Dr. Milton J. Bennett served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia from 1968-1970, and returned to complete his doctorate in intercultural communication and sociology at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He also holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a master’s degree in psycholinguistics from San Francisco State University.
He was a tenured professor at Portland State University in Oregon, where he created their graduate program in intercultural communication, and he has been an adjunct faculty member of graduate-level intercultural programs at Antioch College of Yellow Springs, Ohio and the University of the Pacific of Stockton, California.
He is now an adjunct professor of intercultural studies in the Department of Sociology of the University of Milano Bicocca in Italy and also teaches in the graduate programs of the University of Switzerland in Lugano, Danube University in Krems, Austria, and Peking University Summer School in Beijing, China.
Dr. Bennett is the author of Basic Concepts of Intercultural Communication: Paradigms, Principles, & Practices (Intercultural Press USA, 2013; Peking University Press China, 2012; Franco Angeli Press Italy, 2014), co-editor and contributor to the third edition of The Handbook of Intercultural Training (Sage, 2004), co-author (with Edward Stewart) of the revised edition of American Cultural Patterns: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Intercultural Press, 1991), a reviewer for the professional journals International Journal of Intercultural Relations and Journal of Intercultural Education, and the author of many articles on intercultural competence and global leadership for American and European publications.
He is well-known for his Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity which is used internationally to guide intercultural training design and to assess intercultural competence. In 2006 he founded the Intercultural Development Research Institute (IDRI), whose mission is to sponsor new theory and research in intercultural development, to formalize a developmental approach to intercultural adaptation, and to inform public discourse with scientific study of intercultural relations. IDRI operates in the USA and in Italy. http://www.idrinstitute.org
Through Bennett Intercultural Development, LLC, Dr. Bennett creates and conducts programs in domestic and international diversity for corporations, universities, and other organizations. He addresses high-potential managers and executives of global corporations in the U.S., Asia, and Europe on topics of global leadership and the development of intercultural competence for themselves and their organizations, and he has conducted seminars for university faculty in Japan, China, Italy, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, and the U.S. He has been on the teaching faculties of the Tuck School of Business of Dartmouth University, the Smith College School of Business, the Boeing Leadership Center, Motorola University, Telenor Corporate University, and the Stockholm School of Economics. He currently is an associate in Mesa Research Group, which conducts innovative global leadership programs.
Dr. Bennett is a founder of The Intercultural Communication Institute (ICI), a non-profit educational foundation that has operated in Portland, Oregon USA since 1986. During his directorship at ICI (1986-2013), he was instrumental in developing ICI’s master’s degree in intercultural relations (in conjunction with the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California) and the annual Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication, the field’s largest and oldest professional development program.
