Global Academic InitiativesThe 21st century is an exciting time, full of hope with the innovations that lie ahead of us. While we cannot predict what exactly will happen in the future, we know for sure that the world will become increasingly interconnected. American students get most of their information about other countries from sound bites and news snippets, which do not tell the whole picture. And, due to economic reasons and fears of terrorism, disease and natural disaster, as of 2005, less than 5% of all American college students will participate in study abroad programs. East Carolina University’s Global Academic Initiatives is an effort in bringing a global experience to campus, without additional cost or time to our students. We attempt to accomplish this goal through two basic means which we will refer to as the Global Understanding course and Beyond Global Understanding. We will describe each of these in more detail when you click on the corresponding link. In both these attempts we have developed methods for using affordable, sustainable, reliable Internet based tools to create virtual classes where we bring students from other countries into our classroom through video conferencing technology. We have been successful in enabling our students and faculty to learning and conduct research in a virtual collaborative environment where they can discover, explore and engage between cultures. ECU has played a leadership role in the global academic initiatives. It is the first to develop a course like the Global Understanding course, and has been successful in knowledge as well as attitude transformation. At the end of the course students have learned about three other cultures and have developed a sense of trust and positive attitude toward partners in these countries. This success has led the Department of State to ask ECU to train 12 other American universities as well as many international partners to adopt this Global Understanding course. Currently ECU has 17 international partners and the pool is expanding. ECU also attempts to internationalize its curriculum by using this same virtual technology in discipline specific course. ECU faculty and a partner faculty in the same discipline in a foreign country can video link either part or an entire course they both teach. There are many different formats that this kind of international collaboration can take place. Rosina ChiaAssistant Vice Chancellor for Global Academic InitiativesRawl 228 328-6277 chiaro@ecu.edu |
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