Teaching Abroad

The Padnos International Center strongly encourages faculty to seek teaching opportunities abroad. The following information was designed to address common questions and provide resources for teaching abroad.

Where Might I Teach?

It's all about who you know. With the right contacts, you could probably secure a teaching position anywhere. GVSU has partnerships or other agreements with over thirty institutions globally, and these partnerships foster an environment of reciprocity and exchange. They would be the most promising destinations. You will be primarily responsible for making contacts and gaining an invitation from the host institution. The Padnos International Center plays a supportive role. We can help identify appropriate host institutions, provide names or leads for direct contacts, and assist with communication with partner institutions.

In recent years, GVSU faculty taught at a number of partner institutions for both a semester and a full year. Institutions include but are not limited to:

• Cracow University of Economics (Cracow, Poland)
• Grenoble Graduate School of Business (Grenoble, France
• Kingston University (London, England)
• ESSCA (Angers, France & Budapest, Hungary)

GVSU Policies and Overseas Teaching

If you are a full time faculty member and seek a temporary teaching appointment overseas, you must gain approval from your Unit Head and Dean. The policy on outside employment pertains. Arrangements to cover your teaching assignments would need to be made by your Unit Head and Dean.

Sabbatical Leaves

The ideal time to teach abroad is in conjunction with a sabbatical leave. A teaching appointment is not incompatible with research, renewal, or teaching enhancement goals for sabbatical projects. With a sabbatical, coverage of the faculty member's teaching assignments at GVSU is already taken care of, and that critical piece is therefore not an issue.

Leaves of Absence

Some faculty choose to take a leave of absence (leave without pay) for a semester or a year in order to pursue a temporary teaching appointment abroad. 

Teaching Exchanges

Though the benefits of teaching exchanges are numerous, they are the most difficult to arrange. Your Unit Head and Dean will need to be involved at every step of the process.

If you are envisioning an actual faculty-for-faculty exchange, it is important that your corresponding faculty member from the host institution reciprocate with an appropriate teaching assignment at GVSU. Your exchange partner would teach the equivalent of your normal course load in your home unit, and you would fulfill corresponding teaching responsibilities in your partner's home unit.

The most difficult element to manage with teaching exchanges is the salary disparity between GVSU and most partner sites. GVSU faculty earn salaries that are vastly greater than faculty at partner institutions in Ghana, China, Mexico for example.  Thus, the exchange must address this disparity in order to be successful. There is no simple solution, and unfortunately PIC has no budget to supplement teaching salaries. The involvement of Unit Heads and Deans is critical - particularly if additional funds are needed to negotiate a successful exchange.

Your Unit Head and Dean must agree that the corresponding faculty have suitable qualifications, English language proficiency, and other appropriate skills to teach GVSU courses. 

How Do I Proceed?
Though each overseas teaching assignment is unique, arrangements for such opportunities follow a similar pattern.

1. Identify an appropriate host institution. Start with GVSU's partner institutions. Explore websites and catalogs. Search location and curricula and identify institutions where your expertise and background would be compatible. The Padnos International Center can provide you with information on the partner institution.
2. Establish contacts/relationships with faculty/staff at overseas institution(s). Ideally, you will already have or will be able to develop a relationship with a faculty member or contact that might develop into an invitation. The most productive relationships develop naturally, from a professional and/or personal connection.
3. Involve Unit Heads/Deans.  Because you will be absent from GVSU and from your regular teaching assignment, the approval of your Unit Head and Dean will be critical at every step.
4. Involve Padnos International Center. PIC is here to serve the campus community and to provide contacts, advice, travel resources and other assistance pertaining to your faculty exchange.  We can directly facilitate your teaching assignment with an overseas partner, depending on your needs and interests.  

Available Resources

Currently, there is no budget line in the Padnos International Center to support salary for overseas teaching assignments. However, the PIC staff will gladly assist with research materials, curricular information, academic catalogs, contact names, and additional information about overseas institutions especially for GVSU partners.

Other Funding Sources

The Fulbright Scholar Program remains the gold standard for overseas teaching and research appointments. Hundreds of grants are awarded each year for semester or year-long lectureships around the world. For more information click here.