In honor of International Education Week (IEW), we wanted to spotlight one of our many member institutions doing exemplary work in the field.
Although SUNY Oswego has a study abroad participation rate of over 20 percent—more than double the national average—campus leaders have recognized the need to deliver global learning to all students.
That’s why Provost Lorrie Clemo, a member of the ACE Fellows Class of 2007-08, authorized the university’s Institute for Global Engagement (IGE), under the direction of IGE director Ulises Mejias, to create a series of faculty development awards to encourage course internationalization.
Seven faculty members were selected from multiple disciplines across the university, including education, accounting, anthropology and others.
These faculty members, along with several campus administrators, attended a one-day workshop in October facilitated by ACE’s Heather Ward and Susan Carvalho of the University of Kentucky that focused on “transformative” global learning, and emphasized the need to connect student learning outcomes with broad institutional goals for internationalization.
After completing the workshop, the faculty are now working on revised, internationalized versions of their syllabi.
SUNY Oswego intends to repeat the workshop for additional faculty members across disciplines, eventually creating a critical mass of internationalized courses in the undergraduate curriculum that would make global learning accessible to every student.
For more on this topic, see Robin Matross Helms’s recent post on the importance of internationalizing the college experience for all students, especially those who do not have the opportunity to study abroad.
International Education Week is held from Nov. 16-20. Learn more about IEW here, and follow the conversation on Twitter at #IEW2015.
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