Putting the Local in Global Education: Models for Transformative Learning Through Domestic Off-Campus Programs

by Neal W. Sobania (Editor)

Overview

The position taken in this volume is that domestic off-campus study can be just as powerful a transformative learning experience as study overseas, and that domestic programs can equally expand students’ horizons, their knowledge of global issues and processes, their familiarity and experience with cultural diversity, their intercultural skills, and sense of citizenship.This book presents both the rationale for and examples of “study away”, an inclusive concept that embraces study abroad while advocating for a wide variety of domestic study programs, including community-based education programs that employ academic service-learning and internships.With the growing diversification—regionally, demographically, culturally, and socio-economically—of developed economies such as the US, the local is potentially a “doorstep to the planet” and presents opportunities for global learning. Moreover, study away programs can address many of the problematic issues associated with study abroad, such as access, finance, participation, health and safety, and faculty support. Between lower costs, the potential to increase the participation of student cohorts typically under-represented in study abroad, the lowering of language barriers, and the engagement of faculty whose disciplines focus on domestic issues, study at home can greatly expand the reach of global learning.The book is organized in five sections, the first providing a framework and the rationale for domestic study way programs; addressing administrative support for domestic vs. study abroad programs; exploring program goals, organization, structure, assessment and continuous improvement; and considering the distinct pedagogies of experiential and transformative education.The second section focuses on Semester Long Faculty Led Programs, featuring examples of programs located in a wide variety of locations – from investigations into history, immigration, culture, and the environment through localities in the West and the Lowcountry to exploring globalization in L.A and New York. Section three highlights five Short Term Faculty Led Programs. While each includes an intensive immersive study away experience, two illustrate how a 7 – 10 day study away experience can be effectively embedded into a regular course taught on campus. The fourth section, on Consortium Programs, describes programs that are either sponsored by a college that makes its program available to consortium members and non-members, or is offered by an independent non-for-profit to which institutions send their students. The final section on Community Engagement and Domestic Study Away addresses the place of community-based education in global learning and provides examples of academic programs that employ service-learning as a tool for collaborative learning, focusing on issues of pedagogy, faculty development and the building long-term reciprocal relationship with community partners to co-create knowledge.The book is intended for study abroad professionals, multicultural educators, student affairs professionals, alternative spring break directors, and higher education administrators concerned about affordably expanding global education opportunities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620361689
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/07/2015
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Neal W. Sobania is the Executive Director of the Wang Center for International Programs and Professor of History at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA. As a teacher he has taught a wider range of courses in African history and African studies, and as an international educator has held many elected positions at both the regional and national level. He has been involved with Ethiopia for nearly forty years, first as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, then a staff member, and now as an active scholar.

Table of Contents

Foreword—Adam Weinberg Acknowledgemetns Introduction. The Local-Global Nexus—Neal W. Sobania Part One. Framing Study Away 1. The Faraway Nearby. Putting the Local in Global Education—Neal W. Sobania 2. Matching Program and Student Characteristics with Learning Outcomes. A Framework for Study Away Curriculum Development—Mark Salisbury 3. Where Experience Meets Transformation—Amanda E. Feller 4. Evaluative Approaches to Domestic Off-Campus Programs—Mark E. Engberg and Lisa M. Davidson 5. No Common Ground. The Spectrum of Policies Related to Domestic Off-Campus Programs—Michael Edmondson Part Two. Semester-Long Faculty-Led Programs 6. Global Issues Manifested in a Local Setting. the Arizona Borderlands—Patty Lamson and Riley Merline 7. Seeing Things Whole. Immersion in the West—Phil Brick 8. Sojourns in the Lowcountry. Gateway to Africa in the Americas—Jacquelyn Benton 9. Pedagogy Into Practice. Teaching Environmental Design Through Native American Sustainable Housing Initiative—Rob Pyatt, Jennifer L. Benning, Nick Tilsen, Charles Jason Tinant, and Leonard Lone Hill 10. Study USA. Preparing Students to Enter the Most Diverse Workforce in the World—Connie Ledoux Book, J. McMerty, and William Webb Part Three. Faculty-Led Short-Term Programs 11. From Immersion With Farmers and Autoworkers to Refugees and Immigrants. 40 Years of Transformational Learning—Jeff Thaler 12. Beyond Waikiki. Discovering the Aloha Spirit in Hawaii—Oumatie Marajh and Esther Onaga 13. GO Long or GO Short but GO. Study Away as Curricular Requirement—Scott Manning and Christine Dinges 14. “It’s so Good to See You Back in Town”. Participating in Makah Culture—Dave Huelsbeck 15. Practicing Lifelong Learning and Global Citizenship on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation—Kathryn Burleson Part Four. Consortium Programs 16. Is Place the Thing? Integrative Learning at The Philadelphia Center—Rosina S. Miller 17. Learning to Stand on Shifting Ground. The New York Arts Program—Linda Earle 18. Library and Museum Collections as Labs for Student Learning. The ACM Newberry Seminar in the Humanities—Joan Gillespie 19. Immersing Students in Conservation and Community. The Northwest Conservancy—Melanie Parker 20. "No Such Thing as Away". Urban Immersion in the Upper Midwest—and Around the World—Sarah Pradt Part Five. Community Engagement and Domestic Study Away 21.Liberal Education and Service-Learning as a High-Impact Practice—Rachel Tomas Morgan and Paul Kollman 22. Faculty Development and Ownership of Community Engaged Teaching and Learning—Celestina Castillo, Regina Freer, Felisa Guillén, and Donna Maeda 23. The World is at the Campus Doorstep for Putting the Local in Global Education—Kent Koth 24. The Power of Place. University-Community Partnership in the Development of an Urban Immersion Semester—JoDee Keller, Rose McKenney, Kathy Russell, and Joel Zylstra Afterword—Larry Braskamp About the Contributors Index

Editorial Reviews

For decades, community engagement and international education faculty and staff have been spinning hypotheses about how the local can be global; how the processes for quality engagement through community-based learning and study abroad are fundamentally parallel – if not the same. Finally, a group of scholars and practitioners have gathered the wisdom of these discrete fields in one location, sharing systematic program models, pedagogical approaches, and evaluation methods that clarify the full potential of domestic global learning.

Eric Hartman

Simply put, the chapters in this volume are interesting and important. They are grounded in existing programs, giving us real examples of what is possible. And they are theoretically challenging, raising questions about the construction of key concepts in ways that could and should encourage us to examine institutional practices. As a volume, there is clearly a call to embrace domestic Study Away as a legitimate practice and strategy that should be more central to higher education, especially our efforts at internationalization. Count me in as one college president who is ready to shift his thinking.

Adam Weinberg

"The time has come for all international educators to consider more seriously how we actively bridge global learning with the local, domestic context. Putting the Local in Global Education is a critical read for those educators who seek to ensure that global learning is accessible for all students – not just those who are able to study abroad."

Gayle Woodruff

"Putting the Local in Global Education reminds us of how important it is to focus more on what'students are learning than where they are studying. By linking complex questions of local and global impact, identity, power, and justice, the authors contribute to critical conversations about how we might more broadly define global learning. As a result, this book will encourage curricular and pedagogical experimentation and, I hope, lead to new ways that faculty and students may come to recognize the global in their communities and deepen their appreciation for the complexities of their interconnected lives."

Kevin Hovland, Senior Director, Academic Programs

NAFSA

"The time has come for all international educators to consider more seriously how we actively bridge global learning with the local, domestic context. Putting the Local in Global Education is a critical read for those educators who seek to ensure that global learning is accessible for all students – not just those who are able to study abroad."

Gayle Woodruff, Director, Curriculum and Campus Internationalization

University of Minnesota

"This text adds valuable and necessary perspective to the field of global learning. The framing chapters and case studies contained within this volume provide practical guidance as well as a deep examination of how domestic off-campus study away programs align with initiatives around intercultural competence, diversity, community engagement, and social justice. With discussion of pedagogical strategies, assessment, policies, and risks, this book is a must-read for anyone involved with domestic study-away in higher education."

Stephanie Stokamer, Ed.D., Director & Assistant Professor, Center for Civic Engagement

Pacific University

"For over 100 years, we have used geographically marked terms—like distant lands, overseas study, education abroad, and international education—to mark a global education. The learning models assembled in this volume help us to see that the ‘global’ is no longer somewhere ‘out there’; it is right here, at our doorstep, touching all of our lives, and inviting a new generation of 'rooted cosmopolitans' to help create the kind of world we want and need."

Richard Slimbach, Azusa Pacific University

“Simply put, the chapters in this volume are interesting and important. They are grounded in existing programs, giving us real examples of what is possible. And they are theoretically challenging, raising questions about the construction of key concepts in ways that could and should encourage us to examine institutional practices. As a volume, there is clearly a call to embrace domestic Study Away as a legitimate practice and strategy that should be more central to higher education, especially our efforts at internationalization. Count me in as one college president who is ready to shift his thinking.”

Adam Weinberg, President, Denison University

“For decades, community engagement and international education faculty and staff have been spinning hypotheses about how the local can be global; how the processes for quality engagement through community-based learning and study abroad are fundamentally parallel – if not the same. Finally, a group of scholars and practitioners have gathered the wisdom of these discrete fields in one location, sharing systematic program models, pedagogical approaches, and evaluation methods that clarify the full potential of domestic global learning.”

Eric Hartman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Staley School of Leadership Studies

Kansas State University

From the Publisher

"This text adds valuable and necessary perspective to the field of global learning. The framing chapters and case studies contained within this volume provide practical guidance as well as a deep examination of how domestic off-campus study away programs align with initiatives around intercultural competence, diversity, community engagement, and social justice. With discussion of pedagogical strategies, assessment, policies, and risks, this book is a must-read for anyone involved with domestic study-away in higher education."

Stephanie Stokamer

"Putting the Local in Global Education reminds us of how important it is to focus more on what students are learning than where they are studying. By linking complex questions of local and global impact, identity, power, and justice, the authors contribute to critical conversations about how we might more broadly define global learning. As a result, this book will encourage curricular and pedagogical experimentation and, I hope, lead to new ways that faculty and students may come to recognize the global in their communities and deepen their appreciation for the complexities of their interconnected lives."

Kevin Hovland