Dedication to research, teaching, and service of benefit around the globe is an important part of SCILS' mission. Over the past two decades professional contacts and personal connections have been built with colleagues in institutions where foci exist in the disciplines of communication, journalism, media studies, and library and information science. A major SCILS goal for the coming years is to construct a comprehensive global program, built on faculty recognized as leaders in their disciplines, that

• addresses the needs of our large and growing ethnically diverse international student body.
• provides opportunities for SCILS students and faculty to be involved in international educational, research and professional exchanges.
• similarly, provides opportunities for students, faculty and institutions from other countries to develop cooperative relationships and ventures with SCILS.
• increases international awareness of SCILS in particular and Rutgers University in general.

At its core are faculty international activities and exchanges, international students and student exchange programs, and a global curriculum, which attends to issues and challenges in the multicultural, social, economic, and political domains of a world connected by electronic advances that is closing distance, increasingly providing access to information from myriad of sources, and making possible fast global communication.

As an example of our international connections, Dean Emeritus Gus Friedrich's interest in the international arena began in 1968. He has lectured and taught in England, Germany, and France . In Asia, he conducted a program review for the Department of Communication, University Putra Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur .  In 2002, he signed an agreement between St. Petersburg ( Russia ) State University and SCILS journalism and communication programs. His vision created the current impetus.

Professor Tefko Saracevic has been involved in many great international activities and was a Fulbright Fellow in Croatia three times. He has given seminars, lectures and courses, or consulted, and presented papers at international meetings in 40 countries, and was an invited keynote speaker at over a dozen international conferences. For over a decade he was involved with the Rockefeller Foundation in design, deployment, and evaluation of compact high-quality, low-cost medical information systems in developing countries. He was a visiting professor at four universities abroad. He also worked and consulted with a number of international organizations on development and evaluation of information systems and libraries. He is a co-director of the annual course and conference Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA), held at the end of May each year at the Interuniversity Center, Dubrovnik, Croatia . <http://knjiga.pedos.hr/lida>. In 2003, he was the keynote speaker at the international conference Information Behavior and Digital Libraries held at the Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia <http://www.elt.sk/ibdl/?id=1&lang=uk>.

Connections and links

SCILS in particular and Rutgers in general, have many and diverse links and connections, both formal and informal, with academic institutions around the world. These connections take many forms, such as: visiting scholars on both sides; establishment of educational offerings of interest to students at both institutions that are mutually enriching educational experiences; study abroad programs; joint research projects; joint international conferences; hosting Fulbright fellows, and fellows from other international programs (such as Junior Faculty Development Program), and more.

A formal link between SCILS and another school department or university can be established by signing an international bilateral agreement about cooperation. A draft copy of Agreement to Establish Scholarly Exchange and the Exchange of Students is provided here for consideration (click on the title to see it). If interested to pursue such a link, please contact Tefko Saracevic, Associate Dean and Professor at tefko@scils.rutgers.edu.

Formal agreements

In 2004 SCILS signed a formal Agreement for a Program of Scholarly Exchange and the Exchange of Students with the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Croatia. Both institutions are particularly interested in cooperation in the area of library and information science.