Wheaton to participate in national project on global learning
News @ Wheaton, October 2005
Wheaton has been selected as one of 16 colleges and universities to participate in a national initiative on global education, sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).
As part of AAC&U's initiative, Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility, the project will convene a network of higher education institutions to explore new ways to enhance the global dimensions of the general education curriculum.
The project, titled General Education for Global Learning, "is designed to help campuses as they restructure their general education programs to ensure that students encounter global issues throughout their undergraduate years and not just in a single required course," according to the AAC&U web site.
The Shared Futures initiative "assumes we live in an interdependent but unequal world and that higher education can help prepare students not only to thrive in such a world but to remedy its inequities," the web site further states. Supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, the two-year initiative will "use global issues as an organizing framework for creating coherent, integrated general education programs."
Wheaton has deepened its commitment to global education in recent years, notably through the establishment of the Center for Global Education, expansion of study abroad programs, and integration of non-Western perspectives into courses across the curriculum.
"The invitation to be part of this national network is evidence that our efforts to transform the college into a global campus are being recognized and implies that our commitment to this work is so compelling that we can eventually become a leader in global education among private liberal arts colleges," said Harvey Charles, dean of global education. "Fortunately, the work of infusing global perspectives in the general education curriculum is well underway. We anticipate that at the end of this initiative, our faculty will have more sophisticated ideas about this important work, and a deeper commitment to facilitating the kind of academic experiences that would prepare our students to be globally competent."
The Shared Futures initiative will kick off with a conference in Washington, D.C., later this month, to be attended by Dean Charles and Associate Provost and Professor of Economics Gordon Weil.
"Wheaton's participation in this highly competitive AAC&U initiative recognizes our leadership in putting global awareness at the center of the liberal arts curriculum," said Wheaton Provost Susanne Woods. "It offers us a wonderful opportunity to share with and learn from other colleges sophisticated in this area."
AAC&U is a national association of 1,000 public and private colleges and universities. Its mission is to promote quality liberal education for undergraduates.