Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility

General Education for a Global Century

Overview

General Education for a Global Century is a Curriculum and Faculty Development Project of the Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility initiative and the Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative.

The challenges our graduates will face with growing urgency are increasingly defined as global problems: environment and technology, health and disease, conflict and insecurity, poverty and development.  Similarly, the goals of democracy, equity, justice, and peace encompass the globe and demand deep understanding from multiple perspectives. The interconnections and interdependencies of global systems have been mirrored in a surge of interdisciplinary research centers on campuses. Yet, many colleges and universities struggle to translate research and expertise into practices that help align general education curricula with expectations for educating students who can thrive in a global economy and become socially responsible and civically engaged leaders at home and abroad. 

Design Principles for Global General Education

In General Education for a Global Century we ask institutions to rethink the content and re-imagine the designs of a globally engaged general education. 

Content

• Diversity, Democracy, and Global Emphases: Students will explore global interdependence and American pluralism, questions of identity and community, and personal and social responsibility.

• Scientific Literacy (for ALL students, STEM majors and non-STEM majors): Learning experiences will emphasize scientific inquiry and scientific literacy across the curriculum, addressing real-world global dilemmas through research, application, and diverse perspectives.

• Advanced Integrative Inquiry: Student work will focus on “big global questions” in the junior and senior year across disciplines. Students and faculty together will explore problems that require multiple perspectives and investigation for their solution. 

Design

• Sequential Progression from First to Final Undergraduate Years: Participants will implement a first to final year structure—keyed to expected student capabilities rather than specified course content—with integrative and applied work at milestone and culminating points across the curriculum, and flexible points of entry for transfer students.

• High Impact Educational Practices: Institutions will weave widely tested, student-centered educational design practices into the general education curriculum (examples include first year seminars/experiences, learning communities, writing intensive courses, collaborative projects and assignments, undergraduate research, internships, study abroad and study away, and capstone projects).

• Intellectual and Practical Skills and Ethical, Cross-Cultural Inquiry, Across the Curriculum: Starting when students enter the institution, the curriculum will help students make clear links between skills (such as analytical reasoning, inquiry and research, quantitative and information literacy, problem-solving, ethical reasoning, community-based learning, integrative learning) developed in general education and those developed in majors.

• Capstones: Capstones are designed to integrate general education requirements and the major and to demonstrate that students can apply their learning to complex problems.

Thirty-two colleges and universities will help develop this national agenda and set the contours of the next generation of global learning, scientific literacy, and general education. 

For a more comprehensive explanation of the goals and expectations of this project, review the grant proposal narrative.

This project is made possible by support from the Henry Luce Foundation. For more information about Luce, please visit www.hluce.org.
For more information about Shared Futures, contact Chad Anderson.