Volume 4, 2019 Accepted as an empirical research article by Editor Mary Ann Bodine Al-Sharif │Received: April 1, 2019│ Revised: August 4, September 3, September 9, 2019 │ Accepted: September 12, 2019. Cite as: Unangst, L., & Barone, N. (2019). Operationalizing “internationalization” in the community college sector: Textual analysis of institutional internationalization Plans. Journal for the Study of Postsecondary and Tertiary Education, 4, 177-196. https://doi.org/10.28945/4435 (CC BY-NC 4.0) This article is licensed to you under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. When you copy and redistribute this paper in full or in part, you need to provide proper attribution to it to ensure that others can later locate this work (and to ensure that others do not accuse you of plagiarism). You may (and we encour- age you to) adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any non-commercial purposes. This license does not permit you to use this material for commercial purposes. OPERATIONALIZING “INTERNATIONALIZATION” IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE SECTOR: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF INSTITUTIONAL INTERNATIONALIZATION PLANS Lisa Unangst * Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA unangstl@bc.edu Nicole Barone Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA baronena@bc.edu * Corresponding author ABSTRACT Aim/Purpose This paper evaluates three community college internationalization plans using quantitative textual analysis to explore the different foci of institutions across three U .S. states. Background One of the purposes of community college internationalization is to equip fu- ture generations with the skills and dispositions necessary to be successful in an increasingly globalized workforce. The extent to which international efforts have become institutionalized on a given campus may be assessed through the analysis of internationalization plans. Methodology We use the textual analysis tool Voyant, which has rarely been employed in edu- cational research, being more frequently applied in the humanities and under the broad heading of “digital scholarship”. Contribution Extant literature examining internationalization plans focuses on the four-year sector, but studies centered on the two-year sector are scarce. This study ad- dresses that gap and seeks to answer the research questions: How do communi- ty colleges operationalize internationalization in their strategic plans? What terms and/or concepts are used to indicate international efforts? Findings Key findings of this study include an emphasis on optimization of existing re- sources (human, cultural, community, and financial); the need for a typology of open access institution internationalization plans; and the fragmentation of in- ternational efforts at the community college level.