About Us - CIE

The Center for International Education was established in 1968 as a research and implementation organization committed to promoting participatory education in development settings. The Center is responsible for managing grants and contracts and is closely linked to its companion academic program in International Education with each component serving to enrich the other. Together the two form a community of learning and practice. In its teaching, research, and applied projects, the overarching CIE community strives to link international and domestic activities and to promote dialogue between educational theory and practice.

The Center has a long and successful history of designing, implementing, and evaluating educational initiatives in Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Central and Latin America, and the Caucasus as well as in North America. Financial support has come from many sources including USAID, the State Department, the World Bank, UNESCO, FAO, national governments, state agencies, school systems, and private foundations. Contracts and grants administered by the Center since 1969 total over $90 million.

The Center has a core of five full-time and two associated faculty members, fiscal and administrative support staff, and two adjunct faculty members. The community of more than 40 graduate students, who are early-to-mid-career professionals, contributes to the Center's activities and enriches academic programs by working as teachers, trainers, and research assistants. In developing and implementing funded projects, CIE can also draw on the technical expertise of the University of Massachusetts and the Five College Consortium to supplement its own extensive experience and technical skills. CIE has collaborated on projects with faculty from the departments of Public Health, Anthropology, Agricultural Economics, Communication, Educational Research, Economics, Women's Studies, and Management.

An active network of nearly 600 CIE members are working throughout the world in education and development. This network provides a rich reserve of expertise and contacts. Over the years, CIE has also collaborated in implementing programs with numerous other institutions including schools, universities, NGOs, and PVOs.

Growing out of almost 50 years of experience, the Center for International Education has developed particular expertise in a number of fields. The following summary of these fields includes the types of service and expertise for which the Center has built a reputation.

Program Development and Implementation

CIE has been a partner in implementing many large-scale development education projects, both formal and nonformal, in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We were pioneers in the field of nonformal education and have used that expertise in many different settings. In a typical program CIE may provide one or more of the following services: long-term technical assistance; short-term consulting services; institutional capacity building; research and evaluation; staff training; and program planning. Our operational philosophy is grounded in the belief that joint problem solving and participatory management has the best chance of achieving program goals.

Program Evaluation and Research Design

CIE has both experience and capability in using a variety of approaches to evaluation. The Center is particularly well known for qualitative, participatory and practitioner-based approaches to evaluation. CIE has conducted training in evaluation methods for staff from a number of organizations and has carried out evaluations of programs, materials and institutions.

Training

Training mid-career professionals in development and education lies at the heart of our mission. CIE has designed and implemented training and study programs serving the needs of a variety of groups and individuals. Most programs fall under one of three training formats: degree training; customized short-term professional training for specific clientele; and the management and support of degree candidates at institutions of higher education. The Center has provided graduate degree training to over 500 mid-career professionals from more than 50 countries and has conducted short-term training for hundreds of individuals from around the world.

Curriculum Development

Many of CIE's projects involve developing curricula particularly for adult and nonformal training contexts. Much of the work focusses on developing community and women's leadership skills for tasks ranging from micro-enterprise development to community health. CIE focuses on building local capacity to design, develop and evaluate curricula appropriate to local interests, needs and resources.

Materials Development, Media, and Technology

CIE has pioneered many uses of educational media and technology for development ranging from low-technology options for local initiative to uses of Instructional Technology for education and development. Some CIE techniques include: web-based learning and action, community drama, role plays, puppet shows, fotonovelas, radio programs for distance education, video and theater, electronic learning aids, and simple audiovisual tools.

Formal School-Based Education

Non-formal Education

Teacher Education

Training Design & Materials

Basic Education Improvement

Adult & Family Literacy

Staff Development

Community Health Education

Organizational Development

Education for Girls & Women

Access & Gender Issues

Participatory Action Research

Cultural Aspects of Education Management

Participatory Approaches to Evaluation

Global & Environmental Education

Popular Education

Education Reform & Evaluation

Accelerated Learning

Policy, Planning & Leadership

Education for Refugees & Immigrants

The Center for International Education and students from affiliated academic programs form a learning community comprised of highly diverse practitioner-scholars from around the globe. Typical student members are mid-career professionals, many of whom bring years of experience working on education development activities in Africa, Asia, the Middle East or the Americas. These students together with CIE staff and affiliated faculty members make up the on-campus learning community. The campus community creates learning opportunities that bridge the traditional dichotomies between theory and practice; in-class and out-of-class learning; work and reflection.

Five principles are embedded in all our activities:

1. to think, teach, and learn critically;
2. to be sensitive to issues of social justice in everyday interactions, teaching and learning environments, programs, and policies;
3. to learn about and practice thoughtful and ethical intercultural communications;
4. to focus our energies on those marginalized and/or effected war, disruption, and other emergencies;
5. to encourage reflective practitioner-scholars who, with a community of practice and critical friends, can critically reflect on our own practice and that of others with the goal of deepening understanding and fostering socially just programs and approaches to education around the globe.