Intercultural Communication Institute

44 | Global Citizenship and Global Learning

In their mission statements, higher education institutions often promise to educate students for global citizenship. Participants in this workshop will explore the challenges in defining global citizenship as a learning outcome. What do we mean by global? What are the promises and limitations of citizenship in a global context? How might global citizenship differ from global or intercultural awareness? How would higher education institutions and especially their curricula need to change to encourage global learning? How do we define and measure progress?

Designed for
College and university faculty and administrators and others involved in higher education.

Engage some of the basic concepts, assumptions, and critiques of global citizenship
Think through how global learning might frame institutional practice, curricular design, and classroom activities
Explore the intersections and tensions among diversity, global learning, and civic engagement
Begin to address the question of how we know if we are making progress

Learning Activities
These will include:

Presentations, discussions, and readings that develop a framework for defining global learning
Sharing curricular models and course designs
Sharing global-learning activities and case studies

Faculty: Kevin Hovland

Kevin Hovland is the director of Global Learning and Curricular Change at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Washington, DC. In that capacity, he has designed and led Shared Futures: General Education for Global Learning, a curriculum and faculty development network of sixteen colleges and universities funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). For the past two summers, Shared Futures faculty members have participated in intensive five-day summer institutes. The first was organized around the United Nations Development Goals as one possible framework for global learning. The second, Shared Futures/Common Ground: Science, General Education, and Global Learning, used the idea of food as a portal into broad conversations about global issues that cross disciplinary boundaries. Kevin is the author of Shared Futures: Global Learning and Liberal Education and is the executive editor of Diversity & Democracy: Civic Learning for Shared Futures (formerly Diversity Digest).