Our Mission

The mission of CALS Global is to facilitate and promote international engagement of CALS faculty, staff, and students.

Our Vision

The vision of CALS Global is to become among the leaders in the nation’s land-grant colleges for international engagement and affect positive change in the global agricultural enterprises through research, education, and outreach.

Underlying premises

• CALS expertise can help address some of the most pressing issues of today and tomorrow and help improve the quality of lives of people around the world.
• International partnerships can enrich and reward careers and/or experiences of CALS faculty, staff, and students.
• CALS international activities can help the Wisconsin and U.S. economies.
• CALS International activities can facilitate our students to acquire a better understanding of the agricultural enterprises around the world and develop a deeper sense of understanding of other cultures and languages.

Our Job

CALS Global works with CALS faculty, staff and students to connect them with local, national and international governmental and non-governmental organizations to help develop programs that more fully utilize the strengths of CALS research, education, and outreach missions.  This means that it is critical that an international agenda be fully integrated into these missions and not seen as something apart from its core components.  Other partners in our efforts will include institutions of higher education and research and developmental organizations around the world.

The CALS Global office also plays a role in pushing for a larger international agenda for all land-grant institutions through participation on national boards and seeking a greater international focus through partnerships with U.S. government agencies such as USDA, USAID, NSF, NIH etc. as well as working to connect our efforts with both the private and public non-governmental organization network.  We fully acknowledge that national and international connections are vital to the development of collaborations that work.

Wisconsin and campus relations are also important for CALS Global.  It is essential that CALS be a part of the larger UW-Madison campus international efforts.  Consequently, CALS Global seeks to strengthen its ties with UW-Madison International Division, CALS administration, and its Board of Visitors to make sure that programmatic efforts are not duplicated and/or that the unique nature of CALS work is understood at the larger campus level.  CALS Global also recognizes the need to support and work with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Relations (DATCP), in their work to expand international trade focused on Wisconsin products and services.

In all of the above, the CALS Global office believes it is critical to work through the CALS International Programs Committee (IPC), for both advice and guidance, to assist CALS Global in all of its work. The IPC is critical to making sure that our international efforts include working with and helping to keep informed the CALS department chairs, and the larger faculty, staff, and student communities of the international opportunities that exist for their participation in research, teaching and outreach work around the world.

Finally, while the primary responsibilities for the undergraduate experience is administered out of the CALS Office of Academic Affairs, CALS Global believes that missions of research, teaching and outreach cannot and should not be separated and each can build off of each other, so we believe we have a lot to contribute to the undergraduate experience through the development and support of study abroad and international internship opportunities that come out of the research and outreach collaborations of our faculty and staff.  We do this by working with faculty and staff who are interested in expanding their research and outreach activities to areas outside of the U.S. and then working with them to explore ways to include undergraduate and graduate students in their work.