About the ASU and Cintana Alliance

Formed in 2019, the core idea of this network is to have universities, known as ASU-Cintana Institutions (ACIs), around the world linked to ASU to live our charter outside of the US.

With most, if not all of ASU’s transformational projects such as Starbucks and Dreamscape Learn, ASU seeks private sector partners with complementary expertise and resources. This bias towards partnership is one of the distinguishing features of ASU relative to other US universities.  In this case, prior to launching Cintana, the founders of Cintana built the world’s largest university network that had more than 1 million students who studied at 200 campuses in 29 countries.  They also built 19 new medical schools, primarily in the Middle East and North Africa and Latin America.  Cintana’s leadership are experts in managing, improving academic quality, and expanding enrollment at universities around the world.

The ASU-Cintana partnership increases access to high-quality education in the following ways:

• Via dual degree pathway articulations, ASU becomes dramatically more affordable for an entirely new group of students we are not currently serving. Instead of paying four years of tuition and housing at ASU, students can complete the majority of their education in their home institution, then study at ASU in Arizona or online for their final year.
• The Network expands ASU’s global footprint. Because of the comprehensive nature of the partnership (see question below on how the ASU-Cintana Alliance works), ACIs can and have served as a “go-to” university partner for research, training, and global service projects.  With more than 100 staff located around the world, ASU has a new set of “go-to” people who can and have served as resources for any of our global activities. 
• Over time, ASU will achieve sustainable global impact via institutional transformation. These universities are able to improve their academic quality, serve thousands of additional students, and engage in solutions-oriented projects in their geographic regions with ASU as their partner. 

The international students who study at ASU will enrich the culture of our Arizona campuses and create a steady stream of revenue.  At an institutional level, we are seeing new levels of brand recognition and an opportunity to position ourselves as being an “international service university” in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Partner ACIs are selected on the basis of alignment with our charter.  These universities are solid, but want to have higher levels of academic quality, scale, and make a greater social impact in their regions.  The majority of the countries where ACIs are located are emerging market economies with great needs for a highly educated workforce.  Due to the tuition-based business model, ACIs are all private institutions.  Some of the ACIs (for example in Ukraine and Egypt) are new universities, funded by government or private sector investment.  All are thoroughly vetted by Cintana, ASU, a third-party due diligence firm, and personally approved by President Crow.

At the highest level, Cintana contributes its global management expertise and ASU contributes our academic and innovation assets to increase the quality and scale of the ACIs.  The partnerships with the ACIs are significantly more comprehensive than typical bilateral relationships ASU has with individual universities. Some specific ways in which ASU engages include:

• Because of the wide-ranging nature of the partnership, most ACIs call themselves “Powered by ASU”.  The affiliation with ASU allows them to differentiate themselves in their local market.
• ASU shares ASU Online and Learning Enterprise curriculum via a content repository managed by EdPlus with the partner universities to allow them to stand up new degree programs and enrich their curriculum.
• ASU and the ACIs create dual degree pathway programs, called Global Link programs.
• ASU shares its Global Launch English language learning and academic preparation curriculum to ensure that when students transfer to ASU they have solid English language proficiency.
• ASU faculty guest lecture, co-teach, co-create curriculum, and teach non-credit courses to Alliance students to provide an ASU quality experience to thousands of students who we would normally not reach.
• ASU and ACIs jointly seek research, training and solutions-oriented projects to expand social impact around the world.

The goal is to have at least 60 universities in the Network by 2030, reaching hundreds of thousands of students.  As of May 2024, there are 22 universities in the Network located in the following countries:

Australia

Austria

Chile

Colombia

Costa Rica

Ecuador

Egypt

El Salvador

Germany

Hungary

India

Indonesia

Kazakhstan

Kosovo

Malaysia

Mexico

Montenegro

Peru

Philippines

Turkey

Ukraine

A complete list of our Alliance partners is available on the global.asu.edu website.  

Within the Office of the Provost, the Head of Academic Quality, Joanna Schlinkert and the Executive Director of Learning Technology, Gemma Garcia are dedicated to partnering with ASU-Cintana Alliance to ensure courses are in alignment with ASU academic quality and standards.

• The ACIs are accredited institutions.
• The Office of the University Provost is in the process of 

(1) auditing sample syllabi from institutions in the Network; 

(2) building a plan to monitor that Global Link students’ articulated coursework meets ASU standards for credit transfer;

(3) reviewing Cintana's professional development resources for faculty at affiliated institutions. 

• ASU shares its Global Launch English language learning and academic preparation curriculum to ensure that when students transfer to ASU, they have solid English language proficiency.

We recognize that ASU faculty feel the burden of maintaining academic integrity, particularly in online courses. Because of this, we have designed systems and processes to limit adding to or worsening academic integrity issues already present. These design elements include:

• Partnership vetting: All partner institutions are vetted and approved through an extensive review process, and must comply with a legal agreement with specific provisions for how ASU content may be used.
• Restricted access: Only faculty and staff at our partner institutions have access. Students do not have access. Additionally, regarding concerns about test banks, access to test bank content requires the ACI to use an LMS to be visible or require special software to unpack them. It is not designed for easy access or sharing.
• Training: All approved users are required to take a Content Repository training prior to gaining access to the platform. This training is developed and delivered by Cintana staff with the review of ASU’s Global Academic Quality team at the Office of the University Provost, and includes ASU’s guidelines on academic integrity, intellectual property and ASU branding policies. 
• Policy reviews: We are beginning to request and review the policies in place at each partner institution to better understand their own approach to academic integrity and intellectual property.
• Student education: In many articulated pathway programs with our partner institutions, we are enrolling students in ASU Global Launch’s English for Admission and Achievement courses. These courses both help confirm a student’s English language ability, but also help students understand critical academic integrity issues and prepare them to succeed in ASU’s academic environment. 
• Monitoring and surveying: Our teams are always working to better monitor the usage of ASU content and survey faculty and staff at partner institutions. According to data from multiple surveys, Content Repository users from ASU Cintana Institutions (ACI) are using the content to expand or deepen an existing course. From the survey data, the majority of ACIs do not develop online courses. ACIs review ASU oCourse content for inspiration for development of their immersion courses. The ACI faculty also are inspired by the learning outcomes and course framewor

ASU’s Global Academic Initiatives(GAI)  team manages the partnership with Cintana and ACIs. There are opportunities for collaboration between ACI and ASU faculty members. However, those would be addressed individually and ACI faculty are encouraged to contact the Cintana staff if they would like to explore any collaboration. ASU faculty are not obligated to respond to ACI faculty or students who reach out. If you are interested in collaborating with partner faculty please contact GAI at [email protected].

• There are multiple ways that ASU engages with students and faculty at affiliated schools. Global Academic Initiatives and Cintana usually facilitates these opportunities on behalf of ASU and the affiliated institutions initially. 
  • In-person summer experiences at ASU
  • Guest lectures delivered virtually by ASU faculty 
  • Webinars delivered by ASU service units for the staff and faculty at partner schools 
  • Research collaborations
  • Strategic visits by select ASU faculty, program directors or deans to the partner institutions
  • Periodic tours of of ASU for administrators and high level faculty from partner institutions

We are interested to know in what ways you would like to engage with our partners and if there are specific countries or regions where you have interest. Please submit our ASU Faculty Expression of Interest form to learn about opportunities for engagement.

Submit the form

By engaging with ACI faculty and students you have the opportunity to connect with faculty and students from around the globe, advance ASU’s global impact initiatives, and take part in global higher education advancement.  Additionally, if you engage in the activities above, you may be eligible to receive travel funding to visit an ACI.