This dissertation was an exploratory study in the understanding of the campus internationalization process by professional academic advisors at a large research institution with an institutional strategic plan for internationalization. If academic advising is an instructional process by which the learning outcomes of internationalization are mediated, this study will indicate how professional academic advisors help their students and the institution achieve this learning outcome, what skills they feel need to be developed, and where integral pieces of training could be implemented. As such, it indicates how professional academic advisors potentially impact other learning outcomes. It provides higher education administrators with a point of connection for how these plans are being implemented and understood by a segment of professionals on the campus, as well as a perspective of academic advising as a teaching and learning process. Finally, it provides advisors with a means to make campus internationalization a more meaningful experience for colleagues and students. The research question explored in this study was: How do professional academic advisors see their role in internationalization on a campus with a stated international agenda? To answer this question, I utilized a phenomenological approach to examine professional advisors' understanding of their role in campus internationalization as a component of the curriculum by revealing their lived experiences. I explored how professional academic advisors perceive and understand the parameters of the curriculum of internationalization. As academic advisors are engaged in the educational process, their description of what internationalization means, what actions they carry out in its plan, and how they interpret its curriculum to their undergraduate students is the center of analysis for this study.I collected data through a two-step process. First, I sent out a screening tool designed to elicit potential participants' level of advising experience, demographic data, and priorities related to internationalization. From the responses to this screening tool, I then selected 23 participants to be interviewed in order to examine their understanding of internationalization. As meaning-making is central to phenomenology, I also administered the Global Perspectives Inventory (Braskamp, Braskamp, & Merrill, 2010) to each of the selected participants in order to gain a baseline for participants' own intercultural maturity and a means for better interpreting participant responses to my interview questions. The "phenomenon" that I focused on was campus internationalization. As a result, interviews offered the best means to not only reflect on participants' perspectives, but also allowed me to engage in the reflection process with the participants. Both academic advising and internationalization are purposeful and deliberate processes and in order to better prepare undergraduate students for the demands of an increasingly globalized society, they should be coordinated. This leads to an intersection between these two areas as professional academic advisors understand the relevance of campus internationalization and its potential impact on the students with whom they work. In this vein, professional academic advisors take the lead in understanding the concept of campus internationalization. Compartmentalization emerged as the dominant theme throughout the interviews. Under this overarching concept, the sub-themes of knowledge, resources, and personal experiences arose.
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