History of PACIE

In 1969, PACIE was founded on the campus of Pennsylvania State University by four research universities (University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University, University of Pittsburgh, and Temple University) and several four-year colleges as an institutional member organization for four-year colleges and universities.

PACIE was conceived from the outset as a statewide consortium and advocate for international education. The founding of PACIE coincided with new initiatives in federal funding for innovative national programs in international education. Thus, the earliest activities of PaCIE focused primarily on seeking federal funding for its members by way of an annual conference as a networking forum for PACIE members to meet with federal officials, and to exchange information on college and university funding needs.

Through the 1970s, PACIE created an annual newsletter on international education grants and statewide activities. In addition, a directory of summer and semester study abroad programs designed and implemented by the State Systems of Higher Education universities was prepared and printed to encourage state university students to study overseas. Program cooperation among the state universities, discounted academic costs, and diverse program sites were the benefits of the directory.

By the early 1980s, PACIE launched three initiatives for the benefit of Pennsylvania’s colleges and universities, school districts, and their high school students:

In 1982, two faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania successfully applied for a series US Department of Education grant to distribute PENN/PACIE funds to assist Pennsylvania colleges and universities in the planning and implementing of offices of international studies across the State; the funding assisted twenty-five colleges with the PENN/PACIE grants from 1983 to 1988. From 1988 to 1992, PACIE repeated the same granting format with PENN/PACIE grants to 20 colleges and universities for the enhancement of geography and international education.
In 1984, PACIE in close association with Governor Thornburgh’s office and the Pennsylvania Department of Education [PDE], founded the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
In 1987, PACIE and the PDE established nine statewide collaboratives of school, college, and university language and social studies faculty sometimes on their own, and sometimes in cooperation with community leaders and businesses to promote joint conferences, surveys, research projects, and ongoing networks to promote language studies, the humanities and area studies throughout the State. In the 1980s, PACIE also began the publication of the International Review and the PACIE Directory to serve the Pennsylvania academic community with reviews of international education books, and the institutional membership and representatives in PACIE.

From 1992 to the present, PACIE has focused its attention on four initiatives in addition to the annual conference and the publication of PACIE News four times annually, and its institutional collaborative projects, such as continued federal funding for languages, humanities and area studies in Pennsylvania’s K to 16 schools, colleges and universities:

PACIE revised its bylaws to include two-year colleges as a membership priority and long-term presence on the Board of Directors; at the same time, PACIE began further cooperation with statewide organizations and school districts with its inauguration of a permanent Board of Directors position open to a representative from the Pennsylvania State Modern Language Association [PSMLA].
In 2004, PACIE extended membership to K-12 teachers, administrators and schools involved in international education – that is, language study, social studies, and area studies that include an international component.
PACIE sought to include an ongoing panel in the annual conference devoted to “international education and technology”, presented an interactive compressed video session with the International University of Monterey, Mexico in its 1997 annual conference, and instituted a members-only electronic bulletin board [PACIE-L], later replaced by a web page site www.pacie.org presently operated by Dickinson College’s Office of Global Studies.
PACIE has initiated a series of advocacy projects. As part of the annual PACIE conference in Harrisburg beginning in 1999, visits have been made to key government international business and education offices and cooperative presentations were done with the Harrisburg Mayor’s Office. In addition, plans were made to seek federal, state, and local funds to survey Pennsylvania’s school, college and university languages, and area and international studies resources for Pennsylvania’s local communities and businesses. PACIE has also been active in the effort to achieve World Language Standards for Pennsylvania K-12 schools.

Over the past several years, PACIE college and university members have been honored by national awards for recognition of outstanding international education projects and programs. In 2000, the American Council on Education awarded Arcadia University and Dickinson College its “Promising Practices” award. In 2001 and again in 2002, the Institute for International Education awarded its Andrew Heiskell Award first to Juniata College (Huntingdon) for its “Languages in Motion” project, and then to Chatham College (Pittsburgh) for its “Communities of Islam” project. In 2003, NAFSA: Association of International Educators awarded Dickinson College, Community College of Philadelphia, and University of Pittsburgh its “Exemplary International Programs” award. In honoring its own Pennsylvania outstanding international educators, in 1998, PACIE initiated two awards to be given at its annual conferences; that is, the LaMarr Kopp Life Achievement in International Education and the David Portlock Outstanding International Educator awards.

PACIE is administered by an Executive Director and annually elects a 13-member Board made up of PACIE members.