During the AIEA 2026 Annual Conference, new AIEA President, Jane Gatewood, opened her new presidency with inspiring remarks for the whole conference, and now available to all. In her speech to attendees, Jane painted a bold, inclusive vision: “a Big Tent that is focused and intentional, but also genuinely broad. A tent illuminated by many lights. A tent that makes room for different institutional types, different national contexts, different theories of change, different stages of leadership development, different paths to global learning—and still insists that we are one field, facing one interconnected set of challenges.” Read her full remarks below.
Colleagues and friends,
The world we inhabit today is not the world of the past several decades.
The last 30 years has been moment of relative geopolitical stability – and this is also the very period in which international education surged around the globe, and in which this association and this profession have come of age.
For much of that time, many of us worked – often unconsciously – within a shared set of assumptions. We operated, and were often funded, under the idea that the world was moving, more or less, in one direction: toward greater integration, toward expanding markets, toward the spread of a particular model of democratic capitalism.
Thirty years ago marked the end of the Cold War. The so-called end of history. One world gave way to another, and that cataclysmic transition shaped the next 30 years.
Jake Sullivan, an expert national security and international relations, has noted that this was a period in which economic policy and geopolitics were often kept in separate lanes. Trade flowed one way, security concerns went another, and we built programs in the spaces in between.
Now those spaces are sites of tension, where the economics of mobility collide with a variety of geopolitical concerns and motivations, including national security.
So the ground we built upon is now shifting. Some days, it may feel as though it is collapsing.
In various domains and geographies, the assumptions that underwrote our work, and in many cases our funding, are being contested, re‑examined, and in some places rejected. We feel that in our institutions, in our partnerships, and in our students’ lives.
I want to invite us to sit with that discomfort for a moment, to acknowledge the changes underway in our worlds and in The World.
I say this not to wallow. One thing remains certain: people – students and scholars—have always crossed borders to pursue learning and knowledge. This is a certainty.
Our jobs are to make those routes to global learning and knowledge accessible, navigable. And to do that, we have to map a new way forward, a way through.
And, for me, a way to do that is to understand the past in order to build a story for our present and future.
Let’s zoom out for a moment.
Over the last century, higher education as a whole has undergone a transformation that is almost difficult to fathom:
At the turn of the 20th century, there were only about 500,000 students in higher education worldwide—a tiny, elite project for a small slice of humanity. By around 1960, global tertiary enrollment had grown to roughly 15 million, and about half of those students were in just two countries: the United States and the Soviet Union.
Of those millions of students, only a small percentage were globally mobile.
By 2000, approximately 100 million students were enrolled in higher education worldwide. And as of last year, around 264 million students were enrolled in higher education globally – more than double the total in 2000 and more than 500 times the number at the start of the 20th century.
But we also know that – even though this numerical growth has been profound – access remains an issue. And today the location density of higher education institutions does not match the current locations of demand for higher education globally.
And that mismatch forces us to rethink the traditional pathways that have long defined global student mobility. For decades, those routes flowed toward a relatively small number of destinations—often shaped by historical power, economic stability, and capacity rather than by where demand was actually rising.
Just like the end of the Cold War, we are once again in a period of great change .. So, what does that mean for us—for you, for me, for AIEA? First, it means we have to remember our own light.
This is exactly why it’s useful to revisit the last several decades: a period of steady, almost uninterrupted growth in both higher education and global mobility that became the backbone of our field.
Just like the end of the Cold War, we are once again in a period of great change .. So, what does that mean for us—for you, for me, for AIEA? First, it means we have to remember our own light.
Indeed, for decades, international educational mobility to the United States and a few other geographies was on a steady upward trajectory, with only brief pauses. Many of us built our strategies, and even our identities, around that upward line.
But when we place that history beside today’s demographic and geographic realities, a different future comes into focus—one where new points of convergence and concentration are emerging, and where our work must adapt to serve students whose opportunities and aspirations no longer align neatly with the old map.
But also, today, geopolitically and economically, we seem to be moving into a period of fragmentation.
In some ways, it feels like we are returning to an older order, one in which might makes right and in which borders harden rather than soften. Many of us see that in our visa offices, in our risk assessments, in our partnership agreements, and in the conversations our students are having—or not having—across difference.
And so I want to offer a challenge to all of us: to resist that fragmentation.
To resist it not by retreating into comforting slogans or fuzzy optimism, or hope that the past will return.
None of these are enough for the crucible we are in.
A crucible is not a gentle metaphor. It is a vessel in which elements are exposed to intense heat and pressure and, transformed into something stronger and more resilient. Just like the end of the Cold War, we are once again in a period of great change.
So, what does that mean for us—for you, for me, for AIEA?
First, it means we have to remember our own light. I want to challenge each of you, as we begin this year together, to find your torch again: to recall what brought you into this field in the first place. Was it a semester in Harbin or Harare? A student whose life changed in your office? A mentor who opened a door that lit a new path?
Whatever that spark was, we need to concentrate it—to turn it into a focused, burning intensity. Because this work now requires more than goodwill.
It requires courage, clarity, and stamina.
Second, it means we must focus as a field—but not in the sense of narrowing who is “in” the conversation.
We need a “Big Tent” for internationalization and international education—a tent large enough to hold enrollment, student success, global learning, research collaborations, safety and risk, community engagement, and more. A tent big enough to knock down the silos that have kept us from seeing how these pieces connect. A tent big enough that various associations and organizations across our geographies and specializations can align, work together, finding complementarities and shared strengths.
As I step into this role as President of AIEA, that is the vision I want us to pursue together: a Big Tent that is focused and intentional, but also genuinely broad. A tent illuminated by many lights. A tent that makes room for different institutional types, different national contexts, different theories of change, different stages of leadership development, different paths to global learning—and still insists that we are one field, facing one interconnected set of challenges.
In a fragmented world, building and holding that kind of Big Tent is fundamental for the future.
As I take up the role of President of AIEA, I do so with humility, with gratitude, and with a very clear sense that we have the courage, clarity, and stamina required of leaders in this current moment.
I invite you—each of you—to step into this Big Tent. To lend your light to this crucible. And to help ensure that, when future generations look back on this moment of great change, they will see not just fragmentation and fear, but also the hard, hopeful work of people who chose to build something stronger, together.
Thank you.
Jane Gatewood
AIEA President 2026-2027
As we move forward into this exciting new chapter, we invite you to learn more about Jane Gatewood and the AIEA Leadership team.