International Studies Awarded Global Learning Across Disciplines Grant

A group of faculty from U of U International Studies has been awarded one of three highly sought-after Global Learning Across the Disciplines (GLAD) grants from the Office for Global Engagement (OGE). 

Three grant proposals were selected from the university-wide submissions to receive the grants, which are intended to advance curricula that develop students' intercultural skills and global knowledge within their major or in interdisciplinary programs. Dr. Johanna Watzinger-Tharp’s winning proposal sought to align International Studies learning outcomes with the University’s core values of diversity, environmental sustainability and community engagement. 

Sabine Klahr, deputy chief global officer of the U of U, said, "All students at the U should have the opportunity to gain intercultural and global competency as part of their academic experience at the U and to effectively navigate in a multicultural and interconnected world. We are extremely pleased that we received a number of strong proposals from multidisciplinary and departmental teams to integrate global learning into the curriculum. The grant recipients span a wide range of academic disciplines from the humanities, sciences, social sciences and engineering. It is exciting that the quality of the grant proposals this semester compelled us to fund three rather than the planned two projects per semester.” 

Dr. Watzinger-Tharp’s proposal emphasized that the College of Humanities’ interdisciplinary International Studies (IS) degree, established about 10 years ago, has proven enormously popular with students. Over the past five years, IS has annually enrolled about 450 students and graduated between 120 to 140 majors, who are all required to complete an international experience abroad. With the $9,600 funds awarded through the grant, Dr. Watzinger-Tharp will work “bring the IS degree into accord with the most current global learning outcomes and assessments. It will establish a cohesive mission for a degree that grants students a great deal of flexibility in choosing their thematic emphasis and coursework. At the same time, it will begin the work to establish a foundation course and capstone experience that will allow better assessment.” Seven faculty members have been designated to evaluate and redesign the IS degree learning outcomes, curriculum and assessment tools: Isabel Dulfano, Jane Hacking, Christine Jones, Eric Laursen, Erin O’Connell, Fernando Rubio, and Johanna Watzinger-Tharp. 

This year’s GLAD Grant recipients also included Steve Burian from Civil & Environmental Engineering and Bill Johnson from Geology and Geophysics. Nominations for the next set of Awards for Global Engagement will begin in early Spring 2016. The announcement for GLAD Grant proposals will go out in Fall 2015.