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March 2, 2004
Columbian College Goes Global
Four New Initiatives Designed to Foster International
Student
Engagement and Advance the Liberal Arts in the Global Context
By Greg
Licamele
As globalization shrinks the world, the Columbian College of Arts and
Sciences (CCAS) has taken a leadership role in advancing the study of
the liberal arts in the global context.
CCAS Dean William Frawley said GW’s Strategic Plan stresses a commitment
to international education as part of the essential GW experience, and
the college has embraced that objective.
“Our goal is to tie global competency to the CCAS-specific mission
and to use the world not as the object of study, but as an instrument,
as a means to engage the arts and sciences in pursuit of classic liberal
education,” Frawley said.
Dean’s Scholars in Globalization
In partnership with the Center for the Study of Globalization, the Office
of Admissions, the Community Living and Learning Center, the Dean of Freshmen,
and the Office of Academic Planning and Assessment, CCAS will begin a
program this fall for a select group of 20–30 freshmen. Known as
“Dean’s Scholars in Globalization,” these students will
study their core sciences, social sciences and humanities through the
lens of a geographic region. They will live together at the Mount Vernon
Campus as they examine the economic, cultural, political, social, linguistic
and geographic issues associated with an international academic issue.
The theme this first group of Dean’s Scholars will study will be
the growth of a city in a global environment and their efforts will focus
on a comparative inquiry of Santiago and Singapore.
“Globalization is an inescapable theme in the education of today’s
students, who are increasingly interested in world cultures, study abroad
and international exchange,” said Fred Siegel, associate vice president
and dean of freshmen. “We hope to stimulate these impulses in our
first cohort of Dean’s Scholars in Globalization and we feel that
the Mount Vernon Campus, situated next to several major embassies, is
the perfect spot for this wonderful new program.”
Under the mentorship and teaching of Elizabeth Chacko, assistant professor
of geography and international affairs, the scholars will follow a specialized
curriculum of Dean’s Seminars, Freshman Advising Workshops and content-related
courses. They also will have the opportunity to embark on a research expedition
to the region the summer after their first year, and then develop a capstone
project.
“We believe that through select course work completed in a variety
of disciplines, and experience gained through internships and research
tours, these students will be well equipped to become leaders in the global
arenas of commerce, culture and ideas,” Chacko said. “My role
as faculty adviser is to ensure that students gain the solid theoretical
foundation, skills and experiences that are critical to their achieving
global competency.”
In addition, the Dean’s Scholars will create a virtual learning community
on the Internet with Chilean and Singaporean students and faculty, who
ultimately will work with them as partners in their research expedition.
Identified faculty members across the globe will organize seminars, video
conferencing, E-mail lists and chat groups so GW students will have an
established community.
“One of the things we feel very strongly about is that for students
to be prepared for the 21st century, you’ve got to pay attention
to global issues,” said Mary Anne Saunders, associate dean for special
and international programs.
But Saunders noted this global studies program will be quite different
from traditional undergraduate international education models.
“We know from learning research that you can’t just study an
area,” Saunders explained. “Students can remember a little bit
and apply it a little bit, but a lot of the cognitive hooks just don’t
occur. But if you’re studying a content area and you tie it to a
geographic area, for some reason, it advances the learning process. Learning
occurs at a deeper level and retention is higher.”
“Our educational strategy with this program is to take an area of
the world as the instrument to some other goal under the assumption that
you’ll remember the international experience and subject matter,”
Frawley said. “To be an educated person now, you’ve got to be
able to have used Singapore to study environmental policy, or have used
Santiago to understand free trade and tax policy, in order to have the
global experience be transformative rather than merely ‘world appreciation.’
”
CCAS is presently working with the Office of Admissions to identify and
invite the first group of Dean’s Scholars in Globalization.
A Radically Alternative Spring Break: Study Abroad
at Home
As part of its broad program of engagement and innovation in undergraduate
education, CCAS, in conjunction with the Department of Romance Languages
and Literatures and in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy, has developed
a “domestic study abroad” program. Two or three qualified CCAS
undergraduates will spend an alternative spring break at the Embassy of
Italy in Washington working in the political, cultural and/or press offices.
This is the embassy’s first time offering such a program.
Columbian College faculty and an advisory board that includes embassy
staff will oversee the independent course, offered over one week for two-to-three
credit hours. Students must demonstrate linguistic proficiency, awareness
of government structures and a plan of study that uses the embassy as
a major resource. After the one-week program, students submit their required
written materials plus a one-page reflective document.
“This is a way to reciprocate knowledge being in a political and
cultural environment at an embassy,” said Magda Ferretti, assistant
professor of Italian.
World Literature Residency
In April, CCAS will initiate its World Literature Residency. The college
will work in continuing collaboration with cultural affairs divisions
of embassies in Washington, DC, to bring to campus international authors
writing in English. The program develops and sustains enriching encounters
among working writers, faculty and students. Writers in residence will
be supported for a short-term residency (up to several weeks). While at
GW, they will engage students, the arts and humanities faculty, and the
larger GW community through readings, discussions, informal meetings and
other venues in order to place literary and creative work at the center
of CCAS.
The Department of English originally developed this program for GW’s
strategic planning initiative, but it was not selected in the University-wide
competition. However, Frawley noted its overall value.
“I thought it was an opportunity to use CCAS resources to advance
literary work at GW and promote, in a single effort, two of GW’s
great strengths — the creative arts and the global programs,”
Frawley said.
India’s Githa Hariharan, a novelist of international acclaim, has
been selected as the first writer in residence from April 5–18. She
will live on campus and give a public lecture and a reading of her fiction,
in addition to working with students in the classroom. Events during her
stay include a reception at the Indian Embassy.
Hariharan’s first novel, “The Thousand Faces of Night”
(1992), won the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Since then, she has published
a collection of stories, “The Art of Dying” (1993), followed
by two novels, “The Ghosts of Vasu Master” (1994) and “When
Dreams Travel” (1999).
“Extended interaction with a working writer from another culture
is an extraordinarily enriching experience, especially for writers and
students of literature,” said Vikram Chandra, associate professor
of English. “In Hariharan’s most recent novel, a clash over
cultural and religious issues spirals into violence. More of these troubles
will be engendered by the increasing pace of globalization, and so it
is urgently necessary that we speak and listen to each other across these
divides.”
From Language Lab to Language Center
The United States has seen interest in language learning skyrocket. According
to the Modern Language Association, in the past five years, enrollments
in Italian have increased by 30 percent, in Biblical Hebrew by 55 percent,
in Arabic by 90 percent and in American Sign Language by 432 percent.
Recognizing that language capability is integral to globalizing the curriculum,
CCAS has undertaken an aggressive review and reconceptualization of the
Language Laboratory in an effort to transform it into a high technology
center to support and advance the teaching and learning of language and
culture.
Since August, the Language Center Study Group, with representation from
all the language departments, Gelman Library, the Center for Instructional
Design and Development and four other GW schools, has been developing
a plan for situating the center as the academic centerpiece for the study
of culture and language acquisition at GW. The plan provides a guide to
providing resources and services to meet the academic, instructional and
research needs of GW students, faculty, departments, programs and other
stakeholders.
The study group is working with different technology offices at the University
to ensure smooth integration of any future technology plans for the language
center. Members of the study group have visited other language centers
around the country — including Stanford, Penn and Dartmouth —
with an eye toward assessing best practices.
An interim report submitted by the group, coupled with other academic
plans, has resulted in progress toward two new prospective language faculty
members — one in Chinese and one, in conjunction with funding from
the Elliott School of International Affairs, in Arabic.
“To me, sure signs of global engagement and a genuine grasp of diversity
are the willingness to try to think the thoughts of others in their terms
and the capability to speak the words of others in their language,”
Frawley said. “The new language center will be a proactive force
for promoting this willingness and capability.”
A search for a new executive director and for new staff of the language
center will be launched soon.
On the Horizon
CCAS has a number of other global programs on the horizon, including targeted
educational programs for Latin America and the Mideast. These are only
the tip of the iceberg as CCAS invests fully in what Frawley called the
“instrumentality of the global.”
“When you take a look at what other schools are doing in this respect,
you see that we have to act,” he said. “For example, the recent
Yale College plan for undergraduate education stresses intellectual engagement
of senior faculty with freshmen and investment in comprehensive science
education and effective language instruction. We are doing all three in
CCAS, so we are well ahead of others’ planning. In fact, all three
come together in the new program in Dean’s Scholars in Globalization,
where freshmen might take a Dean’s Seminar in environmental science
with a senior faculty member and then have to speak Spanish to see how
the ideas are played out in a research expedition to the Andes.”
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
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