US-UK Fulbright Global Challenges Teaching Awards

The inaugural GCTA cohort was delivered in partnership with the American Council on Education (ACE) through its Virtual Exchange/COIL Transformation Lab. The Lab provided structured professional development for faculty and institutional leaders, combining intensive online training, mentored guidance, and institutional self-assessment to support high-quality VE/COIL implementation.

The Transformation Lab model emphasized inclusive digital pedagogy, cross-border collaboration, and alignment with institutional internationalization strategies. This foundation informed subsequent iterations of the program. 

Under AAC&U’s stewardship, the professional development framework was expanded into a coordinated, yearlong developmental model anchored in the Institute on Virtual Exchange/COIL and a sequence of focused VE/COIL Clinics,. This structure integrated faculty, instructional designers, and senior institutional leaders into a shared transatlantic design process.

Rather than concentrating solely on course-level innovation, the AAC&U model emphasized cross-role collaboration, institutional alignment, and scalable integration of VE/COIL within campus curricula. Participating teams engaged in structured Institutes, mentored design phases, and thematic Clinics that advanced intercultural pedagogy, assessment planning, and strategic embedding of VE/COIL across disciplines.

This expanded framework strengthened the program’s emphasis on long-term institutional capacity building while preserving its core commitment to interdisciplinary global challenge teaching.

Fulbright Commission Support

Awardees received support directly from the US-UK Fulbright Commission, including:

• Honorarium for each faculty awardee
• Institutional support funding
• Travel funding to support transatlantic partnership visits

(Amounts varied by cohort and funding cycle.)