Shared Futures: General Education for Global Learning
2006 Shared Futures Curriculum and Faculty Development Institute
July 30 - August 4, 2006
Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts
Funded with the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.
Introduction
The 2006 Shared Futures Curriculum and Faculty Development Institute allowed faculty members and administrators from sixteen participating schools to benefit from the collective experience and expertise of over one hundred colleagues. Participants learned from one another in reading seminars, plenary sessions, film discussions, workshops, and concurrent sessions designed and led by members of each team.
AAC&U’s Shared Futures initiative is based on the idea that students want and need richer opportunities to test their developing knowledge, values, and identities against the complex challenges of an increasingly interdependent and unequal world. It is our contention that for colleges and universities to satisfy this need, they must re-examine general education curricula and raise expectations for a liberal education. The sixteen participating institutions were sites of national leadership in this effort.
When designing the Shared Future initiative, we argued that economic globalization, threats of global terrorism, global health crises, and other manifestations of an interdependent world have captured the attention and imagination of today’s students. We also noted, however, that the questions of power, privilege, ethics, social responsibility, political actions, and personal identity that are central to these issues have always been fundamental to liberal education. Shared Futures, consequently, urges institutions to use global learning designs to weave together enduring questions and critical issues of the day. Such revision will help reinvigorate the curriculum, re-energize faculty, and re-align curricular and learning goals. In the process, we encourage Shared Futures institutions to experiment with innovations such as thematic learning communities, linked courses, service learning, experiential learning, vertically integrated curricula (first-year seminar to junior or senior capstone), problem-based scientific inquiry, undergraduate research, and the like. In this way, the sixteen Shared Futures schools will continue to serve as strong national models for both global general education content and design.
Global Learning and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals
The organizing theme for the five-day Shared Futures Institute was the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Participants used the general framework of the Millennium Development Goals to explore five daily topics from multiple perspectives. The topics were:
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The Millennium Development Goals and Sustainability
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Globalization, Wealth, and Poverty
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Women’s Rights Are Human Rights
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Health and Social Justice
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Religion, Conflict, and Democracy
At the same time, the Millennium Development Goals themselves could be examined as the complex manifestation of global interdependence, which they represent.
In creating the reading lists for these seminars, we faced profound questions and difficult choices. These questions and choices are familiar to everyone involved in general education curricular design: What is the proper balance between depth and breadth? How do we attend to questions of content as well as process? How do we move from general knowledge to deep learning? How do we create space where unanticipated questions and new perspectives can emerge? What issues must we leave aside for now?
With these questions in mind, we chose to emphasize the interconnected nature of the Millennium Development Goals. Rather than delving into any one goal (of course, the goals themselves are multifaceted), we chose to explore the intersections, boundaries, and borderlands between them. Consequently, the seminars are designed to stimulate wide-ranging conversation and to be porous. We encourage connections across daily topics and ask that you bring to the table your own diverse intellectual and experiential resources to share with the group. Participants were asked to be “master learners” while covering new materials as well as “master teachers,” constantly asking how to successfully teach such material, offering alternative resources and perspectives, and raising new questions.
More Resources
Participating institutions included: Arcadia University (PA); Butler University (IN); California State University-Long Beach (CA); Chandler-Gilbert Community College (AZ); Dickinson College (PA); Drury University (MO); Hawai’i Pacific University (HI); Marquette University (WI); Mesa Community College (AZ); Otterbein College (OH); Stephens College (MO); United States Military Academy (NY); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC); University of Wyoming (WY); Wheaton College (MA); Whittier College (CA). Shared Futures: General Education for Global Learning is funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.
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