Shared Futures: General Education for Global Learning

Shared Futures/Common Ground:
2007 Shared Futures Faculty and Curriculum Development Institute

Plenary Sessions

Integrating Sustainability Concepts into General Education Classes
Jean MacGregor, The Evergreen State College
Any number of general education courses offer promising venues for examining issues related to sustainability and sustainable development, but there are often tensions around adding “yet another topic” to already packed syllabi.  In this workshop, we will work with a protocol for curriculum integration that embraces sustainability themes without sacrificing core understandings and learning outcomes in one’s discipline.
Jean MacGregor is co-founder and a Senior Scholar at the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education at The Evergreen State College, where she also teaches in the Masters of Environmental Studies Program.

Can We Define, Let Alone Fix, "Dangerous" Climate Change?
Stephen Schneider, Stanford University
The phrase "dangerous anthropogenic interference" (DAI) may be defined or characterized in terms of the consequences (or impacts) of climate change outcomes, which can be related to the levels and rates of change of climate parameters. These parameters will, in turn, be determined by the evolution of emissions and consequent atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.  In addition, scenarios of social and economic development influence adaptive capacity of various sectors and regions, which, in turn, influences impact magnitudes and climate change thresholds that might be labeled "DAI". Evaluating the consequences of climate change outcomes to determine those that may be considered "dangerous" is a complex undertaking, involving substantial uncertainties as well as value judgments.  Probabilistic estimation is an important method to treat such uncertainties. This task inevitably involves a mix of objective and subjective probability measures. Dr. Schneider explores what integrated assessment modeling can do to help explicate this important interdisciplinary scientific and political question.
Stephen Schneider is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Institute for International Studies, and Professor by Courtesy in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University.

Film and Discussion: “Rain in a Dry Land”
Ann Makepeace, Independent Filmmaker
How do you measure the distance from an African village to an American city? What does it mean to be a refugee in today's "global village"? "Rain in a Dry Land" provides eye-opening answers as it chronicles the fortunes of two Somali Bantu families, transported by relief agencies from years of civil war and refugee life to Springfield, Massachusetts and Atlanta, Georgia. As the newcomers confront racism, poverty and 21st-century culture shock, the film captures their efforts to survive in America and create a safe haven for their war-torn families. Their poetry, humor, and amazing resilience show us our own world through new eyes.
Anne Makepeace has been a writer, producer, and director of award-winning independent films for more than twenty years.

As If People Mattered; As If Our Planet Were at Stake
Cathy Middlecamp, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Where in the science curriculum do our students find topics that directly relate to people? To which people do these relate and in what ways? And how do the real-world issues facing our local, regional, and global communities connect with what our students are learning? I did not begin my intellectual journey into race, ethnicity, and gender and their connections (or lack thereof) with science with this particular set of questions. Rather, in the early 90s a colleague pointedly asked me “What do race and ethnicity have to do with learning thermodynamics?” At that time, I had never heard the words race, ethnicity, and thermodynamics ever used in the same sentence! Believing this to be a useful question (it actually turned out otherwise), I used it to embark on an intellectual journey. Dr. Middlecamp describes this journey and, in the process, revisits this question together with others such as those above. The participants ultimately confront the urgency expressed in the title of this talk; namely, to teach science to both our non-majors and majors as if the planet depended on it.
Cathy Middlecamp holds a joint appointment in Chemistry and in the Integrated Liberal Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Global Learning: Emerging Taxonomy and Future Directions
Kevin Hovland and Caryn McTighe Musil, AAC&U
In this closing session we examine how each Case Study Seminar group mapped the pathways to global learning that grew from their readings on food.  By comparing common characteristics and approaches (across disciplines and divisions), we attempt to flesh out a vision for the kind of learning we expect from our students—a dynamic and exciting vision of liberal education and global learning.  We then turn to a discussion of next steps in translating this vision to curricular practice and institutional change.  Finally, we turn to strategies for disseminating Shared Futures to a large national audience.
Kevin Hovland is the Director of Global Learning and Curricular Change at AAC&U. Caryn McTighe Musil is Senior Vice President of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives.