Nurturing Tomorrow’s Global Citizens through Discover Abroad…
As global citizens, Americans are recognizing the need to balance economic, social, and environmental demands. Issues such as human population capacities, climate change, biodiversity preservation, and environmental pollution transcend national boundaries and our responses will accordingly need to be not only international but also global in perspective. Furthermore, such problems and their solutions not only have complex ecological and biophysical bases but are also dependent on understanding the social, cultural, historical, and political contexts. We adopt an integrated, multidisciplinary approach that is relevant for students of all majors and strives…
- To provide the highest quality, most intellectually and personally challenging and satisfying study abroad experience possible for both students and staff.
- To provide programs accessible to a diverse body of students by keeping them as affordable as possible and providing courses suitable for students of all majors and backgrounds.
- To use the programs as an education framework for developing a body of future scholars and leaders who understand the complex, multi-faceted, global nature of human-environment problems. This reflects our philosophy that sustainable development is not just an issue or problem for scientists or politicians, but requires a well-educated and informed citizenry with a global perspective, sophisticated cultural/social, economic, and environmental understandings and sense of responsibility and stewardship.
- To guide students to high personal standards of global citizenship, stewardship and inter-cultural competence. We believe that students themselves are significantly enriched not only academically but also personally by well-managed international experiences, and these are areas where we hope to have a significant impact on a student’s own philosophy and values.
- To be at the forefront of redefining study abroad as not only a valid academic enterprise, but as an extraordinary one that far surpasses the impact of traditional campus-based instruction.
At present, we are addressing this last most ambitious mission by testing new ways to deliver core curriculum (including service-learning and practical experiences) and coordinating a campus-wide research program to understand students’ global learning outcomes of study abroad. We are also increasingly engaged in development of study abroad as a mechanism for sustainable, low impact forms of educational tourism. Past students often use their study abroad experience with us to explore options for international internships, employment opportunities, and independent travel.