiatives through complex approval processes, building cross-unit coalitions, and leveraging different types of authority. You’ll identify strategic entry points for influence regardless of your formal position, learn when to work within existing structures versus when to challenge them, and develop action plans tailored to your institution’s specific governance realities. The session concludes with personal reflection on “leading in place”—how to exercise agency and advance internationalization goals within your current role and organizational context.