The area of international programs, as part of a rapidly developing university, has become increasingly important to Michigan State University, in East Lansing, in the last two decades. Faculty research abroad has been a primary factor in the growth of private and federal agency-sponsored technical assistance programs in educational activities overseas. Projects in Turkey, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Okinawa, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, and Nigeria have been and are being conducted in the fields of business administration, public administration, agriculture, community development, education, and general university development. Continued outside financial assistance has enabled further enlargement of such programs on the campus as a whole.

The initiation of the African Studies Center at Michigan State University in 1960 owes much to an offer from the U.S. Office of Education to support the teaching of West African languages on campus. By coincidence, this occurred at the same time that the University was engaged in two closely related projects: the ICA (AID) contract of establishing and developing the University of Nigeria at Nsukka and the initiation of a Ford Foundation-supported research program for African studies.

New courses and additional teaching staff now allow for specialized courses in the departments of linguistics and Oriental and African languages, political science, history, anthropology, and geography. Much research is emerging from the Center's activity. In 1963-1964, for example, field research was under way in education, fisheries and wildlife, political science, economics, history, and geography, and there were four projects in the area of languages and linguistics.