Overview

The Global Engagement Initiative (GEI) is a Mellon-funded initiative for Carleton to reflect on how it can best integrate global issues into its curriculum. It seeks to fuel this discussion via faculty enrichment opportunities.

The GEI Steering Committee has outlined the following broad goals for global engagement at Carleton:

  1. Build connections among disciplinary and area studies programs: We envision several models for integrating student learning that will deepen knowledge of a region while engaging with trans-regional issues. These include: establishment of a pathways system on the Web for course integration; development of coordinated teaching models along the lines of our current dyad system; creation of a pilot model for collaboration among student research across area studies and disciplines—including a cross-disciplinary, team-based comps exercise (available for some students).
  2. Integrate off-campus studies with the on-campus experience: We will enrich existing Carleton OCS programs; expand internships and service learning opportunities at home and abroad; develop collaborations with foreign institutional partners; and integrate OCS experiences with work students do on campus—both before departure and after re-entry.
  3. Integrate global vision into the new curriculum: Most Carleton OCS programs include important interaction with foreign languages, but we mean to bring the important Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum (FLAC) lessons of study abroad back “home.” To this end we will implement: low-intensity language modules that can be embedded in content courses; high-intensity language modules that can be added to existing courses such as trailer courses; global current events course; small civic engagement experiences that intersect with non-English speaking groups locally; opportunities for language-based experience and research.
  4. Sustain our commitment into the future: All of the goals outlined above require involvement and oversight by faculty. In order to prepare for and model cross-area collaboration, we will create faculty research seminars that bring faculty research and teaching interests together around global issues and themes. We will also develop workshops for the development of new and flexible models for coordination of the curriculum as well as co-curricular programming.