What are the educational outcomes consistent with global competencies in the disciplines?

Generic definition:

Knowledge, attitudes, and skills that equip students to live and to work in a globally interdependent world and exercise the rights and responsibilities of global citizenship. Enable students to put themselves in the place of others and make arguments that can appeal to the reason of others (do not substitute lazy/indifferent toleration for critical thinking and discourse).

To illustrate the above, here are two sample disciplines (one professional, one liberal arts)

NURSING: critical thinking, ethical competency, cultural competency

• Understand that the ethics of nursing are culturally embedded
• Learn how to do a cultural assessment – how to ask questions about an individual's culture
• Understand that administration of care has a cultural component; learn RESPECT for this cultural (and religious) component
• Knowledge of global health threats
• Knowledge of transnational nature of disease.
• Cultural sensitivity/curiosity
• Can we think OUTSIDE of accrediting requirements?

HISTORY: effective writing and communication, critical reading and thinking, research skills (including Internet), master of content, global framework – appreciation that US history operates within a larger world – European history operates within a larger world

• Content – coursework from different parts of the world; encompass experiences and perspectives and contributions of many different peoples;
• Recognition that histories are discourses written from particular points of view;
• Studying a single part of the world from the perspective of a number of different parts of the world (or from multiple sides of a conflict);
• Value – awareness of social justice; recognition that choices need to be made and defended against other conceptions of what social justice is;
• Ability to read and interpret documents (presumably transnationally);

What practices/techniques need to be developed to achieve these outcomes?

We need to shock students into thinking;

Get students to read newspapers from abroad;

Enlarge student experiences (regardless of the discipline);

Use of non-US source material;

Connection between non-U.S. faculty and students;

Study abroad;

Investigation of different epistemologies (culturally embedded) [example: applied engineering in US vs. Theoretical approach in Europe];

Address how world-views/epistemologies have DEVELOPED (not just exposing students to different views);

Presuming that global competencies cannot be fostered in students if they don't have global interest, how does one instill global interest within the disciplines?

Address student incapacity for critical thinking (students often appear indifferent because they are attempting to be tolerant or else hide their indifference behind a masquerade of toleration – we must show how one can make critical distinctions between values, policies, and even ways of life while simultaneously promoting understanding and appreciations for difference in an increasingly globalized world);

Address the information overload problem (the sheer quantity of global knowledge/information can be overwhelming and even terrifying for students – we must emphasize information literacy and research skills rather than just force feeding global knowledge);

Address the ways in which all disciplines, and particularly professional disciplines, experience global and cross-cultural challenges (this must be embedded into the regular curriculum, not taught as a special subject).

What are the leadership dimensions needed, and who must exercise them, if global competencies in the disciplines are to be created?

Convince colleagues of cultural sensitivity and political understanding and need to globalize the curriculum;

Resistance by colleagues;

Financial resources;

Setting priorities (given the many global options);

Lip service from leadership not enough to build faculty momentum;

List any other conditions/barriers relevant to creating global competencies within the disciplines.

Time is the toughest barrier (taking something out to put something in – logistical time);

Licensure and accreditation (for professional fields);

Agreeing to definitions;

Primary and secondary education foundations inadequate;

Rather xenophobic attitude in the general culture;

Belief that global education is a panacea (don't forget traditional liberal education objectives and the local element);

At non-world class institutions, lack of creativity on part of faculty (conservative attitude);