AMHERST, Mass. – Kalpen Trivedi, the vice provost for global affairs and director of the International Programs Office at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been named Senior International Officer of the Year by the Institute of International Education (IIE). Trivedi was honored during a virtual ceremony today attended by Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy and Provost John McCarthy.
The Senior International Officer Award honors an individual currently serving as their institution’s senior international officer who has demonstrated outstanding and sustained leadership in international education. The selection committee pointed to Trivedi’s “extraordinary internationalization efforts on campus; commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion; and his leadership throughout the pandemic” as the factors that earned him the award.
Subbaswamy said, “Kalpen Trivedi has done extraordinary work to strengthen UMass Amherst’s global network. His wide-ranging efforts have enriched our campus and strengthened our community by bringing together scholars and students from across the world and providing transformative international experiences for our undergraduates. This international recognition is well deserved.”
“I am humbled and honored to be recognized by the IIE, a truly inspiring organization that is the torch bearer for connecting U.S. higher education with the world,” Trivedi said. “IIE plays a tremendously important role in supporting the soft diplomacy goals of the United States, and this award is really testament to the campus-wide work in global engagement at UMass.”
The IIE Senior International Officer of the Year Award was created to honor IIE’s centennial in 2019 and is presented annually to the officer who has developed a widely embraced understanding of international education on their campus; infusing it into the mission and goals of their institution; has fostered multi-faceted, strategic international programming that has had significant impact across the institution; has built effective administrative structures, procedures, and policies for supporting international work across the institution; and continuously updates and expands his/her knowledge of the theories, methods and best practices of academic internationalization.
According to IIE’s president and CEO, Allan Goodman, “If there was ever a moment to understand and appreciate the critical leadership role SIOs play on campuses around the world, it is this year. SIOs have been put to the test these past 18 months, and Kalpen has risen to the challenge and is an example for all in international education leadership.”
As the vice provost for global affairs, Trivedi is responsible for the leadership of campus-wide initiatives for global engagement, and he oversees the International Programs Office, encompassing education abroad, international student and scholar services, international partnerships and travel health and safety. He previously served as the director of education abroad at UMass Amherst, and prior to that was the director of the University of Georgia’s center and programs at Oxford, U.K. and a faculty member in the English department. Trivedi has nearly two decades of experience in international education with particular expertise in managing global partnerships, program design and evaluation, global operations and risk management, and international health and safety.
Recognized as an Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) presidential fellow for 2019-20, Trivedi is a member of AIEA’s professional development and engagement committee. Trivedi is also chair-elect for NAFSA’s International Education Leadership Knowledge Community (IEL KC), having previously served on the IEL KC as symposium and training lead, as well as being a member of the NAFSA trainer corps. Trivedi is a member of the standards and governance subcommittee of the U.S. Department of State’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), having also held positions as steering committee member and vice-chair of the OSAC Academia Sector Committee. He was a charter member of Arcadia University’s Guild for Global Education and is a member of the Strategic Academic Advisory Board for Academic Programs International.
Educated in India and the U.K., with degrees from Gujarat University, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and the University of Manchester, Trivedi held the Radhakrishnan Scholarship at Oxford and a Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Fellowship, and his doctoral work in Medieval English religious literature was supported by the U.K. government’s overseas research scholar award and a University of Manchester research scholarship. Trivedi has been a Mellon Research Fellow at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., as well as a Summer Institute Fellow of the Peabody College at Vanderbilt University.