Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility

General Education for a Global Century

NEWS: The Summer Institute will be held at The Hotel at Turf Valley, Ellicott City, Maryland, July 31-August 5, 2011.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Application Deadline: September 15, 2010

Notification of Selection: October 15, 2010

*Applications will be accepted via the online application form. (Please read the following Call for Participation carefully before submitting the application.)*

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT APPLICATION FORM: If you have more than 5 team members, you can include the additional individuals' CVs at the end of the application narrative as an appendix. It will not count against the world limit.

Project Rationale

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 project is funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Students come to college hoping to change the world. While they are there, what opportunities do they have to test such hopes in practice? And when they graduate, will they know how to do it? 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. 

General education models that were designed for an American Century need to be re-envisioned for a Global Century.

AAC&U invites colleges and universities across all sectors of higher education to submit applications for participation in General Education for a Global Century. We will select thirty colleges and universities to develop this national agenda and set the contours of the next generation of global learning, scientific literacy, and general education. 

Participating institutions will 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” across disciplines. Students and faculty together will explore problems that require multiple perspectives and investigation for solutions that benefit the common good.

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.

Project Design

Goals

The project builds upon innovative efforts to reframe general education courses and create coherent curricular designs that address complex global issues, and social responsibility across divisions and disciplines. Over the next two years, participants will:

• articulate essential global learning outcomes for all students,
• develop and share models of global general education curricula that can be adapted across all institutional types,
• gain the knowledge, resources, and skills needed to effectively design and teach interdisciplinary, integrative courses that focus on real-world global issues, and
• develop rubrics for assessing global learning outcomes that can be used by diverse institutions and across academic fields.

Participating Team Activities

• Global Learning Inventory (Fall 2010-Spring 2011): Team members will identify locations on campus where global learning is robust. The inventory will form the basis for mapping global learning to strengthen its coherence and pervasiveness on campus..

• Campus Action Plan (Spring 2011):  Team members will develop an action plan for better aligning their global learning goals with general education designs.

• Curriculum and Faculty Development Institute (Summer 2011): The centerpiece of the project will be a five-day institute in Summer 2011. The Summer Institute will be held at The Hotel at Turf Valley, Ellicott City, Maryland, July 31-August 5, 2011.

The institute will feature:

• seminars on integrative global learning topics such as sustainability and development, health and justice, migration and memory
• curriculum design workshops
• sessions on pedagogy, assessment, and student development
• team time to accelerate campus-based change
• consultations with experts drawn from previous Shared Futures projects and related AAC&U projects on general education, integrative learning, scientific literacy, personal and social responsibility, and assessment

As a result of the summer institute, teams will be better prepared to shepherd through their campus action plans.

• Shared Futures Online Community (ongoing): Teams will communicate via a dedicated social networking site. They will share progress reports, resources, materials, questions, and ideas.

The Curriculum and Faculty Development activities will be coordinated with two additional strands of work: 

• Communication and Public Advocacy: AAC&U will assemble a Global Learning Leadership Council, a group of distinguished scholars, innovative teachers, and visionary administrators to focus the higher education community and broader public on fundamental questions of educating undergraduates for global citizenship and personal responsibility.
• Outcomes and Assessment: The project will connect project participants with AAC&U assessment experts to develop and test global learning rubrics and to ensure that exemplary assessment practices are built into global general education innovation.

Project Timeline

Application Deadline:                                                   September 15, 2010

Selection Announcements:                                        October 15, 2010

Global Learning Inventory Submitted:                       March 2011

Campus Action Plan Submitted:                                 June 2011

Faculty and Curriculum Development Institute:      July 31- August 5, 2011

Final Progress Reports and Action Plan Assessment:     Fall 2011

Application Process

Applications will be accepted via the online application form.

Application Deadline:  September 15, 2010

Notification of Selection: October 15, 2010

Project Abstract (250 words) The abstract should describe your primary goals for redesigning elements of your general education curriculum as part of the project.

Application Narrative (3500 words) The narrative should address the following elements:

Context and Commitment:

• Describe your current general education design.
• What are the student learning outcomes for general education?
  
• What factors are driving your efforts to make your general education curriculum more global?
  
• What strengths will you build upon?
  
• What weaknesses do you plan to address?
  
• What are the challenges and opportunities within your institutional culture for moving general education revision forward?
  
• What are your current assessment efforts related to general education?

Preliminary Planning:

• Where is your institution in the general education/global learning planning process?
  
• What steps have you already taken?
  
• At this stage, what general education design elements are you eager to explore and implement?
  
• What are the high impact educational practices you wish to weave into your curriculum?
  
• In what ways do you plan to align global learning with efforts to address questions of diversity and democracy? Identity, community, civic engagement, ethics, and social responsibility?
  
• In what ways do you plan to increase attention to scientific literacy for the common good across your general education curriculum?
  
• In what ways do you plan to address integrative inquiry and “big global questions”?
  
• How do you propose to link student work in general education with their work in the majors? How do you foresee the balance between disciplinary work and interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary work?
  
• How do you envision your assessment strategies changing to address a more global general education curriculum?
  

Team Members:

• Provide a rationale for the inclusion of participating team members.
• How are the individuals on the team positioned to move your agenda forward on campus?
  
• What experience and expertise do team members bring that will enrich the project as a whole?

Financial Support and Institutional Obligations

Participating institutions will be expected to send at least four out of five team members to the summer institute. Expenses for the second and fourth team members will be paid by the grant; expenses of the additional team members will be the individual institution’s responsibility. Participants should estimate $1,000 plus travel expenses for each team member involved in the summer institute. (Please note that at this time, there is no additional funding available to project participants beyond the summer institute expenses for two team members.)

Institutional Eligibility and Selection Criteria

• All accredited colleges and universities are eligible to apply. 

• Institutions must apply as teams of at least five individuals who will work on general education/global learning issues.

• Each institution will be required to name a Team Leader who will take responsibility for meeting the goals of the project.

• Institutions are invited to name more than five individuals to the team.  However, financial support for participation in the summer institute will only be available to two team members.  All costs of sending additional team members will be the responsibility of the institution.  (Please note: Naming more than five team members is optional and will not influence the selection process.)

Application Form

To apply, please complete a project narrative in a Word document and submit via the online application form. If you have questions regarding this process, please contact Chad Anderson, Program Associate, at anderson@aacu.org, or (202)-387-3760, ext. 429.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT APPLICATION FORM: If you have more than 5 team members, you can include the additional individuals' CVs at the end of the application narrative as an appendix. It will not count against the world limit.

Project Staff

Kevin Hovland, Project Director

Chad Anderson, Project Coordinator

Caryn McTighe Musil, Senior Vice President

Susan Elrod, Executive Director, Project Kaleidoscope

Ashley Finley, Director of Assessment and Research

Questions may be directed to Chad Anderson, Program Associate, at anderson@aacu.org, or (202)-387-3760 ext. 429.

Shared Futures: General Education for a Global Century is funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.