partnerships

Global Partnerships

Positioning Technical Communication Programs in the Context of Globalization



Doreen Starke-Meyerring

Centre for the Study and Teaching of Writing

Department of Integrated Studies in Education

McGill University

3700 Rue McTavish

Montréal, QC H3A 1Y2



Phone: 514.398.1308

Fax: 514.398.4529

doreen.starke-meyerring@mcgill.ca



Ann Hill Duin

Department of Rhetoric and

College of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences

University of Minnesota

Coffey Hall 190

St. Paul, MN 55108



Phone: 612.625.9259

Fax: 612.625.8737

ahduin@umn.edu



Talene Palvetzian

Department of Integrated Studies in Education

McGill University

3700 Rue McTavish

Montréal, QC H3A 1Y2



Phone: 514.398.1308

Fax: 514.398.4529

tpalve@po-box.mcgill.ca





Acknowledgments

We are very grateful for the support provided by the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific

Communication for our study. We also wish to thank the participants in our study for giving so generously of

their time to share their expertise and insights into global partnerships with us.



Note

This research followed the guidelines for research ethics set by the Faculty of Education at McGill

University and by the University of Minnesota and was approved by the respective research ethics boards.









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Author Bios



Doreen Starke-Meyerring is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at



McGill University in Montréal, Canada, where she co-directs the Centre for the Study and Teaching of



Writing.







Ann Hill Duin is a Professor in the Department of Rhetoric and an Associate Dean for Academic Programs



and Student Affairs in the College of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences at the University of



Minnesota.







Talene Palvetzian is a graduate student in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill



University in Montréal, Canada.







Abstract



Globalization is radically transforming technical communication both in the workplace and in higher



education. This article examines these changes and the ways in which technical communication programs



position themselves amid globalization, in particular the ways in which they use emerging global



partnerships to prepare students for global work and citizenship. For this purpose, the authors report on a



CPTSC supported exploratory study of current partnership initiatives in technical communication programs.



The study indicated a high level of activity, planning, and interest in global partnerships and revealed a range



of creative and innovative partnerships that systematically integrate new opportunities for experiential



learning, collaborative international research, and civic engagement in a global context into programs and



their curricula. Partnerships also emphasize cultural sensitivity, equal partner contribution, and mutual



benefit, thus offering alternatives to emerging global trade visions of higher education. The article also



identifies key challenges that partnerships face, suggesting implications for programs and the field as a whole



to facilitate successful partnerships.









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Global Partnerships:



Positioning Technical Communication Programs in the Context of Globalization







Certainly the top global concern for technical communicators in he U.S. is the notion of



sending technical communication work offshore (Barbara Giammona, 2004)







We are at the beginning of the era of transnational higher education, in which academic



institutions from one country operate in another, academic programs are jointly offered by



universities from different countries, and higher education is delivered through distance



technologies (Philip G. Altbach, 2004a)







As these quotations attest, technical communication both in the workplace and in higher education programs



is undergoing powerful change as a result of globalization. As technical communication manager Barbara



Giammona (2004) found in her survey of influential technical communication practitioners, globalization is



one of the key issues technical communicators face in the workplace. At the same time, as technical



communication programs respond to these changes, they find themselves positioned in what higher education



researcher Philip Altbach (2004 a, b) describes as a profoundly changing environment.



In this article, we explore these changes in both the workplace and in higher education and examine



how technical communication programs position themselves amid these changes. In the first part of this



article, we analyze globalization trends and their influence on technical communication in the workplace,



specifically noting the literacies technical communicators need to develop for global work and citizenship.



As we show, these changes increasingly call for new program partnerships to facilitate learning environments



that immerse technical communication students in global digital networks with professionals, peers, citizens,



and experts from diverse contexts; challenge students to negotiate and build shared learning cultures across



diverse boundaries; and provide students with new opportunities for civic engagement in a global context.



However, these are not only the only changes calling for new partnerships. They also play an increasingly









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important role for technical communication programs amid current globalization processes in higher



education, especially the inclusion of higher education in new global trade agreements.



Given these changes and the increasing importance of partnerships, we then examine how technical



communication faculty and programs position themselves amid globalization and specifically how they use



partnerships for this purpose. Drawing on an exploratory CPTSC-supported study of program partnerships,



the second part of the article analyzes emerging trends in technical communication program partnerships: the



priority technical communication faculty and departments assign to such partnerships, the purposes and



missions for which they pursue such partnerships, the activities that constitute their partnerships, and some of



the challenges they encounter in building and maintaining their partnerships. From this analysis, we develop



an early description of emerging global partnerships in technical communication programs, provide insights



for technical communication programs interested in developing such partnerships, suggest directions for the



field to facilitate such program partnerships, and offer questions for future research that arose from our



exploratory study.







SITUATING TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION PROGRAMS IN THE CONTEXT OF



GLOBALIZATION



Globalization is a highly complex phenomenon and has complex implications for the literacies



technical communicators must develop (Hawisher & Selfe, 1999; Huckin, 2002; Starke-Meyerring, 2005)—



surely too complex to be addressed exhaustively in this article. Nevertheless, to contextualize global program



partnerships, we briefly explain how we use the term globalization and illustrate two key ways in which



globalization affects technical communication programs: first, through the changed workplace and



community environments in which technical communicators find themselves, and second, through the direct



impact globalization has had on higher education and thus on technical communication programs.



A highly contested term with many different and often ideologically charged meanings, globalization



is often defined from multiple perspectives, including economic perspectives (Stiglitz, 2002), ideological



perspectives (e.g., Rupert 2000), cultural perspectives (Appadurai; 2001; Jameson & Miyoshi, 2001), or



political perspectives (Ougaard, 2004). Regardless of the specific focus or perspective, however, current



4

globalization processes have a concrete material basis: they are characterized by a revolutionary shift in the



means of production, i.e., the use of the Internet for the globally distributed production and delivery of



services. Services are not simply produced for more customers, but they are produced in different ways. No



longer do services have to be produced where they are consumed. For the first time, they are produced in



global networks that allow service producers to take advantage of the most favourable production conditions



around the world, e.g., in terms of labor costs, labor rights, environmental regulations, and other policies. In



addition, the Internet provides new opportunities for the worldwide sale and marketing of services that were



not available before.



According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2004), this tradability



revolution has led to an unprecedented surge in the transnationalization or globalization of corporations, in



particular in the service sector. With services constituting the largest part of most industrialized economies,



the change resulting from this tradability revolution has wide ranging consequences, affecting all



professionals, including technical communicators in the workplace and faculty in higher education. To a



large extent, from this perspective, globalization is about the policy changes needed to take advantage of the



Internet as a new globally distributed means of production—changes that are being advanced or resisted



locally and globally by existing and emerging players.







Implications of globalization for technical communication in workplace and community environments



Both as workplace professionals and as citizens, technical communicators increasingly experience a



radically changed communication environment as a result of globalization. As workplace professionals,



technical communicators experience this global distribution in a number of ways: through increased work in



globally distributed teams resulting from the global distribution of their tasks and those of their colleagues in



other professions; the direct engagement of diverse customers and other stakeholders in digital networks; the



influence of local and global policies, agreements, and corporate practices on their work; the changing



political roles of TNCs and customer expectations of these roles; and a resulting extended sense of



citizenship.









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As their work and that of their colleagues in other professions, e.g. of engineers, translators, etc., is



distributed more globally, technical communicators increasingly work in cross-functional, globally



distributed teams (e.g., Bernhardt, 1999) with professionals from various professional, cultural, linguistic,



national, and ethnical backgrounds. In collaborating with their increasingly diverse colleagues, technical



communicators must be able to build shared virtual team spaces, exploring and weaving together a diverse



range of local cultural, linguistic, organizational, and professional contexts in ways that allow for developing



trusting relationships and for sharing knowledge across multiple boundaries.



Technical communicators also increasingly interact in global digital networks with their users for



whom they have traditionally written manuals and online help files. These users are also taking advantage of



the Internet as a global network to address problems, voice opinions, and rate products. For example, at



averatecforums.com, a user-organized unofficial support forum, nearly 2500 customers from different



countries, including Japan, Indonesia, Iraq, Russia, Italy, Germany, the UK, Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, the



United States, and Canada, discuss their problems and questions about Averatec computers in public for all



potential future customers to see. While technical communicators may in the past have focused on writing



their documentation for a local audience, though at a distance, and perhaps for translation down the road,



they must now quickly and effectively engage users from multiple and mixed backgrounds in the various



global networks in which they come together. The way technical communicators engage such a forum can



mean the difference between a showcase of disgruntled, dissatisfied customers and a fan forum of passionate



supporters.



As citizens both in their workplace and in their communities, technical communicators also



experience the social and political changes that accompany the globally distributed production and delivery



of services as they are being advanced by governments and corporations. To facilitate the use of the Internet



as a means of global service production and delivery, governments and corporations have created global



institutions and agreements, most notably the World Trade Organization (WTO) with its General Agreement



on Trade in Services (GATS). Adopted in 1995, this agreement is designed to remove local policies in the



149 WTO member countries that could possibly restrict or impede the globally distributed production and



sale of services, including technical communication services. The agreement is built around an agenda of



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“progressive liberalization,” which means that each round of negotiations must lead to the removal of more



local policies in more service sectors from local service markets to pave the way for the global production



and distribution of services.



The proposed changes to local policies for global trade in services are far reaching, affecting 160



service sectors, including such vital services as water, health, transportation, food, communication, and



education services. In essence, countries are expected to increasingly open their markets to service providers



from WTO member countries, to treat service providers and consumers from those countries equally, and to



treat them as equal to local service providers and consumers. This “national treatment” includes, for



example, the way service providers are subsidized and regulated, or the way foreign and local service



consumers are charged for services. To provide only a few examples, according to the agreement, in higher



education, differential tuition fees for foreign and local students would disadvantage foreign service



consumers. Similarly, once a service such as technical communication services is committed to national



treatment under the GATS, countries must ensure that service providers from WTO member countries have



the same access to local markets under the same conditions as local service providers.



Although the changes brought about by global organizations and agreements can have far-reaching



implications for local communities, currently, citizens have little direct input on these policies and



agreements. Unlike local governments, which may be subject to freedom-of-information laws, global



organizations currently are not subject to such transparency. In fact, WTO negotiations, for example, usually



take place behind closed doors, and the requests for local market access countries make of each other usually



remain confidential. As massive demonstrations during such negotiations attest, however, the changes



advanced by these organizations are highly contested.



To participate in shaping this emerging global order, new civil society organizations and new



practices of citizen participation are emerging, giving rise to what political scientists have referred to as an



emerging global civil society with changing boundaries of citizenship (e.g., Jenson & Papillon, 2002;



Muetzelfeldt & Smith, 2002). According to Jenson & Papillon (2002) and Muetzelfeldt & Smith (2002), the



relationships that constitute the core of citizenship—those between citizens and governance institutions as



well as those among citizens—are changing dramatically as they increasingly extend across nations and



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include global governance institutions. As Muetzelfeldt and Smith (2002) explain, “modes of political action



are developing across national boundaries in response to global governance and policy issues” (p. 59).



Accordingly, the number of associations, social movements, and civil society organizations has risen



dramatically in recent years, and increasingly, they operate not between nations—internationally, but rather



across nations—transnationally. Civil Society or Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), for example, have



grown from less than 10,000 before 1980 to more than 45,000 now (Union of International Organizations, as



cited in Tapscott & Ticoll, 2003, p. 190).



As a result, with local communities increasingly being influenced by global governance institutions



and policies as well as by policies and practices in other countries (e.g., labor laws, environmental



regulations), local deliberation and engagement alone will not suffice to influence these policies and



practices. As JoAnn Hackos notes, for technical communicators this means that in order to advance their



field and profession in light of emerging global corporate and governance practices, technical communicators



“need to promote professionalism worldwide and work for higher wages in the field everywhere” (as cited in



Giammona, 2004, p. 355). Such worldwide engagement may be particularly important for technical



communicators since their field is one that usually accompanies the rise of technology-intensive knowledge



societies. As a result, therefore, the field has begun to emerge in countries around the world, and with this



emergence, the accompanying struggle for professional and disciplinary status plays out repeatedly across



locations.



Technical communicators participate in the emerging global civil society not only as members of



their professions and their communities, but also increasingly as employees of TNCs. TNCs especially in the



services industry have grown both in numbers and in economic power; many of them now have larger



economies than most countries (Institute for Policy Studies, 2000). As a result, they are important members



of many local communities around the world and are increasingly expected to make global corporate



citizenship one of their core missions. Increasingly, investors, customers, and other stakeholders demand



“triple bottom-line accounting,” considering not only financial but also social and environmental



performance. In recent years, corporations have therefore seen an increase in socially responsible investing



(SRI), an investment strategy that considers the financial as well as the social and environmental



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consequences of investments. In the U.S., for example, the professionally managed assets involved in SRI



rose from $40 million in 1984 to $639 billion in 1995 and to $2.16 trillion in 2003 (Social Investment



Forum, 2003, p. 2). Moreover, shareholders increasingly file and vote on social resolutions to influence



corporate practices regarding labor rights, health, diversity, and environmental protection as well as on



crossover resolutions to link social and environmental performance to corporate governance, including



executive pay.



In addition, TNCs have increasingly been influenced by civil society organizations to achieve social



and environmental performance objectives. As Tapscott and Ticoll (2003) observe, "countless companies …



have changed their products and services, altered labor and employment practices, and even redefined core



business strategies in response to NGO recommendations or action campaigns" (p. 191). As examples



Tapscott and Ticoll mention the case of Home Depot being forced by an environmental group to discontinue



the use of old-growth Amazon lumber or Nike being forced to set labor standards in production facilities



around the world. In fact, as Tapscott and Ticoll explain, many TNCs (e.g. Shell, BP, Chiquita, Ford, HP,



GM) now partner with NGOs to demonstrate their alignment with stakeholder interest in social and



environmental performance. Moreover, research conducted by NGOs, such as the Worldlife Fund or the



famous scorecards of the Environmental Defense Fund, serves the SRI industry in making decisions about



the social and environmental performance of TNCs. And beyond NGOs, customers and other stakeholders



now easily organize in digital networks such as gapsucks.org across nations to engage companies; question



their products, services, and practices; or boycott them altogether.



For technical communicators, all of these changes have a number of complex implications. First,



many of these emerging global citizenship practices happen in digital networks, again requiring technical



communicators to directly engage diverse audiences in shared online spaces across multiple boundaries.



Second, the changes involve a different sense of citizenship for technical communicators both as citizens in



their various communities and as employees of TNCs, where global corporate citizenship is increasingly



becoming part of the core mission. This new sense of citizenship also includes an understanding of emerging



global governance and civil society institutions and their local-global interplay. As globalization researchers



Suárez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard (2004) observe, “while human lives continue to be lived in local realities,



9

these realities are increasingly being challenged and integrated into larger global networks of relationships”



(p. 2). Third, as a result of the ideologically highly contested social changes involved in globalization, the



work of technical communicators is more politicized than ever before, and they increasingly need to engage a



greater variety of stakeholders with a greater variety of interests than just “using” products or services. Most



importantly, whether they work with colleagues in globally distributed teams, with customers in online



customer-organized forums, or with fellow professionals and citizens to advance their professional and local



communities, their communication happens increasingly in global digital networks. In these networks, direct



engagement with a greater variety of individuals who frequently do not share any cultural contexts becomes



the norm rather than only a possibility.







These social changes hold a number of complex implications technical communication programs



might consider in designing learning environments that prepare technical communicators for global work and



citizenship. Learning environments that reflect the changing context of globalization will most likely exhibit



these characteristics:



 First, such learning environments will be globally networked. As corporate, customer, and public



communication increasingly happen in global networks, so must learning in technical



communication programs. For this purpose, partnerships enable programs to offer open and



globally networked learning environments that extend beyond the confines of local classrooms.



 Second, these networked learning environments will be systematically designed to foster the



kinds of literacies technical communicators need to develop for global work and citizenship



(Huckin, 2002; Hawisher & Selfe, 1999; Starke-Meyerring, 2005). These literacies cannot any



more be left up to chance encounters through international study programs.



 Third, these learning environments will allow for experiential learning opportunities.



Communication in global digital networks cannot be adequately addressed by isolated discussions



of textbook chapters on “international technical communication.”



 Fourth, these experiential learning opportunities in global digital networks will be systematically



integrated into the technical communication curriculum. Traditional experiential learning



10

opportunities such as study-abroad experiences—while invaluable, often are not tightly integrated



into the technical communication curriculum.



 Fifth, these experiential learning opportunities will be part of the curriculum for all students.



Given the extent to which instantaneous communication with increasingly diverse audiences has



become the norm in digital networks, such experiential learning opportunities cannot be considered



an optional separate add-on experience only for the 0.2 % of undergraduate students who do



participate in study-abroad programs (Altbach, 2004a).



 Sixth, such learning environments will link local with global learning in the curriculum rather



than separate these learning experiences into regular local curriculum and separate international or



other community experiences.



Surely, there are many more implications; however, these points begin to illustrate that creating globally



networked learning environments for their students is nearly an impossible task for programs to accomplish



on their own. In fact, the nature of communication in global digital networks requires extensive global



partnership work.







Implications of Globalization for Technical Communication Programs and Higher Education



As technical communication programs build their global partnership networks, they knowingly or



unknowingly participate in the globalization of higher education. In higher education, this changing



environment includes the reconceptualization of higher education as a service that is subject to global trade



agreements, which are designed to accelerate the global distribution of services, in particular the General



Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) currently being negotiated by the WTO. The GATS negotiations



are designed to remove trade barriers or so-called trade-distorting effects of local public policies for service



industries— a process called "trade liberalization" in the language of the WTO. Trade barriers can include



any government regulation that restricts market access in a given country, ranging from government



subsidies of a specific industry to import restrictions or tariffs on specific goods or services. Potential trade



barriers in higher education, according to the United States Negotiating Proposal, include national policies



and laws that involve the "prohibition of higher education … offered by foreign entities," "inappropriate



11

restrictions on electronic transmission of course materials," or "measures requiring the use of a local partner"



to name only a few. For example, regarding China, the United States has requested the removal of



government restrictions on for-profit higher education (ACE, 2004). Because the WTO considers education a



tradable service, higher education, including professional communication programs, are subject to this



agreement.



The inclusion of higher education in the GATS has been advanced predominantly by ministries of



trade and commerce, not of education, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand,



and Australia. In the United States, the Department of Commerce, Office of the Trade Representative, for



example, developed the U.S. Negotiating Proposal for global trade in higher education in close collaboration



with the National Committee for International Trade in Education (NCITE), a lobbying group consisting



mostly of for-profit education providers such as the University of Phoenix, Jones International University,



Sylvan Learning, Educational Testing Service, and others.



In contrast, the inclusion of higher education in the GATS has been opposed by education



associations representing public and private nonprofit higher education institutions worldwide. The



American Council on Education (ACE) and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), for



example, joined with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) and the European



University Association to sign a Joint Declaration on Higher Education and the General Agreement on



Trade in Services. In this declaration, the organizations urge their respective governments not to commit



higher education services or the related categories of adult and other education services to the GATS. As the



signatories state, "higher education is not a 'commodity'…. The mission of higher education is to contribute



to the sustainable development and improvement of society as a whole…" (p. 1).



In addition, ACE and CHEA have repeatedly sent letters to the U.S. Trade Representative in an



effort to keep higher education out of global trade negotiations. For example, David Ward, President of ACE,



in a letter signed by more than 20 educational organizations together representing every public and private,



two- and four-year college and university in the United States, argues that "in an effort to open certain



markets for the relatively small proprietary higher education services sector, the U.S. offer [on higher



education services to the GATS negotiations] will have the unintended consequence of undermining all



12

traditional higher education services in the U.S." (n. p.). In the attachment to the letter, Ward (2003) cites the



example of U.S. public institutions possibly being vulnerable to a charge of violating GATS national



treatment obligations if the institutions grant credit for a course taken at another U.S. institution, but deny



such credit for a similar course taken at a foreign institution.



Overall, the consequences of the GATS for higher education programs are not yet fully understood



(Knight, 2002). Some of the consequences, however, likely include an influx of foreign higher education



providers, especially for-profit ones, into local markets. Here higher education scholars have been



particularly concerned about the agreement facilitating the flow of education predominantly in one direction:



from wealthy English-speaking countries to so-called developing countries (Altbach, 2004b; Carr-



Chellmann, 2004; Marginson, 2004; Stromquist, 2002). The key concern is that well-resourced higher



education providers in the North, especially those who operate in English as the lingua franca of science and



technology, have a huge trade advantage compared to those less well-resourced. Moreover, by being pushed



through the progressive liberalization agenda of the GATS to open their higher education markets,



developing countries may experience an influx of higher education at the same time as they are working to



expand their own higher education systems to meet their local education and research needs. The kind of



global flow of higher education promoted by the GATS, therefore, involves the risk of Northern dominance



and control over education markets in developing countries, which some researchers refer to as the risk of



neo-colonization (Altbach, 2004b; Schugurensky & Davidson-Harden, 2003).



Interestingly, as Marginson (2004) observes, however, this vision of global trade in higher



education—the unfettered sale of higher education courses and programs around the world like bananas or



fast food burgers—has not borne out so far. Marginson notes that many large-scale e-learning initiatives such



as the UK e-University (62 million pounds), Cardean University (Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Columbia,



London School of Economics and Political Science, and University of Chicago business schools) with $100



million initial investment, and Universitas 21 (a consortium of research universities from Europe, North



America, Australia, and Asia) were developed to meet the growing higher education needs in Asia and other



regions. Despite large amounts of public and private investment, however, most of these initiatives have



failed or have not been able to attract the large numbers of students worldwide they had expected. While



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some may argue that the GATS has not been in place long enough, Marginson points to such reasons as



lacking technological infrastructures, lacking innovations in teaching methods, the monocultural and



monolingual nature of the curricula, their lack of sensitivity to local contexts and needs, and the power



asymmetries between foreign providers and local educators and administrators (p. 77). Instead of the global



trade or banana vision of higher education, Marginson argues that “the key is cultural respect, expressed in



long-term partnerships with nationally-based agencies and local/ regional institutions, that are conducted on



the basis of equality and reciprocity” (p. 110). These two aspects—cultural sensitivity and equality, then are



two additional important characteristics of globally networked learning environments and of the partnerships



that sustain them.







As these developments show, in this changing context of global higher education, global partnerships



become increasingly important, and they can provide alternatives to the emerging global trade paradigm—



alternatives that engage programs, students, and faculty in shared learning environments, research projects,



and civic engagement initiatives that allow all participants to learn from each other, develop global literacies,



and benefit from their engagement equally. The ways in which technical communication programs position



themselves amid globalization and the kinds of partnerships they develop for this purpose, then involve



political decisions that reflect the context of the increasing commercialization of higher education (Faber &



Johnson-Eilola, 2005). These decisions can mean the difference between global trade for profit and global



literacies for mutual learning and understanding that advance local communities. In this way, partnerships



also present opportunities for program and faculty agency in shaping the globalization of higher education.







POSITIONING TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION PROGRAMS IN THE GLOBAL ARENA:



EMERGING TRENDS IN GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENT



Given these changes both in the workplace and in higher education as well as the growing



importance of partnerships, in this second part of our article, we analyze emerging trends in partnership



development in technical communication programs—the priorities faculty and departments assign to them,



the purposes and activities they pursue, and the challenges they face. Understanding these partnerships will



14

help us advance their development and hence opportunities for students to develop global literacies, while



also identifying sustainable models that provide alternatives to global trade in higher education through



collaboration, sharing, and mutual enrichment.







Methodological Approach



Since these partnerships are relatively recent developments and have therefore not been researched



very much, the purpose of this study was exploratory. Specifically, our purpose was to gain early insights



into these emerging partnerships as programs begin to position themselves in a global higher education



context. Accordingly, our methodology is predominantly based on an exploratory Web-based survey



(Appendix A).



The purpose of this survey was to gain insights into the role that global partnerships currently play in



technical communication, how common they are, the priority that faculty and programs assign to them, the



purposes they pursue with them, the challenges they have encountered, and the challenges that keep others



from engaging in such partnerships. For this purpose, we received permission to distribute the URL for the



web-based survey in individualized email messages to members of the Council for Programs in Technical



and Scientific Communication (CPTSC). Our rationale for approaching CPTSC members was twofold: First,



the CPTSC addresses programmatic issues in particular, so that members share a particular interest in



program development. Second, although we may have focused on department chairpersons, we chose instead



to contact all CPTSC members, thus including both administrators and faculty because oftentimes global



partnerships, especially those directed at collaborative curriculum projects, are initiated by individual faculty.



By contacting both faculty and administrators with an interest in program development, we were able to



obtain a richer perspective of emerging trends in partnership development.



We emailed the survey URL to all of the email addresses on the CPTSC member list, of which 256



were still valid. Of these members, 81 responded, resulting in a response rate of roughly 30%. Most of our



survey respondents identified themselves as faculty, and 28 identified themselves as administrators (figure



1). All together, these respondents described 64 programs.



INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE



15

In addition, to better understand some of the emerging trends, especially the purposes faculty and



programs pursue with their partnerships, we also draw on six 30-60-minute semi-structured phone interviews



with selected individual faculty and department heads who had initiated such partnerships. For these



interviews, we selected survey respondents representing the range of initiatives that emerged from our



survey. As we discuss below, from our survey we discovered that different partnerships pursued different



purposes and focused on different aspects of their missions. While some focused heavily on research, others



focused on teaching, and yet others saw civic engagement as their guiding purpose. We chose 1 or 2 faculty



for each purpose. Likewise, our survey had indicated that partnerships are being initiated at different levels—



oftentimes by faculty as well as by department heads. Again, we selected interviewees for additional insights



that represented both types of origins. In addition, our interviewees represented well-established partnerships



in the sense that they had been working on them for several years and had worked with more than one



partner, so that they were able to provide experienced insight. We based our interview questions on an earlier



framework for partnership development (Duin & Starke-Meyerring, 2003), here focusing on questions



related to the vision for the partnership, partnership activities, and the challenges it faced.



Again, the purpose of our research was not to provide a complete description or analysis of all



partnerships currently underway. Such an analysis would be beyond the scope of this article. Rather, our



purpose was to understand emerging trends and to gain early insights into the development of these



partnerships, what missions or visions they are pursuing in a globalizing context, the kinds of research



questions they raise, what insights other programs might already glean from these partnerships as they



embark on partnership development as well, and the ways in which the field may perhaps facilitate these



partnerships.







CURRENT PARTNERSHIPS: FREQUENCY AND PRIORITY



To understand the current situation in partnership development, we asked how many such



partnerships currently exist or are in the planning stages, and for those faculty and departments that were not



planning them, an indication of the current interest level. Surprisingly, the vast majority of survey



respondents either mentioned an existing or planned partnership initiative or expressed interest in such an



16

initiative (see figure 1). Altogether, 41 or roughly two thirds of the 64 programs that were described,



indicated some level of commitment to or interest in such partnerships either at the department or faculty



level. Fifteen programs indicated that they currently maintain such a partnership at various stages, eight



indicated that they are planning such a partnership, and 18 expressed an interest in developing such a



partnership.



INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE.



Interestingly, we sometimes received conflicting responses from members of the same department.



While some respondents from a department indicated that there was a partnership, others thought there was a



partnership in the planning phase, and yet others thought that there was no partnership initiative at all. In



some cases, the department chair or a faculty member had begun planning or initiating a partnership initiative



of which other respondents from the department were not yet aware. This divergence in responses from



department members indicates that these partnerships are often initiated from the bottom up—at the



grassroots level and sometimes by individual faculty only, with little knowledge of other faculty or



administrators in the same program. In such cases, given our interest in the range of both individual faculty



curriculum and program partnerships, we took the response from the individual who indicated that there was



a partnership to mean that somewhere in the department, there was indeed a partnership emerging or in place.



To gain a fuller understanding of the role global partnerships currently play in technical



communication programs, we asked respondents to indicate the priority they assigned to global partnerships



in program development. Because partnerships emerge at different levels—sometimes initiated by individual



faculty and sometimes by department heads, we also asked what priority respondents perceived their



departments assigned to these partnerships.



Overall, respondents indicated that they personally assigned a higher priority to these partnerships



than did their corresponding departments (figure 3). This discrepancy between individual and perceived



department priority may result from a self-selection bias since the survey was conducted over the Web, and



those faculty with an interest in such partnerships may have felt interested in the topic and as a result may



have chosen to respond. Regardless, however, the results show that those who consider global partnerships



important do not necessarily perceive a supportive atmosphere from their departments.



17

INSERT FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE



MISSIONS AND ACTIVITIES OF PARTNERSHIPS



What missions do emerging global partnerships pursue and what activities constitute these partnerships?



Perhaps not surprisingly, partnerships are usually designed to support one or more of the key missions of



departments and institutions—teaching, research, or service. Many of them touch on all three aspects, and



sometimes partnerships may emerge for one particular purpose, for example, for teaching and learning.



However, as they develop their partnered learning environments, faculty often find that their work provides



rich opportunities for research, so that they often continue to collaborate on research presentations and



publications as a result of their shared teaching work. Here we illustrate how partnerships define their



missions in the three areas—teaching, research, and service, and what activities they pursue to achieve their



mission. What is perhaps surprising is the diversity of approaches and the creativity with which faculty and



administrators pursue the systematic integration of a global perspective and experiential learning



opportunities into their courses and programs.







Teaching—Course and Program Development



In support of a department‟s teaching mission, partnerships are often developed by faculty in order to



share curriculum development and to design—increasingly Internet-facilitated—learning environments and



projects that provide students with experiential opportunities to engage in intercultural collaboration through



shared discussion forums, small course projects, or semester-long virtual team projects. These partnerships



tend to be two-way or multiple-way partnerships in which knowledge, experience, and perspectives flow



equally in all directions, so that all participating partners learn from each other. They usually involve a large



number of students, typically all students in a course or course section, and they often develop innovative



collaborative, intercultural pedagogies.



One such partnership, for example, is the Transatlantic Project, an Internet network between



technical communication courses in the Technical Communication program at the University of Wisconsin-



Stout and translation courses at various European universities, including the Université Paris 7 (France), the



Hogeschool Gent (Belgium), the Handelshøjskolen i Århus (Denmark), the Universität Graz (Austria), and



18

the Università degli Studi di Trieste (Italy). Initiated in 1999 by Bruce Maylath of the University of



Wisconsin-Stout and his colleague Sonia Vandepitte of the Hogeschool Gent, the partnership originally



linked students in their two courses through an electronic collaboration project in which students in the



technical communication course at the University of Wisconsin-Stout wrote a set of instructions that was



translated by the translation students at the Hogeschool Gent. Since then, the partnership has expanded to all



sections of the course at Wisconsin-Stout and to translation courses at other European universities, now



including 13 instructors and 200-300 students in six countries in a given semester.



Through the project, the students learn how to collaborate both cross-functionally and cross-



culturally and how to facilitate that collaboration, for example, by developing terminology glossaries, and



perhaps most importantly, by questioning the cultural assumptions of their texts, recognizing the diverse and



situated needs of their different target audiences, and recognizing the ambiguity of their language choices. As



Bruce Maylath notes, the value of the partnership is exactly this student exchange—their efforts to negotiate



appropriate rhetorical choices for different audiences in different cultural contexts: “The value of this



partnership is what happens in-between; it‟s the commentary between the students—what the students learn



from each other about their cultures and lifestyles.” And as he notes, the experiential nature of this learning



environment is key to facilitating this learning: “the cross-cultural collaboration is real.”



A similar emphasis on networked, experiential learning characterizes the Global Classroom



Partnership, a networked learning environment for graduate and undergraduate students in a course on digital



communication at the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of



Technology and in English courses at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the European University at St.



Petersburg (Russia), Volgograd State University (Russia), and the Blekinge Institute of Technology,



Karlskrona (Sweden). Piloted in 2000 after a Fulbright exchange at the European University in St.



Petersburg, the partnership is designed to provide an experiential learning environment for intercultural



digital communication. As TyAnna Herrington, one of the project‟s co-directors notes, the project is



motivated by “the drive to connect people globally, to help them learn how to communicate with each other,



understand each other, and ultimately do whatever possible to strengthen peaceful relationships between



people from diverse cultural contexts.”



19

Consequently, according to Herrington, the objective of the partnership project is “to teach students



how to examine issues in cross-cultural digital communication and more specifically to learn critical



reasoning from multiple perspectives. Students need to learn how to research and critically analyze



communication together.” For this purpose, the students collaborate in teams over the course of an entire



semester to research and report on digital and print communication strategies, e.g., those used by a TNC to



engage its diverse local stakeholders or those used by the local media in covering a particular current issue of



international significance. So far, roughly 500 students from the partner institutions have participated in this



project. Again, the success of the learning environment rests on its experiential design. As Herrington notes,



“the partnership allows students to experience intercultural digital communication; it provides a forum for



them to learn how to develop a critical cross-cultural literacy through negotiating multiple perspectives. This



is something that cannot be taught; it can only be learned and must be experienced.”



While some partnerships have begun focusing on systematically integrating global literacies into



their courses, others have begun working at the program level, likewise working to systematically integrate



such learning experiences into the curriculum for as many students as possible. For example, the Mechanical



Engineering Communications Program at Purdue University has developed partnerships with local



engineering companies as well as three universities: the Universität Karlsruhe (Germany), Jiao Tong



University in Shanghai (China), and the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay in Mumbai (India). As



one of those involved in shaping the partnership program, Dianne Atkinson notes that one of the key



objectives of the program is to “provide graduates for international companies who can interface among



diverse cultures and lead technical product development for a worldwide market.” For this purpose, the



partnership includes team teaching, faculty exchanges, joint course development (specifically a short course



in engineering communication), student exchanges, and internship placements, the first of which began in



2002. Many of these activities followed once the flagship program—co-located team work during capstone



projects—was put in place. For these projects, students spend a semester in Karlsruhe, Shanghai, or Mumbai



collaborating on an assigned engineering project with local fellow students, who then come to Purdue for



another semester to complete the project. These partnership activities are all designed to provide students



with a portfolio of intercultural learning experiences.



20

According to Atkinson, the intercultural aspect of these experiences is key for technical



communicators: “For a technical communicator, the intercultural aspects are especially welcome as they



really put a spotlight on communication skills, at-a-distance communications as well as collaboration and



iteration for quality—really audience analysis writ large.” Students increasingly recognize the value of these



learning experiences as well; for example, a two-work communications course in Shanghai, which required



20 students to be feasible, had 42 applicants. Ten of those students had begun studying Chinese in high



school. The partnership program has also increased the students‟ desire to learning foreign languages beyond



their high-school courses. For example, students now enroll in Chinese courses, which had almost no



enrolment from engineering students before. In fact, Purdue is now positioning itself as a school where



students can continue their investment in foreign languages. Again, the experiential design of the learning



opportunities and their systematic integration into the curriculum have been key to the success of the



program. As Atkinson notes, “Historically, engineering had almost no participation in study abroad because



the curriculum is already highly constrained and tightly sequenced. Growing our own programs means that



students do not have additional costs or delay in graduation date.”



A similar emphasis on systematically weaving a global perspective into the program curriculum



characterizes the partnership between the Humanities and Technical Communication Department at Southern



Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Georgia, and the E-Commerce Department at Northeast Normal



University (NENU) in Chanchung, China. NENU had contacted the SPSU Department with a request for



technical communication program development based on the Web presence of the Technical Communication



Department, its reputation, its program description, and the international expertise of its faculty. Specifically,



the E-Commerce Department, which also offers a Bachelor‟s program in English, wished to offer a joint



Bachelor‟s degree program in technical communication, a field that is not yet very common in China, but



would fit well with the business and technical orientation of the Department. For SPSU, the program also



offers a number of benefits. As Ken Rainey, the Department Chair and partnership coordinator, states:



“Global business and global communication requires students who are trained in a global outlook. So, the



mission is very practical on one level, but also cultural, educational, social, enlightening on another level.”









21

Accordingly, as Rainey notes, the partnership program is meant to systematically integrate a global



perspective into the department, foster such a perspective for both students and faculty, and “provide



opportunities for learning from relationships with people from various contexts.” To achieve this purpose,



the two Departments are currently working on a 2+2 degree program in technical communication in which



the NENU students take the first two years of general education, ESL, and writing courses in China and the



last two years of specialized technical communication work at SPSU. For this purpose, SPSU and NENU



faculty are collaborating to develop a curriculum that is sensitive to the local needs of the E-Commerce



Department and meets the students‟ needs in China. Since the field of writing, rhetoric, and technical



communication is new to China, the SPSU Department is currently involved in faculty development,



teaching workshops on various technical communication topics for Chinese faculty, inviting their Chinese



colleagues to study technical communication and the teaching of technical communication at SPSU,



designing teaching workshops to sensitize SPSU faculty to their new students, and preparing specialized



courses with the help of SPSU ESL faculty to assist Chinese students in making the cultural and linguistic



transition to life on a university campus in a U.S. city in order to ensure their success in their specialized



program work.







Research and Civic Engagement



While some partnerships begin with a focus on building relationships for teaching, learning, and



program development, others emphasize relationships for research development or civic engagement. The



partnership between the Technical Communication Department at the University of Washington and the



Department of Communication Studies at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, for example, has



developed joint research initiatives as a strong component of their partnership work. Begun in the spring



1997, the partnership developed as a result of a research sabbatical leave of a faculty member from the



University of Twente in the Technical Communication Department at the University of Washington. As Judy



Ramey, Chair of the Technical Communication Department and partnership coordinator, notes, the



partnership was originally designed as “a multidimensional relationship that would help all of our students to



have an international experience.”



22

However, as the partnership evolved, joint scholarship has become a strong component of the



partnership, which has become an integral part of the curriculum of both departments as both of them have



Ph.D. programs and are therefore very active in training new researchers in the field. To develop their joint



research work, the program partners began by conducting several summer research institutes held either in



Europe or in the United States in which faculty and graduate students from both departments shared their



research and work on joint on publications. This collaborative work has resulted in several joint publications,



including a joint special issue of Technical Communication co-edited by Thea van der Geest and Jan



Spyridakis as well as a joint special issue of IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication co-edited



by Judy Ramey and Menno de Jong . Accordingly, the criteria for success for this partnership are the



relationships the partnership helps facilitate for research and the scholarly output that results from these



relationships as well as student exchanges and faculty sabbaticals. As Ramey puts it, “the partnership



involves wonderful people, valuable colleagues, who are doing some of the best work that is being done in



the field on the empirical side. They raise the bar and are inspiring.”



Depending on department and institutional needs and visions, partnerships can also be guided by



civic engagement for social justice. For example, the social justice mission of Fairfield University in



Connecticut and the Universidad Centroamericana Nicaragua (UCA) in Managua, Nicaragua, guides all



partnership initiatives between the Fairfield Communication Department and the Professional Writing



Program of the English Department and the UCA Communication Department as well as other departments



involved in the partnership. As David Sapp, one of the partnership program‟s coordinators, notes, “the



partnership fits very tightly with the mission of Fairfield University, with its strong focus on promoting



social justice. In fact, the university‟s mission was the key reason for choosing the partner, UCA, which has a



similar mission.” The goal of the partnership is to promote social justice through collaboration, to advance



research in shared areas of interest, to share resources with those who are not as well as resourced, and to



integrate study-abroad opportunities into the curriculum to teach students social justice and responsibility.



Although Fairfield students have a long tradition of studying abroad with an average of 75% including an



international experience in their program, most of them have traditionally gone to wealthy Western countries;



few of them so far have specifically studied or worked in a social justice context.



23

To pursue these goals, the partnerships consist of a range of activities and plans, including joint



research for social justice, which greatly enhances the research focus on Latin American Studies as well as



emerging issues of globalization and immigration in many Fairfield departments, including the



Communication Department and the Professional Writing Program of the English Department. The



partnership also includes educational technology workshops and access to Fairfield databases for UCA



faculty. In addition, the partnership includes joint teaching and program development initiatives. For



example, David Sapp is developing a course on “Business and Technical Writing in the Global Economy,”



which he will be teaching to both UCA and Fairfield students via the Internet and during his sabbatical work



in Nicaragua. Future plans include the joint development of a Master‟s degree in health communication and



possibly extending the partnership to include NGOs working for social justice in Nicaragua as well.



UNICEF, for example, has expressed interest in sponsoring a health communication certificate with a focus



on HIV/AIDS.







As these examples illustrate, technical communication faculty and programs have developed a great



variety of creative and innovative partnerships to position their programs amid globalization by partnering



with programs and organizations for research, teaching, and service work. Despite this variety, however,



these emerging partnerships share a number of characteristics: They build relationships and networks that



link their students and faculty to contexts that provide enriched collaborative learning, research, and civic



engagement opportunities. In particular, they provide students and faculty with new opportunities for



collaborative inquiry into diverse and distant perspectives and practices of communication, thus facilitating a



better understanding of how local practices contribute to and are increasingly influenced by emerging global



networks of relationships (Suárez-Orozco and Qin-Hillard, 2004). The partnerships that are emerging are not



leaving such opportunities up to chance but are designing experiential learning environments for this purpose



and are systematically integrating them into technical communication curricula, research, and service work



for the benefit of as many students, faculty, and citizens as possible.



In addition, the partnerships reflect Marginson‟s (2004) call for long-term partnerships that are



characterized by cultural respect and a deep concern for equality and reciprocity. This concern may be



24

particularly important for partnerships in technical communication because as an emerging discipline, field



of study, or degree program, technical communication has developed unevenly and is therefore positioned



differently in different countries (Hennig & Tjarks-Sobhani, 2004). In some countries, for example, technical



communication is approached from a more linguistic rather than rhetorical perspective, or only technical



degrees or certificates may be available with a focus on the technicalities of Web development. In yet others,



technical communication is absent, while in others, it is just now emerging. In this way, the field differs



decidedly from long established fields such as biology, chemistry, or physics, which have long traditions in



many countries. Our early snapshot indicates that emerging global partnerships are eager to respond to



requests for technical communication program development that meet local needs and enrich programs for



all participating partners as well as to work with other programs in interdisciplinary ways.



The emerging nature of the field may contribute to the deep concern by those who engage in global



partnerships about ensuring equal contributions, mutual benefits, and shared control over the partnership. All



our interviewees expressed such concerns. To provide only a few examples, Ken Rainey, whose partnership



involves extensive faculty development both in China and in his Department, notes, “we greatly value the



contributions of our Chinese partner—faculty and students—to our program culture.” TyAnna Herrington



also notes that “equality is a guiding principle of the partnership” and that sometimes ensuring this equality



involves counteracting cultural stereotypes, including for example “the stereotype of U.S. Americans to



impose their wishes on others and to dominate.” Similarly, David Sapp notes that UCA and Fairfield make



important contributions to each other‟s research and curriculum development in pursuing their missions



jointly. As Sapp (2004) notes, this emphasis on mutual benefit is particularly important when one partner is



less well resourced.



These partnerships thus also advance the field of technical communication in a number of ways. For



example, they directly support the development of technical communication programs in other countries and



thus the field as an important area for scholarly inquiry. In addition, partnering faculty and programs develop



innovative pedagogies that reflect and take advantage of the global-network nature of communication in the



context of globalization. They also use technologies to take advantage of interdisciplinary learning and



research opportunities, thus advancing the interdisciplinarity of the field of technical communication on a



25

global scale. Finally, in the context of globalizing higher education as a whole, these partnerships reflect a



vision of globalization in higher education that is characterized by innovative pedagogies, cultural sensitivity,



mutual learning, and equality—a vision that differs decidedly from the global trade vision of higher



education characterized by the one-way sale of higher education unconstrained by local cultural needs or



policies.







CHALLENGES—QUESTIONING ASSUMPTIONS



Despite their important contributions, as an emerging phenomenon, these partnerships face a number



of challenges. To glean some early insights into these challenges, we asked survey respondents engaged in



partnerships to identify them (figure 4), and we also asked those not yet engaged in partnerships to identify



the challenges that kept them from doing so (figure 5). Again, given the exploratory nature of our study, we



did not provide a set of possible categories to check, but rather invited open comments, grouped them around



emerging themes, and counted the frequency with which a particular type of challenge was mentioned.



INSERT FIGURES 4 AND 5 ABOUT HERE



Those engaged in global partnerships face a wide range of challenges (table 1), including—in the



order of frequency—lack of resources, logistical challenges, quality assurance concerns, cultural differences,



language issues, organizational issues, and a political climate that can make the development of partnerships



with colleagues and departments in some countries difficult. Those not yet engaged in partnerships similarly



identified resources most frequently as a challenge. Interestingly, the additional challenges that keep faculty



from engaging in global partnerships differ from the actual challenges encountered by those already engaged



in such partnerships. While concerns over logistics and quality occupy those engaged in current partnerships,



concerns regarding local institutional and disciplinary cultures largely keep faculty and programs from



initiating such partnerships. The key areas of concern for such partnerships, then, may well be resources and



the role of local disciplinary and institutional cultures.



INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE



Resources: Questioning Budget Allocations around Traditional Learning Models









26

Resources are the most frequently mentioned challenge by both those who are engaged in



partnerships and those who are not. Those who are engaged in global partnerships consistently mentioned the



large time investment that is required to build and sustain a partnership, to maintain the daily commitment to



make it succeed, especially if regular interactions or a large number of stakeholders are involved. Resources



are needed for release time to develop partnership initiatives; to support student and faculty travel in the case



of exchange programs; to pay for technologies, e.g., for videoconferencing; to fund travel to the partner site;



to plan events, such as research workshops; or to develop networked learning environments and shared



curricula.



At first sight, it may indeed seem that there are simply insufficient resources for partnership



development. As survey respondents mentioned, the public disinvestment in higher education has reduced



budgets, increasingly replaced full-time tenure-track faculty with non-tenure-track part-time faculty lecturers,



and intensified the struggle over resources. As one respondent noted, “we are a relatively small program with



approximately 80 students and 2 tenure/tenure track faculty along with several excellent lecturers. The time



and effort it will take to build the program—combined with a lack of institutional benefits—is a bit



daunting.” Similarly, another respondent observed, “there would be some interest, but severe time constraints



due to state funding cutbacks don't allow attention in this area.” Another respondent emphasized the need for



funding to reduce faculty teaching loads: “Small program = only a minor and emphasis right now. No time!



We teach 4/4 and have not even discussed the idea of partnerships in our program. Still...one day we might



consider it.”



A deeper look, however, suggests that the resource challenge may well be indicative of the ways in



which these partnerships question assumptions about learning and about institutional processes (Cargile-



Cook & Grant-Davie, 2005). First, since one of the central goals of these partnerships is to systematically



and consistently integrate global learning into local classrooms and program curricula, they run into



budgeting and other institutional processes that are built around the traditional model of learning according to



which such learning is an “add-on,” occasional experience that is considered separate from the regular



curriculum. Accordingly, institutional resources in support of global initiatives often reside in a Central or



Collegiate office of Global Learning or Learning Abroad. While such offices largely support faculty and



27

student exchanges, these as well as curriculum development efforts are typically considered a separate, add-



on expense and are consequently funded as such for limited terms—through external and/or university



grants. In the same way that distance education efforts are often seen as a “bolt-on” or overload effort, global



partnerships have rarely been an embedded part of a curriculum and assigned hard funding.



Second, these emerging partnerships differ from institutional partnerships especially with regard to



their origin, which is often the grassroots level. As a result of easy communication facilitated by the Internet,



such partnerships are commonly formed by faculty based on personal relationships that go back to college



friendships or on conversations at conferences or other networking activities. Or they are initiated by



potential partners via the Internet. As Bruce Maylath puts it, “our partnerships are established at the



grassroots between interested instructors with little to no funding.” As such, they begin as what Ken Rainey



calls “handshake partnerships.”



On the one hand, for the purpose of shared curriculum and program development, research, and civic



engagement, this grassroots theme is important because trust built through personal relationships is the key to



the successful negotiation of the many boundaries—institutional, national, professional, disciplinary,



cultural—across which partners work on a daily basis. Their grassroots origin also ensures faculty ownership



and commitment to their development. As Herrington and Tretyakov (2005) explain, “recognizing that the



budding project began at a grassroots level is essential to understanding its nature and its development. Many



international or inter-institutional projects begin with a cooperation agreement signed by the heads of two



institutions and slowly wither for lack of enthusiasts willing to work along lines directed by others.” As the



authors observe, the grassroots origin of the partnership “ensured a broad „popular‟ foundation for the



ongoing work and eventually made the project credible enough to qualify for institutional support” (p. 268).



On the other hand, to be sustainable in the long term, these partnerships must be integrated into local



institutional planning processes. As bottom-up, faculty-driven initiatives, however, these partnerships often



do not fall within an institution‟s plan for strategic top-down inter-institutional partnerships. As a result,



these emerging, faculty-driven partnerships may not be considered in institutional processes, procedures, and



mechanisms for planning and associated resource allocation. However, it is these partnerships that provide









28

thousands of students with experiential learning opportunities that are specifically designed for global



literacies and systematically integrated into their curricula.







Disciplinary and Institutional Cultures



While resources were identified as the main challenge in partnership development both by those who



are engaged in partnerships and by those who are not, other challenges identified differed between the two



groups (see figure 5 and table 2). Interestingly, the next most frequently mentioned challenge that keeps



faculty from developing global partnerships was the local institutional culture and disciplinary situatedness



of technical communication programs.



INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE



With regard to their local institutional culture, respondents mentioned a lack of understanding of



global influences and global literacies. As one respondent put it, “the vision of my department is restricted to



local influences. Even though we have major global businesses within five miles of the campus, college



officials do not see or care to see any advantage to building partnerships with any aspect of the global



community.” Similarly, another respondent observed, “while our program is certainly an effective one, the



faculty are still defining the program and its priorities, [with] global literacy coming near the bottom of the



list. Personally, I think it's a touch short-sighted as even though we're located in a small and landlocked



state, our state is home to a number of large and small global companies.”



As a part of institutional cultures, the disciplinary situatedness of technical communication programs



is particularly important given that technical communication is an emerging discipline and perhaps more of



an interdiscipline rather than a discipline. As Herrington and Tretyakov (2005) point out,







Technical communication … is taught in departments across a broad spectrum, including



Engineering, Medicine, Communication, English, Mass Communication, Language,



Literature and Culture, Communication Planning and Information Design, Multimedia,



Texts and Technology, Computing, and Human Computer Interface, among others. Not only



does the influence of the fields in these varying departments affect instructors‟ choice of



29

research and pedagogy, but the administrative support for course content, technology access,



space provision, and tenure processes mediates the kind of research and teaching that is done



under the umbrella of „technical communication.‟ (p. 278)







It is not surprising then that the disciplinary situatedness of technical communication programs also



influences the development of global partnerships. While some respondents found, for example, that their



location in English departments, especially those with a strong focus on comparative literature, inspired a



global perspective, others found that English and Humanities departments may present a particularly



challenging environment for the development of global partnerships. As one participant observed,



“Generally, English departments are ethnocentric—don't care about any culture other than U.S.A. Mine is



no exception. We need to foster in rhetoric and professional communication a sense of need for global



literacy; then maybe departments will support better this work.” Another respondent suggested that “[On] an



engineering campus, these partnerships are well understood institutionally. Being in the humanities,



however, leaves junior faculty in TC … in an awkward position pushing towards the institutional norm but



with senior departmental colleagues baffled.” Finally, the disciplinary situatedness of technical



communication also involved concerns about the status of the field, which deterred some faculty from



developing partnerships: “Technical writing has a low esteem factor among English department faculty.”



Indeed, our interviews confirmed the importance of a visionary institutional or departmental culture



that is supportive of such partnerships in the context of globalization. Bruce Maylath, for example,



mentioned that he participates in a university-wide initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Stout called



“global perspectives requirement,” which actively supports this type of work. Similarly, TyAnna Herrington



mentioned a strong focus of her university on global partnerships for various purposes. Along similar lines,



Dianne Atkinson noted the consensus at her university and in her Department that such partnerships are



crucial to engineering education. Ken Rainey explained that his partnership falls on fertile ground in his



Department, which teaches courses in World, Western, and Japanese literature. Another department on his



campus has begun offering a major in global and international studies. Rainey‟s Department as well has



begun offering a Bachelor‟s degree in international technical communication, which is coupled with a



30

foreign-language minor and will benefit greatly from Department partnerships. Likewise, Judith Ramey



pointed to the great priority her university assigns to integrating teaching, research, and service into a global



context. Their location in the Pacific Rim makes this priority particularly important. David Sapp is located in



a University environment that has traditionally focused its mission beyond local concerns with a traditional



emphasis global justice work and 70% of its students participating in study-abroad programs. A supportive



environment at one level or another, then, may be a critical factor in facilitating such partnerships.







LEADERSHIP FOR PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY BUILDING



Since global partnerships expose and question numerous assumptions about local institutional



cultures, the institutional separation of local and global learning, and the disciplinary situatedness of



technical communication programs, they call for leadership in Wahlstrom and Clemens‟ (2005) sense of



overcoming “the way our discipline thinks of itself and permits itself to be constrained by tradition” (p. 302).



As Wahlstrom and Clemens suggest, partnerships can play an important role in overcoming various kinds of



institutional barriers (p. 312).



Rethinking leadership and building partnership capacity is particularly important for the kinds of



partnerships that are emerging in technical communication programs. These partnerships often are facilitated



by the Internet as a communication medium that can instantly connect faculty and classrooms across



distance. As a result, they often emerge from the bottom up. On the one hand, therefore, departments who



wish to position themselves in a global higher education context must find ways to support the integration of



these partnerships into the program and into the institution. On the other hand, faculty who wish to develop



and sustain these partnerships and to embed them into departmental and institutional cultures, require



conditions that support such faculty leadership roles. Such distributed leadership and support is particularly



important if these partnerships are to extend beyond individuals with a particular passion for this kind of



work.



To facilitate this process, programs must find ways to build leadership capacity and foster the ability



to partner among its faculty. This includes building partnering competencies, authenticity, and the ability of



faculty to manage polarity (Duin, Baer, & Starke-Meyerring, 2001). Partnering competencies include



31

developing the ability to understand various cultures and enter into two- and multiple-way interactions; using



emerging technologies to facilitate communication and increase accessibility; and functioning effectively



within multiple partnerships at multiple stages. Authenticity in partnering is less a set of specific skills and



more an internal locus of control that demonstrates that a person values collaboration, teamwork, and



relationships by working “as equals” with partners and by sharing information and basing decisions on the



greater vision or greater good. Last, managing polarity refers to the need for those involved in global



partnerships to integrate global thinking and global literacies into local classrooms and curricula. To build



global partnership capacity, one must simultaneously envision both poles; that is, one must integrate existing



local curricula with the somewhat disruptive nature of global partnerships.







CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK



Technical communicators in the workplace face numerous changes as a result of globalization. For



example, they increasingly work in globally distributed teams, directly engage diverse customers and other



stakeholders in digital networks, and experience the influence of local and global policies, agreements, and



corporate practices on their work as well as on their roles as citizens both in their communities and in their



work with TNCs. These changes have a number of important implications for learning environments and



curricula in technical communication. Specifically, they call for learning environments that—like corporate,



customer, and public communication—are increasingly globally networked and are systematically designed



to provide experiential learning opportunities that facilitate the kinds of literacies technical communicators



need to develop for global work and citizenship. Because of the nature of globally networked



communication, such learning environments increasingly require the development of program partnerships.



In building such partnerships and addressing these changes in their curricula, technical



communication programs find themselves in a fundamentally changed globalizing higher education



environment. Most importantly, higher education has become subject to global trade agreements that advance



a vision of higher education as a tradable commodity to be sold for profits around the world in local markets



without local constraints. In contrast, partnerships offer faculty and programs alternative opportunities for



participating in the globalization of higher education by emphasizing cultural sensitivity, equality, and



32

mutual benefit for the greater good. They thus provide faculty and programs with an important tool not only



for designing globally networked learning environments, but also for taking an active role in current



processes of globalization in higher education. In short, partnerships play a key role in how technical



communication faculty and programs position themselves amid globalization.



To understand how technical communication faculty and programs develop and maintain such



partnerships, we conducted an exploratory study examining the priorities faculty and departments assign to



them, the missions and activities they pursue with these partnerships, and the challenges they face. From this



study, we now conclude with an initial description of emerging trends in partnership development in



technical communication, implications for programs, and implications for the field as a whole to facilitate the



development of these partnerships, support their development of innovative pedagogies, and advance these



partnerships as important sites of continued research.







Description of Global Partnership Trends in Technical Communication



Our study found a high level of activity and interest in such partnerships. We found that technical



communication faculty and programs have developed a great variety of creative and innovative partnerships



to provide enriched collaborative opportunities for learning, research, and civic engagement. Despite this



diversity, however, these partnerships share a number of characteristics: they focus on the systematic



integration of experiential opportunities for these purposes into technical communication curricula for as



many students as possible. Most important for their success, they also share a deep concern for cultural



sensitivity, equality, and mutual benefit among partners. They thus extend well beyond traditional models of



separate, “add-on” student and faculty exchanges, and they also differ decidedly from emerging global-trade



visions of higher education.



Our findings suggest that these emerging global partnerships may be described as collaborative



initiatives between faculty, programs, institutions, companies, civil society organizations, government



agencies, community organizations, and other entities that are systematically integrated into the curriculum



in order to help technical communicators prepare for global work and citizenship. These partnerships,



therefore, include such activities as creating globally networked experiential learning environments and



33

pursuing program development opportunities that foster global literacies, creating enriched research



opportunities for faculty, and/ or fostering civic engagement on a global scale. Because these partnerships



play a critical role in positioning students, faculty, and programs in a global context, we suggest the term



global rather than international partnerships. The term emphasizes their vital role in the context of



globalization and particularly in facilitating the literacies that allow technical communicators to take an



active role as professionals and as citizens in a globalizing world.







Implications for Programs



There is much to be learned from these emerging partnerships in technical communication programs.



Programs considering such partnerships, for example, can learn from their focus on a shared mission; their



creativity in pursuing that mission; their innovation in pedagogy; their attention to cultural respect, shared



control, equal contributions, and mutual learning; and their many ways of advancing technical



communication as a field.



In developing their partnerships, technical communication faculty and programs encounter a variety



of challenges, most importantly challenges related to resources as well as local disciplinary and institutional



cultures. To some extent these challenges result from the ways in which these emerging global partnerships



question assumptions about learning and institutional cultures. As our exploratory study suggests, global



partnerships question assumptions about departmental priorities, which often do not yet include an awareness



of the intricate link between globalization and local programs, institutions, and communities. Designed to



facilitate this link, global partnerships also question traditional models of international education as an “add-



on” learning experience that often only few students can take advantage of.



Moreover, because they are often developed by faculty from the bottom up, they question leadership



models, requiring conditions that allow faculty to take on leadership roles and that support the institutional



integration of these partnerships. Global partnerships rekindle questions about the disciplinary situatedness of



technical communication programs and the ways in which these disciplinary locations influence how



technical communication programs can position themselves in a globalizing world.









34

Perhaps more so than ever before, technical communication program directors need to work closely



with their faculty and their administrations to overcome the traditional institutional divide between local and



global learning and to foster a culture of distributed leadership and support for the kind of integrated vision



for experiential learning in global contexts that these partnerships advance. In many ways, global



partnerships rest on local partnerships with different stakeholders that help to integrate and support the



partnerships into local contexts. The more stakeholders are involved in emerging partnerships, the easier



programs will find it to sustain and grow them into the future.







Implications for the Field of Technical Communication: Toward a Partnership Network



While some of these challenges are best addressed by the departments and institutions that maintain



such partnerships, on a larger scale program partnerships may also benefit from partnership network in which



faculty and program chairs can exchange experiences and develop support structures in the field. As Ken



Rainey notes, for example, “I believe that if we are to make much progress on these matters that we would be



more successful if we worked through a consortium of universities that would pool resources for fund



raising, data collection and archiving.” Such a network could build on joint CPTSC and ATTW initiatives



already underway such as the International Roundtable initiated by Bruce Maylath and others at international



conferences. In building on this foundation, such a network might possibly facilitate partnerships in the



following ways:



Facilitating Partnership Development. As our exploratory study indicates, partnerships encounter



a number of challenges that could be overcome more easily in collaboration, for example by:



- Developing a shared space for faculty and programs interested in partnership development, perhaps



with information about course descriptions, objectives, target audience, time frames, materials, and



other information relevant to partnership development;



- Coordinating and facilitating meeting opportunities for interested faculty at technical communication



conferences;



- Sharing information about international funding opportunities for partnership development as well as



faculty, and student exchanges;



35

- Facilitating collaboration in pursuing funding opportunities.







Advancing Professional Communication Pedagogy. Our study also shows that global partnerships



are often the site of innovative pedagogy, which could be shared and advanced more easily through



collaboration, for example, by:



- Sharing best pedagogical practices, assignments, instructional strategies;



- Building a repertoire of instructional materials designed specifically for learning in globally networked



learning environments;



- Sharing best practices and assessments of shared virtual learning environments;



- Facilitating opportunities for collaboration on teaching materials, textbooks, and other learning



materials online, in print, and other media.







Advancing Research on Partnerships and Networked Learning Environments. Our research



indicates that these partnerships present new, innovative sites for research regardless of the particular aspect



of the mission with which they begin. There is also still much to be learned about these partnerships. For



example, now that they have emerged, what makes these partnerships sustainable? What policies best



facilitate their development? How do partners negotiate a shared vision for their partnerships? What impact



do they have in quantitative and qualitative terms on students, faculty, programs, and their local



communities? Again, a collaborative initiative such as a partnership network could facilitate such research in



a number of ways, for example, by:



- Facilitating opportunities for collaborative intercultural research projects on intercultural



communication, teaching, and learning in globally networked learning environments



- Sharing information about international funding opportunities for research into intercultural



communication



- Developing a bibliography of research on various aspects of global curriculum and program



partnerships



- Facilitating the development of research forums, colloquia, and symposia



36

Support for these partnerships is important as they advance the field of technical communication in



many ways. For example, in addition to advancing pedagogy, internationalizing research, and providing new



opportunities for civic engagement on a global scale, they directly support the development of technical



communication programs in other countries and thus the development of the field as an important area for



scholarly inquiry. Finally, in the context of globalizing higher education as a whole, these partnerships reflect



a vision of globalization in higher education that differs decidedly from the global trade vision of higher



education characterized by the one-way sale of higher education unconstrained by local cultural needs or



policies. Instead, the vision advanced by these partnerships is characterized by innovative pedagogies,



cultural sensitivity, mutual learning, and equality.



Given their important contributions to students, faculty, and programs around the world, to the field



of technical communication, and to higher education, we anticipate that global partnerships will become a



major cornerstone of technical communication programs. Programs will increasingly be called upon to revise



curricula and design research and civic engagement opportunities to reflect the global context that now



surrounds technical communication, higher education programs, and citizenship.







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Figures



Figure 1: Survey Respondents





Survey Respondents



70 66

60

50

40

28

30

20

9

10 4

0

Administrator Faculty Graduate Student Other









Figure 2: Percentage of technical communication programs that currently maintain one or more global



partnership initiatives, plan one, are interested in developing one, or have no partnerships and no interest in



developing one.





Current Partnership Situation



Other

One or more 6%

partnerships

24% No partnership;

no plans

Planning 28%

12% Discontinued

3%

Interested

27%









41

Figure 3: Average individual and perceived department priority assigned to global partnerships.





Individual vs. Department Priority



30

25

25 22

2019 19

20 18 My Priority



15 11 11

9 Department

10 8

Priority

5

0

1 (low) 2 3 4 5 (high)







Figure 4: Challenges encountered by existing and planned partnerships





Key Issues in Existing and Planned Partnerships



0 5 10 15 20 25



Resources 21

Logistics 14

Quality 12

Cultural Differences 6

Language 5

Organizational Issues 3

Political Climate 3









Figure 5: Challenges anticipated by respondents without partnerships





What Prevents Programs from Engaging in

Partnerships? (Why not?)



0 5 10 15 20 25 30



Lack of Resources 27

Disciplinary and Organizational Culture 11

Different Priorities 5

National Culture 3

Logistics 2









42

Tables



Table 1: Challenges Encountered by Those Engaged in Global Partnerships



Category Description



Resources - Student travel



- Assistance for visiting students



- Event planning (staff time, rooms, supplies)



- Travel to partner site



- Staffing



- Technology (e.g. videoconferencing)



- Workload reduction (faculty development time)



- Need for leadership and administration



- Involving a donor



Logistics - Different academic calendars



- Different time zones



- Different credit systems



- Different tuition systems



- Different salary systems for faculty exchanges



- Tuition payment (in case of consortium or 2+2 arrangements)



- Timing of student exchanges



- Finding and choosing an appropriate partner



- Staying on track of partnership activities



- Keeping track of exchange student credits



- Offering clear products and deliverables



- Finding a client project for collaborative course projects



- Effect on time to degree completion (e.g., in the case of student exchanges)



Quality - Appropriate supervision / mentorship for exchange students



- Quality of international students (English skills)



43

- Curriculum approval of home component in case of 2+2 arrangements



- Encouraging irresponsible students to say in contact with their partners



- Common knowledge sets among students in course partnerships



- Impact of international students on curriculum and courses



- Are deeper experiences possible for all students?



- How to ensure rigor at participating institutions (in the case of a



consortium)



Cultural - Sense of time



Differences - Bureaucratic systems



- Teaching and learning styles



- Lack of understanding and importance of tech communication in partner



country



- Different legal and contract system



Language - Monolingualism of U.S. students in host country



- English proficiency of visiting or collaborating students



Organi- - Moving from grassroots ("handshake" partnership) between faculty to



zational institutional integration



Issues - Identifying the necessary system-wide approvals



- Obtaining waivers from the university for certain requirements to



accommodate partner needs.



Political - Maintaining trust (especially with partners in developing countries) during



Climate times invasion and war



- Obtaining student visa



- Ensuring student safety during exchanges









44

Table 2: Challenges Preventing Faculty and Programs from Engaging in Global Partnerships



Challenge Description



Lack of - Severe time constraints due to state funding cutbacks



Resources - Full teaching loads prevent new initiatives



- Lack of personnel, release time, and other forms of support



- Small size of the program



- Heavy teaching load



- Too expensive for students



- Lack of support from international office



- No readily identifiable person to lead such an effort



- Economic downturn in partner country



Local Culture - Internal culture



(disciplinary, - Disciplinary culture



institutional) - Limited view of the purpose, usefulness, or rewards that might come



from such partnerships



- Shifting faculty interests



- Limited mission of program



- “short sighted” department culture



- Low esteem for technical communication in English Departments



- Not a "strong instinct/ culture" for engaging in global partnerships



- “Have to get over activation barrier”



- Monolingual students



- Other priorities



Logistics - "Hard to do"



- Difficult articulation of course credits









45

Appendix: Survey Questions



1. Please provide the name and institutional affiliation of your program:



2. What is your role in the program?



a. Administrator



b. Faculty



c. Graduate Student



d. Other (please specify)



3. On a scale from 1 to 5, with five indicating the highest level, what priority do you and your



department assign to global partnerships?



4. Please choose the description that best characterizes the situation in your program



a. My program currently has one or more of such partnerships.



b. My program is planning to develop such partnerships.



c. My program does not have such a partnership, but would be interested in developing one.



d. My program used to have such a partnership, but discontinued it.



e. To my knowledge, my program has never had such a partnership and does not plan to



develop one.



f. Other. Please describe:



5. If your program has a partnership or is planning to develop one, please briefly describe the



partnership initiative (e.g. with what type of partner, where, and for what purpose).



6. If your program has a partnership or is planning to develop one, which two or three key issues have



arisen?



7. If your program discontinued such a partnership, what do you think might be the reason(s)?



8. If your program does not have and does not plan to have a partnership, please provide the main



reason(s) why your program may not engage in such a partnership.



9. Is there any additional information you might provide to help us better understand your position



regarding partnerships?



10. Would you allow us to contact you for a follow-up interview?



46