Preparing Citizens to Engage in Global Society

Through a core Institute for Global Engagement program, all Champlain College students have meaningful educational, social and cultural interactions with cohorts worldwide across their university experience. International education at Champlain is incorporated into core curriculum courses and required of all students.

Participation in the Global Module project not only raises cultural awareness for all students early in their college careers, they also allow our students to speak freely with students from all over the world, from Mumbai to Uganda, from Jordan to Australia. Global Modules are an online global-learning solution which allows for the free exchange of ideas and opinions between international students that can be incorporated into any class. Using Global Modules involves very little training, preparation or class-time, with assessable results that clearly demonstrate their effectiveness. The Champlain College Global Modules project is an extremely low-cost, online global-learning solution which allows for the free exchange of ideas and opinions between international students that can be incorporated into any class. Global Modules make international dialogue possible for every student, from every nation.

Preparing citizens for engaging in a global society is a widely held precept in education, and most colleges and universities have embraced the idea. Still, fewer than 2% of Americans study abroad (the traditional venue for offering an international experience), and overwhelmingly they choose destinations in Europe. Champlain College is dedicated to the goal of providing an international experience for every one of its students.

Global Modules has grown to include over 3000 students this year at 14 colleges and universities worldwide. By 2009-10, we expect that more than 6,000 students a year from across the world will participate in these significant, content-based global education experiences. In each course, participants include equal numbers of students at two or more universities. Topics, chosen by the professors, are wide-ranging and designed to encourage inquiry and cultural sensitivity.

Classes are normally linked together for a four week dialogue, which often takes on this format:

• Week 1- Students post introductions in the online shell and get to know each other
• Week 2- Shared reading assignments; students post answers to questions
• Week 3- Groups established—equal representation from each country; critical thinking assignments
• Week 4- Groups post projects; group critique

Throughout the class (and beyond), students are encouraged to talk about a range of topics - academic and otherwise—that deepen their understanding of, and respect for, their colleagues
One of the advantages of the Global Modules approach is its flexibility. Over the last year Champlain students have talked to Jordanian students about religious and cultural issues around Muslim women wearing the hijab and American women's failure to achieve equal pay in the workplace; ecological and carbon footprints and cultural differences (especially the interplay between one's own culture and that of an organization) with students from the United Arab Emirates; the universality of human rights with India; domestic violence with students from Ghana; the perception of Arabs in film with students from Australia; the use of African poetry to examine cultural and family roles with students from Kenya; immigration with students from Spain, and medical ethics and health care with Sweden.

Over the years Champlain has run a series of Global Modules with a variety of international partners that includes Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates; Ghana University; the University of Jordan and Princess Sumaya University in Jordan; Al Akhawayn University in Morocco; Kenyatta University and Moi University in Kenya; Deakin University and Macquarie University in Australia; Donau University Krems and Klagenfurt University in Austria; Nipissing University in Canada; Corvinus University and Pazmany Peter University in Hungary; University of Alcala in Spain; and Goteborg University and University of Skovde in Sweden, and North Carolina A&T University in the U.S. To facilitate greater curricular integration Champlain is currently working to establish a smaller Consortium of participating schools that would includes universities such as Kenyatta, Al Akhawayn, Zayed and North Carolina A&T.