Bridging barriers, extending access

For Dallas International University, a new focus and new partnerships are making training and more accessible—benefitting Bible translation movements worldwide. Here is our conversation with Scott Berthiaume, President of Dallas International University, and David Pattison, Director of Strategic Initiatives for DIU.

How are things changing for DIU in the way you are getting training out to people, rather than having them come to Dallas? Distance learning is nothing new, obviously, but I know you’re doing some new things.

Scott Berthiaume:

It started with a conversation we had with an organisation called Christian Halls. They have some overseas work and they use a certain model for tutoring high school students. We were talking about doing dual enrollment with them.

The conversation with them brought to light two things about training internationally, And those were crossing the language barrier and crossing the financial barrier.

After COVID, we started talking to Associação Linguistica Evangélica Missionária (ALEM) in Brazil and also with Universitas Kristen Indonesia Tomohon, about how to train Brazilians and Indonesians in Bible translation. We had a model with our World Arts department. They had created intensive courses that we had been using for quite a while, where instructors go onsite for a couple of weeks teaching intensively, as part of a 15-week course; the rest is online.

So we had been approved by our accreditor to do these intensives, as we call them. We don’t have to get permission for a separate instructional campus somewhere in the world as long as we stay below 25 percent in face-to-face instruction, with the rest online. The online portions can be synchronous, asynchronous, or a mixture of both. So that gave us a way, a model, of doing instruction overseas in a bigger way.

Then it was that language barrier. In those discussions with Brazil and Indonesia (they were going on at about the same time), we realized that there was quite a lot of depth at the master’s level with partners who have a lot of experience on the field. And there’s a fair amount of bilingualism. And, in both those places, we realized we could pair up DIU core faculty for a linguistics course with (in-country) partners at a Master of Arts level as associate instructors. They actually join our DIU family. They join the faculty. They like that because they get to be part of an academic institution. If we do it through this intensive paradigm and cross that language barrier, we can offer an accredited master’s degree in Brazil.

In the case of Indonesia, they have accreditation already. That’s actually an accredited seminary. So then we’re doing what we call articulation. We just transfer credit courses back. But we do the same basic model: MA level, pair them up with our PhDs, switch all the material into Indonesian, and use that same delivery model. And now Indonesians are taking DIU courses for credit.

You said it has to be less than 25 percent face-to-face. But that still leaves good opportunities for classes to meet, right?

SB:

Obviously, if we’re going to ask students in the different islands in Indonesia to come together for two weeks, we’re probably going to do more than one class. We want to kill more than one bird with a stone there. The idea, too, is that we’re getting this constant mentorship with their associate instructor, who is kind of the direct liaison to the students in Indonesia. Even during the non-intensive part, they can still be around and meet and give tutoring and help.

We’ve always known that one of DIU’s real strengths is its network. We don’t have a lot of money in the bank. We don’t own any buildings. We have strong expertise in our faculty, especially field experience. But we also have this amazing, connected network. We know a lot of people and organizations around the world through our SIL background. …

I just got back from Mexico — that’s where we lived for many years. We talked with partner organisations there and then on Zoom with some others in Latin America about a Spanish delivery of a master’s degree in translation advising. There’s a huge need for consultants or at least advisors. And there’s a ton of experience through our networks and colleagues. But it’s very difficult to get connected with a sustainable, accredited program. For example, at a Mexican organisation where I used to work, we did the old model. We nested an SIL program in a state university. And that’s where I first learned academic affairs. Well, that only lives as long as the university wants you there. And usually that means a person there who’s your friend, who’s a believer or something. They go, and your program goes. Which is why we became GIAL (Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics) a long time ago, independent of the University of Texas.

So those things eventually happen. It’s happened in Mexico, and it’s happening in other parts of Latin America. In that sense, we can come in and provide that academic infrastructure, that overarching structure to provide stability.

In other words, our partners can do what they do best, which is teaching and recruiting and getting the right people and courses. It’s usually in the high-level academic affairs stuff, the reporting, the compliance issues that you need to offer an accredited degree. And we can do that because we (already) have to.

At the Alliance's Global Gathering in 2024, Dallas International University (DIU) and Associação Linguística Evangélica Missionária (ALEM) formalized a partnership to expand Bible translation capacity in Brazil and other Lusophone regions. The organizations will collaborate to offer a Master of Arts in Translation Facilitation (MA-FT), delivered in Portuguese. DIU President Scott Berthiaume (left) and ALEM Executive Director Edilson Renzetti signed the partnership into effect.

How has DIU changed its strategy and philosophy over the past five years or so? What looks different today than it did pre-COVID?

SB:

Our mission statement just changed. That’s our biggest thing. We had a long stakeholder conversation, about 14 months’ worth, with the school and others, including our two former presidents. And the board approved a new mission for the school. Our old mission was, ‘As an institution of higher education, we provide education and research opportunities leading to degrees.’ So it was about leading to degrees in applied linguistics, culture studies, and the development of languages.

The new mission says, ‘As a Christian university’ — we added that; it was important that we be clear that we’re a Christian university — ‘we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.’

What kind of reception has that received internationally?

SB:

A hundred percent positive.

Because it suddenly doesn’t feel like it’s a Western model anymore? Is that kind of what you’re going for?

SB:

Yeah. Our Ugandan students — we have 15 of them in an agribusiness program — they’re future global leaders. And that’s something that the Bobi Agribusiness Institute, our partner there, can relate to. They can’t relate to the degrees in applied linguistics. They want those young people to be agents of change for Christ.

I think for DIU or GIAL, the vision before was to be a quality, recognized institution of linguistics. Because that was the old model, working with secular universities. Which is highly aspirational and highly valuable. But in the world today, that’s a difficult card to play because there’s so much emphasis on partnering with people in other countries.

How did that mission change come about?

SB:

It was gradual. The first big shift was when that bachelor’s level program started back in 2014. It’s still a small program. But that started getting the school to think university-ish. We got the PhD in world arts going. Then the board changed the name to Dallas International University. We had a new strategic initiative to expand distance education. We launched that in 2019. We bought a bunch of equipment, and we were busy getting our classrooms ready for hybrid instruction.

And then COVID hit. We only had one or two distance-education courses pre-COVID. But now, all we had to do was turn it on. It was ready to go. It wasn’t painless, but it was a whole lot better than what it could have been.

So the name change and then that push literally made all of our courses have to be adapted for that new audience. Ever since then, our distance-education credit hours have been going way up. Now we’re about two-thirds distance-education credit hours. Our enrollment has never been higher, and our campus has never been quieter.

How many people do you have on campus now?

SB:

Fifty or 60. And they don’t all live here. Some live nearby. But we’ll be at a total enrollment (including remote students) of around 350 by the end of the summer. We’re going to add 25 Ugandans in June, for our second group there. And we’re adding another 25 Indonesians in June.

And then we already just have more distance students, even among our students who live in the States. The World Arts program had already been going that way. And the rest of the departments just kind of followed.

We’re not entirely satisfied. The pain point for us now is with a relatively small amount of residential students in class in a hybrid situation. You might have two students in the classroom with five online. 

That’s kind of hard, isn’t it?

SB:

Yeah. So we have some classes where we’ve just decided to have two sections. You’re either online all together or you’re in the classroom. But we still haven’t quite figured it out.

It’s interesting to look across Bible translation at the way COVID accelerated so many changes that were coming anyway. Does it feel like we are better equipped today than we ever imagined we would be at this point?

SB:

I think for us it was a really healthy push. We were very fortunate to have that enhancement plan ready to go. We didn’t want it. We would all love to be together. There’s so much organic learning that goes on in person. And we do want to still find a way to grow our residential side back. That’s kind of our new barrier—what does that look like in Bible translation and in Christian higher education today?

What would you like Alliance organisations around the world to know about DIU that maybe they don’t?

SB:

We’re flexible. We would be happy just to help them be successful. It might be as little as just having a friendship and giving advice or sharing experiences, or them sharing that with us. It could mean a formal relationship, or it could just mean a friendship and learning best practices with one another.

Our accreditors are very supportive of the school. And I think that’s because they’re getting a lot of pressure from our federal government to have results. … So they’re really trying to be accommodating. The fact that we got approval for a new associate’s degree in, of all places, Uganda—which is a long way from the southern states of the U.S.—showed a great vote of confidence. It’s a good environment.

But it doesn’t have to be under our umbrella. If we can help another institution succeed under their umbrella, that would be even better, right?

David Pattison:

The degree in Indonesia is from that university. DIU’s part is transferring in courses, the specialties like Linguistics for Translation and Translation Advising. So they’re providing the Greek and Hebrew and those kinds of things that are part of their program anyway. And then we can offer what they don’t have.

SB:

And we signed a formal partnership agreement with them that gave them some good backing. They had to get approval for this new program in Bible translation. It’s a Master of Theology in Bible translation. So they didn’t have to get their own accreditation approval. By having a partnership with us, that gave them more credentials to show that they were serious. And then we were able to provide whatever our part was in their paperwork for it to get through. But it’s their victory lap.

So I would say the main message is we’re flexible. It might just be that we find a way to provide some courses. But we’re really committed to (overcoming) that language barrier and training people in other countries together, because there’s just so much capacity and it’s so much richer that way.

Is there a recent innovation or idea that has helped overcome barriers to some of this?

SB:

I was really excited about the Brazil program (signed with ALEM at the Alliance’s Global Gathering in Johannesburg). Wycliffe USA is providing scholarships for those students. What makes that unique is, because it’s a master’s in translation advising, the program is largely offered to alumni of ALEM who have a lot of experience, maybe even as consultants in training already. So to provide some tuition help, to help someone successfully get through that master’s, is a win-win. Because it’s going to be very rare that they would leave Bible translation. They’ve been in it so long. And they’re probably already involved in consulting at some level.

So we’re able to provide for them the formal credential and then the ongoing teaching. And it’s local. They don’t have to buy plane tickets and move their family to come to Dallas for two years. So it’s a lot less disruptive.

That’s just one example. We have conversations going on in other things in other parts of the world. No matter what, everybody wins because we at least meet each other and get to talk, and be inspired and pray for each other. And sometimes things come out of it.

Is there an area of the world you would like to specialize in that you’re not yet?

DP:

We’ve met with two accredited, tertiary education providers, colleges or institutes, in Ukraine. And that’s about trauma healing or arts and trauma healing, because of the war. Translation isn’t the biggest need there. So that might end up in a partnership of some kind in the future. And both of those institutions are working with ministries in Central Asia.

SB:
We do have an agreement with one Muslim university, for shared research. So it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to be able to do that in other places as well. We would love to see what that would look like. Because we are a secularly recognized, accredited university, there are ways we can partner and make things happen, even just in pure language development.

Being transparent as a Christian university makes a lot more sense to most Muslim universities because they’re transparent about being a Muslim university. But if we have the academic overlap with them, and we have a lot, then there are even ways we can provide a relationship there that can be really good. That’s out of the box. And I would just be waiting on the Lord for that one to walk in the door because I wouldn’t know how to start it. But it would be cool.

Global work and partnerships look very different for today’s students as opposed to those from a generation ago, right?

DP:

We have students who come here and learn. And because of changes in Wycliffe or other organisations, it’s not the clear path they once had. So one of the things we’re thinking about is, where are people going to go when they’re done here? How do we help them find those connections?

That must make for some interesting conversations with students who know God has them on a track toward something, but they’re not yet sure what.

SB:

We have a strong reputation. We call it our legacy. A lot of students are recommended to come here. For example, maybe they went to Moody Bible Institute and Moody knows us well and recommends us. So they’re coming as what we call unaffiliated. They’re coming without an organisation, but they’re really serious.

And that is rather than them going to an organisation and that organisation sending them here. So the reversal on that handoff is a little interesting for us. Because most of the time, we can’t just hand them off to a national organisation. They’re going to need some bridge to get there.

The Global Alliance could be a real service there. Especially with internships. I could imagine students getting a summer with a partner that we’ve gotten to know.

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For more information about Dallas International University and its, email info@diu.edu.

Interview: Jim Killam, Wycliffe Global Alliance