Franklin Pierce Curriculum Focuses Students on the Global Community

During a new war in the Middle East and the threat of terrorism at home, many colleges and universities are working to make their undergraduate offerings relevant. Franklin Pierce College, a small, private, liberal arts institution in New Hampshire has made global issues central to its curriculum. Ten years ago, the faculty created an emphasis on global study within its general education offerings. "One of the goals is to extend the students' view of the world beyond ethnocentric limitations," says Debra Picchi, who teaches anthropology at the college and a senior seminar on global issues. Global issues are addressed in three of the college's fifteen stated learning goals for students. At all levels of study, students take courses that deal explicitly with global issues, and "[t]he most important way in which global education takes place is through general education courses," says Picchi.

The Individual and Community Core Curriculum

Organized as a sequential and interlocking series of components, the general education curriculum encourages students to reflect on their own culture and its role in the greater global community. First-year students take the introductory seminar, "Individual and Community"; all sophomore year students take "The American Experience" and the "Twentieth Century," courses that pair literature and history.

"Science of Society," a two-part course for juniors "fosters students' ability to think systemically about social institutions and culture through the study of specific issues such as race and poverty in the U.S." Building on this foundation, the second part of the course is designed to expose students to comparative political science, anthropology, and economics. Juniors also take a self-assessment seminar and start a portfolio (to be completed senior year) as a record of core course work. Students must be able to demonstrate knowledge about other societies and articulate their own role in the greater global community.

Students are encouraged to take a variety of electives that include global themes-everything from International Business Cultures (business and anthropology) to Eastern Religious Thought (religion). Foreign language study is not required in the general education curriculum, but many of the major programs incorporate it or require students to take at least a year of foreign language courses. Many students find a second language essential to supplement other global studies.

Senior Capstone

Picchi notes that the global curriculum has the same problem most general education curricula do-students want to get the requirements out of the way. Students "sometimes don't tie it all together, or don't experience their 'eureka' moment until senior year," says Picchi.

And getting the big picture is exactly what the senior capstone course, "Senior Liberal Arts Seminar" is designed to do. Seniors have a choice of enrolling in sections that concentrate on themes such as "love and work" or "human ecology." In one senior course, "Ecology and Culture," students must construct an environmental resume. Unlike a regular job resume, the syllabus states, students must chronicle their interaction with the environment and their study of the subject over the past four years. This course also serves as a tool for students' self-assessment and continues the work of the reflective and individualized portfolio work begun sophomore year. Students must demonstrate in their portfolios mastery of the stated student learning goals and the college's mission.

Weekly topics in the seminar include study of other cultures, study of the Native American culture and its context in the U.S., and "your future life style"-asking students to consider what environmental choices they will make and "the future of community life." The seminar is also designed to be writing intensive and involve group discussions, projects, and presentations.

Experiential Learning

A host of electives add experiential elements to the curriculum, such as the Deliberative Dialogue Forums. These forums teach students, faculty, and community members to "frame" a contentious issue by capturing four representative positions on the topic in question. Participants then moderate forums in which the issue is discussed and the representatives' positions are debated and discussed. In the recent past, these dialogues dealt with campus or local issues. However, a series of discussions about broadening the dialogues' focus have emerged in response to September 11, and as a result of planning for a new Global Citizenship initiative. New forums encompassing international topics are planned for this spring and will be held in conjunction with one of the general education courses. The topics include What Kind of Relationship Do We Want to Have with Russia? China-U.S. Relations: What Direction Should We Pursue? Globalization: Fear or Promise?

These events are anchored by two nonprofit organizations based on the campus, The New England Center for Civic Life and The Diversity and Community Project. The Center works with individuals and organizations to engage citizens in the discussion of important public issues, and The Diversity Project aims at creating books and briefs on improving race and gender relations on campus.

Franklin Pierce also has many study abroad options, such as a semester-long "walk" that involves a staff member leading twenty students in a trek across Europe. During "Experiencing the Arts in Germany," students travel to sample theatre, museums, dance, opera, and other cultural sites to satisfy an art general education requirement. Another program takes place in Costa Rica where students take "Tropical Forest Ecology"-an extended field trip to the country during the winter break to supplement a course taken in the fall. The college enrolls international students from 23 countries and these students plan activities to teach others on campus about their cultures.

The Global Citizenship Initiative

The global curriculum continues to evolve and the college continues to test its relevance. After September 11th, the university community saw a need for even more study of global and diversity issues. They formed a learning community of faculty, staff, and students to infuse selected majors and extra-curricular experiences with global awareness and knowledge about democratic practices. They meet on a monthly basis in seminars to discuss texts such as High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them by J.F. Richard, a selection of journal articles on post-colonial literature and its critics, and other global citizenship literature.

A team from the global citizenship initiative visited the Greater Expectations leadership school, Worcester Polytechnic Institution (WPI) this summer to initiate a mentoring program with them based on the WPI plan in which students learn how to manage and control technologies in ways that benefit society. As part of this program, WPI students participate in overseas projects (Costa Rica, Copenhagen, Melbourne). The team brought back information in hopes of setting up a similar program appropriate for Franklin Pierce College to add an element that joins activism and technology to its global curriculum.

For more information on AAC&U projects and publications on global learning, visit www.aacu.org/issues/globallearning/.

For more information about Franklin Pierce College's Individual and Community curriculum, visit www.fpc.edu/pages/Academics/icic/index.htm.

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