Translating Experience

"The knowledge of foreign cultures is a vital element of any culture; I don’t believe we can ever have enough of it. A culture must be open to foreign influences if it wants to keep its own creative power alive." — Italo Calvino

How can we best prepare tomorrow’s leaders to engage with complex issues that affect multiple regions, cultures and disciplines? This is the challenge we address in “Translating Experience” — an ambitious project to teach students how to deepen their knowledge of other regions and cultures of the world, as well as transfer and translate their learning to other contexts and disciplines.

Carleton has made global engagement a priority. This is reflected in the new graduation requirement for “Global Citizenship,” as well as our Strategic Planning priority of internationalization. Given our current strengths in foreign languages and area studies, and our very high rate of student participation in off-campus studies, we can now help our students deepen their understanding of world regions and global issues. We will achieve this goal by enhancing integration between current institutional structures, particularly within the curriculum and between the curriculum and off-campus studies.