In 2020, the Mexican Association for International Education (AMPEI) launched an innovative program called the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program. This program aimed to promote internationalization in higher education institutions in both the United States and Mexico. The program was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and received financial support from Banco Santander Universidades and Fomento Educacional.

In 2022, U.S. Mission Canada provided another grant to not only continue, but to expand the program. This enabled AMPEI to increase the faculty collaboration on cross-disciplinary projects and workshops connecting their undergraduate and graduate students from diverse regions, cultural backgrounds, and fields of study to address North America’s challenges towards economic integration.

The program supported the detection of teaching partners and trained U.S., Mexican, and Canadian faculty to include a COIL component in existing courses.  COIL is a methodology pioneered by SUNY-COIL that brings students and professors together across cultures to learn, discuss, and collaborate as part of ongoing regular courses.  Professors partner to design the experience while students benefit from this enriched content and interact with foreign faculty and peers through online collaborative learning, teaching, research, and innovation.

Moreover, the program has stimulated the development of the skills and attitudes required to perform successfully in a global market.  Collaboration, communication, digital literacy, foreign language proficiency, awareness and respect of multicultural perspectives, social responsibility, and global engagement are among these skills.

Three years after its implementation, AMPEI-COIL’s success is documented through the participation of more than 289 North American professors from 90 higher education institutions: 52 from the U.S., 33 from Mexico, and five from Canada, including rural regions, yielding 120 courses with a COIL component.  These virtual international exchanges are the result of the program’s low-cost and high-impact results in advancing bilateral and trilateral academic partnerships. To date, over 3,500 faculty members and students have benefited from this initiative using state-of-the-art innovative educational technology tools.

In 2024, AMPEI is expanding its Program for the Internationalization of the Curricula to participants from across the Americas to contribute to the development of human capital, training the next generation of America’s labor force that must be prepared to tackle the political, economic, environmental, and social challenges of a global market.  Most importantly, the program seeks to contribute to decreasing migration from Central and South America to North America by preparing younger generations to have access to better-paid jobs and skills, so that they may contribute to the development of their communities. 

This new initiative is funded by the Stevens Initiative, housed at the Aspen Institute, and supported by the Bezos Family Foundation. Fomento Educacional, A.C., also sponsors our mission. With the support of sister organizations from the Americas, we offer valuable educational opportunities to individuals and institutions across the region.