Logan Pender

I am honored to be nominated for the Student Representative position on the CIES Board of Directors. As an emerging scholar entering the field during a period of geopolitical, social, and educational transformation, I am deeply committed to comparative and international education as both a scholarly endeavor and a global public good.

My academic work sits at the intersection of U.S. higher and international education, diplomacy, and global governance. I am re-conceptualizing higher education and educational exchange as instruments of soft power, trust-building, and long-term geopolitical cooperation. My research focuses on U.S.–East Asia educational partnerships, particularly U.S.–China and U.S.–South Korea relations, while examining how colonial legacies and racialized power dynamics continue to shape international education systems.

Across my teaching, research, and leadership experiences, I see a central tension in our field: international education is often framed as a pathway toward equity and cooperation, yet it frequently operates within structures that reproduce hierarchy and extraction. Universities are expected to be globally engaged while facing domestic skepticism, constrained resources, and political pressures that frame international collaboration as risk. Students experience these contradictions directly. As Student Representative, I would bring forward student perspectives that are critically reflective voices that ask how comparative and international education can move beyond access toward reciprocity, accountability, and shared global responsibility.

My leadership experiences with The Asia Foundation’s LeadNext Fellowship, the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community, and service on the board of an international nonprofit have shaped my collaborative and ethical approach to governance. Representing youth voices at the United Nations Human Rights Council Social Forum reinforced my belief that education must remain central to conversations about human rights, democratic participation, and global equity.

Looking ahead, I aspire to serve as a regional comprehensive university president who understands internationalization not as a symbolic add-on, but as a core institutional strategy. I envision universities as global, economic, and diplomatic anchors for their regions’ institutions that connect local communities to global knowledge networks while remaining accountable to place. Effective leadership requires confronting tensions between competitiveness and ethics, mobility and inclusion, national interests and global solidarity, and prestige and public purpose.

I hope to contribute to the co-creation of a U.S. national strategy for international education that acknowledges these tensions and moves the field toward more equitable, reciprocal, and sustainable global engagement. I believe universities must serve as long-term diplomatic actors, maintaining channels of connection even when government relationships are strained, and modeling partnerships grounded in mutual benefit and shared responsibility.

If elected, I would prioritize strengthening graduate student engagement within CIES, advocating for equity-centered and decolonial approaches to comparative education, and ensuring student insights inform Board-level discussions about emerging geopolitical and ethical challenges.

As an emerging scholar and part of the next generation of international education leaders navigating shifting tides, I look forward to learning from the collective wisdom of the Board and the broader CIES community while contributing student voice, critical curiosity, and a commitment to education as a global common good.