A Moment of Pause and Critical Reflection

As 2021 comes to a close, I’m reflecting on the new emotions and experiences we all acquired during the pandemic as well as the coping strategies we developed that made us, perhaps, more resilient than ever before.

Rethinking Our Approach

We have seen that at the heart of international education is mobility. The collective efforts of the field in getting together and remaining together inspired me. This is the silver lining of the pandemic—the exhilarated conversations about approaches to internationalization without physical mobility. It gave us all a moment to pause and rethink our approach to international education. As a field, we needed this pause and critical reflection, and we learned to find new ways to offer mobility without being physically mobile.

This year challenged our understanding of mobility and our collective efforts in finding strategies to keep the international education spirit alive and well. We unpacked what we really understood mobility to be. New definitions added to the existing list, highlighting that mobility is not just physical but, more importantly, a state of mind.

One of the exciting developments in the field, to me, has been the renewed emphasis on equality and diversity. Not that it was not there before, but in line with sociopolitical changes throughout the world, these issues have become pivotal in our professional practice as well.

A Boost in Creativity Came with Challenges

In 2020, digital platforms for online teaching helped us be more creative and innovative with our teaching; in 2021, with hybrid or