Faculty Competencies

Faculty Competencies

TDU maintains a database that enables us to track the international backgrounds, experience, and capabilities of our faculty and staff. This information strengthens our international presence and helps promote cultural awareness across campus.

Through this database, we also have the ability to attract and retain international students. And, by tapping into resources already available on campus, we are able to build positive relationships with the international community.

WorldCompetencies helps us connect quickly with students and faculty on campus who are familiar with the language, culture, and business customs of overseas countries. This capability is vital in countless situations--including emergencies, where leadership decisions must be made very quickly.

Example Scenarios:

A new German student is injured during her first week on campus. A quick search through our WorldCompetencies database reveals the names of five native-born Germans and fifteen others who have worked or studied in Germany. Any one of them could be useful in helping our student communicate with her health providers at the hospital.

Our study abroad office wishes to create a new program in Tokyo. WorldCompetencies helps us find not only native-born Japanese on campus but also non-Japanese professors whose research focuses on Japan in economics, history, or religion. In short order we have the makings of a committee whose expertise can lead to the creation of a dynamic program.

We need to publicize a famous Shakespearean company that will soon perform on campus. Our database search promptly gives us the names of all English faculty, including retired and emeriti; English and theatre majors and minors; and those who have expressed interest in the performing arts. Our targeted announcement goes directly to this specific group.

In an Emergency

Although our university takes enormous precautions to ensure the safety of our students, we know that the unthinkable could happen. In such a case, WorldCompetencies will provide us with instant communication. To launch this network of communication, you simply dial 919-828-3456. Our security network will immediately go into action.

If, for example, one of our study abroad students in Beijing were suddenly reported missing by his host family, our WorldCompetencies database would rapidly connect colleagues in Beijing to his personal contact information and to key personnel connected to his program. Within minutes, these individuals can communicate with each other through e-mail or text messaging. This "instant response" mechanism is essential not only for the protection of the student who is missing--perhaps merely lost in Beijing but nonetheless at risk--but also to mitigate potential risk to TDU. We could also quickly locate someone in our area who speaks Chinese in order to facilitate communication between the host family and institute in China and people who are involved here.

For Focus Groups

Through WorldCompetencies, faculty and staff find it easy to register their areas of expertise related to international study and travel.

These areas include their spoken languages, fields of study, cities of residence, corporations and businesses of employment, and points of travel.

As a result, any campus unit--e.g., academic departments, schools, student organizations--needing to form focus groups for research have easy accessibility to names of faculty, staff, and students who can add significant value to such a panel.

This capability is one more way our campus creates and maintains a strong international, and community, presence.