Teaching the Global Citizen

Inside Higher Education has a new podcast featuring an interview with Peter Stearns, the author of Educating Global Citizens in Colleges and Universities, published last December by Routledge.

Stearns, the provost at George Mason University in Virginia, says that he's written the book because of “anomalies” in the recent trend toward globalization of most campuses:

While most all institutions now have study abroad programs (some of them quite new), in 2005 27% of all schools had no sutdents actually studying abroad. Foreign language attainments have sagged, and requirements of courses with a global or international focus in general education programs have dropped (from 41% in 2001 to 37% in 2006). Few institutions have a global coordinator, and fewer than 40% feature a reference to international in their mission statement (though this has increased from 28% in 2001). 

Stearns says his book provides an overview of the main facets of international education, guides institutions that have been hesitating to make global commitments and addresses basic questions of purpose in relationship to larger American and global contexts.

The Trouble with Teaching Arabic

There’s been a push for better U.S. initiatives in teaching Arabic languages and cultures, especially since 2001, but presenters at a Michigan State University conference now underway in Washington, D.C., say the outcomes so far are uneven. 

Elizabeth Redden has the full story at Inside Higher Education. With many instructors of Arabic in nontenured or part-time positions, colleges and universities are facing challenges in giving the subject the emphasis it needs.

“Our education system is shooting the nation in its foot,” says R. Kirk Belnap, director of the National Middle East Language Resource Center and a professor of Arabic at Brigham Young University.

Going Global, Going Green

When colleges and universities began working toward a four-fold increase in the numbers of American students studying abroad, Rodney Vargas found a downside.

“We were kind of worried,” he tells Elizabeth Redden in Inside Higher Education. “What about the environmental impact or the social impact of all these students?”

So Vargas and others are using the increased emphasis on internationalization to also build awareness of green living. Organizations such as Living Routes or the Green Passport Program at Vargas’ University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are offering students opportunities to study abroad in “ecovillages” around the planet.

Living Routes says it provides academic and experiential semesters for students by placing them in locations in India, Scotland, Senegal, Israel, Brazil and Mexico that emphasize sustainability, green development, women’s empowerment and organic agriculture.

Green Passport promotes ways that students can reduce their carbon footprints while overseas. Originally developed at North Carolina, Ithaca College and Middlebury College, the program is now open to any student anywhere.

The photo on this post is of a a young Ugandan girl taking care of her baby sister while her parents earn a living teaching. The photographer, Allyson Fauver of Marlboro College, participated in Green Passport and won an Abroad View award for her photo work.