Nancy L. Ruther
Visiting Fellow in Higher Education and International Affairs
Nancy L. Ruther has longstanding research interests in international higher education and public policy, extensive experience building international degree and exchange programs as well as teaching in graduate and professional programs in international relations, public management and overseas development. She served as Associate Director of the The MacMillan Center (1988-2014) and as Lecturer in Political Science at Yale University developing and teaching a professionally-focused introductory course in International Relations for the MA program for seven years.
As a Visiting Fellow with the MacMillan Center since January 2015, she is turning her research interests to the interactions of globalization and higher education systems and has begun exploring the opportunities and threats of technology in re-shaping internationally focused curriculum and teaching programs. With the rise of outcomes-based policy, she is working on a longitudinal approach for understanding the results of interdisciplinary, international graduate programs and the value of interdisciplinary curricular resources and supplementary support such as travel and non-degree language programs. She is particularly interested in teasing out the implications for developing expertise vs. generalist knowledge and their effect on graduates’ long-term utilization of these skills. She enjoys teaching, having developed and taught the required introductory course for Yale’s Masters in International Relations and other courses at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and the University of Connecticut’s, Institute for Public Service-International.
She focused much of her earlier research on how U.S. federal policy affects the international capacity of the U.S. higher education system. Her most recent paper “International Education in the Digital University: Web 2.0, IFLE 1.5 and Policy 1.0” was presented at a research conference held at William and Mary University on national needs and policy implications, “Internationalization of U.S. Education in the 21st Century: The Future of International and Foreign Language Studies” (Williamsburg, Virginia) April 11-13, 2014. Beyond her book, Barely There, Powerfully Present: Thirty Years of US Policy on International Higher Education (Routledge, 2002), she completed a study in 2006 for the National Academy of Sciences on the Department of Education’s Title VI and Fulbright Hayes programs in international, foreign language and area studies. Tying together her interests in higher education policy and overseas economic development, she co-organized an international conference at Yale that resulted in a special issue of the Journal of Higher Education in Africa entitled African Higher Education: Implications for Development (Fall 2004). In 2006, her monograph, U.S. Government and Higher Education: Bridging the Gap in International Expertise came out as a MacMillan Center Working Papers series. She co-authored a monograph for the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs with Louis Goodman and Kay, entitled Undergraduate International Studies on the Eve of the 21st Century (1995). In 1988, with Ian Mayo-Smith, she updated Achieving Improved Performance in Public Organizations: A Guide for Managers (Kumarian Press).
In 2012, the Government of France gave her the high honor of naming her Chevalier de Ordre des Palmes Académiques. She served as Associate Director of the The MacMillan Center (1988-2015) and as Lecturer in Political Science at Yale University (1995-2004). From 1981-88, she served as Associate Professor (Public and Development Management) at the University of Connecticut as well as Associate Director of the Institute of Public Service International. She began her career as a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development serving in La Paz, Bolivia (1974-1979). She has worked as a development consultant, management trainer and researcher in Portugal, Costa Rica, Ghana, Pakistan, among others. She served on the Group of Advisors of the National Security Education Program from its inception to 1998. She has served on numerous standing and special committees at Yale related to international, area and language studies degree and related programs.
She earned her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts in higher education and public policy in 1994. She earned a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Cornell University, Dyson School. She also completed both a master’s in international affairs and a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. She is highly proficient in Spanish, can work in Brazilian Portuguese and say “hello” in many other languages.