Present in detail three very different examples of campuses creating or re-organizing international curricula around themes and thematic course clusters

Develop broad, transferable understandings concerning the goals, methods, and philosophies involved in developing interdisciplinary international teaching and

learning

Introduce the compelling connections between global education and interdisciplinarity; briefly define interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarirty, cross-

disciplinarity, post-disciplinarity.

Provide ample time for attendees to share their reflections on the presentations and initiatives or thinking at their own campus.

• International learning must enable students to make sense of and navigate the multiple, complexly intertwined forces of globalization.

• No single discipline can accomplish this goal. • Clustering courses or approaches around issues and themes gives

students and faculty a structure for bringing different disciplinary (and other) perspectives into conversation with each other.

• Such clustering connects international learning directly to the issues, experiences, and ways of categorizing the world that students encounter beyond the classroom.

• Such clustering reworks disciplinary knowledge and faculty research as well.

• Such clustering models and invokes the power of bringing multiple perspectives together in a globalized world.

• The work involved in re-thinking and re-organizing curricula around such perspectives and themes is challenging and complicated

Our general premise

By changing their positions and their perspectives on bigger topics or themes—in other words, addressing key themes from several different academic perspectives– faculty impart and students gain the creative knowledge and the power to process information at a higher level, to leave their studies with more integrated knowledge and to be prepared for the multi-faceted and ambiguous challenges they will continue to face in our rapidly-changing, inter-connected world.

True interdisciplinary work is rarely easy.

True interdisciplinary work can require:

•Not simply coordination and support across departments and offices in an institution; but rather a strong international office or center to lead the process institutionally, and resources within the office for this; •The need to shake up traditional academic infrastructures and research categories; the need to incentivize faculty to exit of disciplinary confines; •Encouraging new forms of collective and global pedagogy, and new conceptual and practical frameworks for exploring the world; •The ability and where-with-all to rethink academia in the context of the increasingly ambiguous geographies in which we live, learn, work, and conduct research.

Key Terms:

• Intra-disciplinary

• Interdisciplinary

• Multi-Disciplinary

• Cross-Disciplinary

• Trans-Disciplinary

• Post-Disciplinary

Disciplinarities:

Disciplinarities

• In keeping with the design theme, then, perhaps Post-disciplinary would look like this:

•

• Ask a central question

• Explore outside the classroom

• Reflect on what you’ve learned

• Share with campus and beyond

Interdisciplinary Learning

360o Clusters invoke several high-impact pedagogies.

Interdisciplinarity

Experiential Learning

Learning Communities

There are now TWO drop-down menus for international/global learning outcomes.

Core knowledge & concepts

• Learning another language • Acquiring deep knowledge of particular

nations, regions, groups • Acquiring deep knowledge of global forces

and trends • Developing fluency in theories of culture,

identity, politics, economics, history, geography, international relations, nation-building, development

• Developing ability to interpret art, literature, music, and similar forms of expression from other nations

• Learning to deploy particular disciplinary methodologies for understanding different perspectives and ways of life

• Assembling interdisciplinary frameworks for dissecting complex social phenomena

• Understanding how knowledge reflects the position of the speaker; valuing knowledge that comes through dialogue across different groups

Personal growth & application • Applying core knowledge and concepts to

one’s life and community

• Understanding one’s nation as part of a global system

• Moving from ethnocentrism to ethnorelativism and beyond

• Becoming culturally self-aware

• Developing sense of global responsibility and connection

• Building intercultural competence in working, developing relationships, & learning from others

• Developing confidence, curiosity, and skill in living and traveling abroad

• Exploring international dimensions of chosen profession or discipline

“I learned a lot and grew as a person working with these diverse groups both domestically and abroad.” –

Performance Across Language and Culture

“The 360 approach has definitely broadened my liberal arts education”

22 clusters 228 students

19 departments

46 faculty

Last Days of Hapsburg Spring 2011

• Vienna: 1900 co-taught 2-unit seminar (Christiane Hertel, History of Art; Imke Meyer, German)

• Visited Vienna to see original works of art and learn about restoration processes

• Conducted original research on a variety of

subjects (Art, Music, Architecture, Theater, the New Human Sciences, Fashion, Coffee House Culture)

• Created an online exhibit (using Omeka) to document their experiences as art historians and travelers

Contemplative Traditions Fall 2011 & 2013

• The History and Rhetoric of Buddhist Meditation (Hank Glassman, East Asian Languages & Cultures)

• Silent Spaces: A History of Contemplation in the West (Michelle Francl, General Studies)

• Listening to Mind and Body: The Psychology of Mindfulness (Marc Schulz, Psychology)

• Traveled to Japan to explore Eastern traditions • Learned from a variety of monastic traditions • Blogged about their experiences in the cluster

• Taught Philadelphia high school students habits of mindfulness

Learning and Narrating Childhoods Spring 2012

• Literacies and Education (Alice Lesnick, Education)

• Culture and Development (Rob Wozniak, Psychology)

• Teaching the Postcolony: Schooling in African Fiction (Pim Higginson, French)

• Two-week travel to rural northern Ghana • Worked with the Titagya school in Dalun to design

a new curriculum for elementary students • Maintained a blog for duration of the trip

Port Cities Spring 2013

• Mediterranean Port-Cities: Immigration and Identities (Agnès Peysson-Zeiss, French)

• Modern Mediterranean History (Alexander Kitroeff, History)

• One week travel to Marseilles and Aix-en-Provence • Met with social workers immersed

in immigrant populations • Toured various European Capitol of

Culture 2013 sites and exhibits

Space and Identity Spring 2013

• Spaces of Identity: Architecture and Urban Planning in Hamburg (Carola Hein, Growth and Structure of Cities)

• Identity Under Pressure (Marc Schulz, Psychology)

• The Art of Exile (Tim Harte, Russian)

• One week travel to Hamburg, Germany • Collaborated on research project with students in

parallel class at Hafen City University

• Explored the notion of individual and group identity across time and space in urban environments.

Performance Across Language and Culture Spring 2013

• Multilingual Shakespeare (Katherine Rowe, English)

• Acting Across Language and Culture (Catharine Slusar, Theater)

• Gathered with seven other student delegations from across the globe at the Global Student Shakespeare Festival hosted by NYU-Abu Dhabi • Prepared, translated, and performed a

20-minute etude based on Caliban (from Shakespeare’s The Tempest)

• Led and participated in workshops designed to increase theatrical accessibility

China and the Environment Spring 2014

• China's Environment

(Yonglin Jiang, East Asian Studies)

• Environmental Economics (Michael Rock, Economics)

• Environmental Ethics (Robert Dostal, Philosophy)

• Two-week travel to China • Met with experts and officials to

discuss environmental challenges • Presented at the Tri-College

Environmental Studies conference

Global Health Equity Fall 2014

• History of Disease and Medicine(s) in Africa (Kalala Ngalamulume, History)

• Reproductive Health and Justice (Kaye Edwards, Health Studies)

• Perspectives in Social Welfare: Local to Global (Cindy Sousa, Social Work)

• One week travel to Nicaragua • Partnered with ProNICA, a local women’s health

advocacy group, to visit a variety of clinics and women’s health organizations

• Worked with Philadelphia health agencies to draft grant

proposals

Coasts in Transition Fall 2014-Spring 2015

• Marine Geology (Don Barber, Geology)

• Coastal and Marine Ecology (Tom Mozdzer, Biology)

• Focus on the long term impacts of climate change on the world's coasts

• One week travel to Belize • Data collection and research to study coral reefs,

mangroves and other ecosystems at research stations in the rainforest and on the coast

• Will produce video summarizing findings and experiences

Contemporary Cuban Culture Spring 2015

• Comparative Urbanism: Colonial and Post-Colonial

Perspectives (Gary McDonogh, Growth and Structure of Cities)

• Race and the Law (Raymond Albert, Political Science)

• Cuban Culture and Cinema: Tradition and Revolution (Enrique Sacerio-Gari, Spanish)

• One week travel to La Habana, Cuba • Visit museums, artists workshops, and other

cultural organizations

A few observations connected to global learning…

• Clear impact on faculty research and teaching • Requires full-time administrator to organize • No decrease in desire to study abroad longer • Students especially appreciated combining

experiential with classroom learning; also international dialogue

• They also learned skills of cross-cultural interaction, implicitly built into these courses

• The more faculty met outside class, the deeper the interdisciplinarity

Student evaluations

• 91% The time I spent with other 360 students outside the classroom enhanced the experience.”

• 91% “I spent more time with my professors than I do in regular courses.”

• 94% “The components that took place outside the classroom were as valuable as time spent inside the classroom.”

“It was an eye-opening experience that connects different aspects in learning about the same subject. I realized that a phenomenon, whether educational, political or [artistic], is reflected through different spheres of intersection. It is not all attached.”

(Comment by student in Space and Identity)

Temple University Rome Campus—a Case Study

Hilary L. Link, Ph.D., Dean

Temple University Rome Campus—moving toward interdisciplinarity

Presentation Overview

• History

• Context for Change

• Vision

• Process

• Where are we now?

• What have we learned?

• Thoughts and Suggestions?

Temple University Rome Campus

Entry—Villa Caproni

Lobby/Lounge

Lounge

Classroom

Aula Magna

Classroom

Library

Context for Change—The Program and the US Climate

• Change of Dean

• 50th Anniversary

• Declining Enrollments across AACUPI

• Debate over the Humanities and Arts

Historical Context for “Interdisciplinarity”—Italy

and the Renaissance

• Inherent interdisciplinary nature of learning in classical antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance – Ancient Greece, creation of the Liberal Arts

– 1200s: Frederic II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily: scientist, politician, linguist, poet, lover or art and architecture

– Renaissance: Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo

TURC—Inspired by surroundings

• My own academic interdisciplinary background • Historical precedent in Italy • Frustration over the divergence of “fuzzy” and “techie” • Italian language and the language of artistic creation

at the base of all study—two ways to view and reflect on what they learn and experience and to connect disciplines

TURC—History

• Founded in 1966

• Founded by Tyler School of Art

• One of oldest and largest of the 147 programs in Italy

• Student Population

• Faculty Make-Up

• Current Academic Tracks: – Visual Arts (1966) Liberal Arts (1970); Architecture

(1980); International Business (1992)

Gallery of Art

Sculpture Studio

Printmaking

Painting Studios

Graduate Studios

Architecture Studio

Fresco Room--Classroom

Alberti, On Painting

•

•“Let us…investigate in what manner the qualities of the plane appear to change. This has to do with the power of sight, for as soon as the observer changes his position these planes appear larger, of a different outline or of a different colours.”

• Other perspectives=Other approaches/other people/other disciplines

• Multi-Perspectivity=Interdisciplinarity

TURC—Vision for the Future

• To distinguish Temple Rome; to focus curriculum; to guide hiring.

• Creation of clusters of human condition.

• How radical!—a return to the multi-perspectival, interdisciplinary approach to learning that was unquestioned throughout antiquity, the Middle Ages and Renaissance

TURC Vision--Clusters

• Themes of the Human Condition:

Immigration, Nationality and Globality; Sustainability and Consumer Culture, Memory and Modernity, Gender and Identity, Mediterranean Studies; Art and the Making of the Modern World

• Administrative and intellectual structures that enable and encourage collaborative teaching and learning.

• Opportunity to create a learning lab

that moves students’ trajectory forward and outward

Theme

Faculty

Faculty

Faculty

Faculty Student Student

Student

Student

Process

Where are we now? Where are we headed?

• Reorganizing the curriculum

• Encouraging conversations

• Friday options

• Lecture series/Public events

Lessons Learned

• Resistance

• Unleashing the Enthusiasm

• Need for flexibility

• Need for patience

• Need for time

Interdisciplinary Global Studies at Indiana University

Hilary E. Kahn

• Research demonstrates the benefits of interdisciplinary learning

• Co-teaching, collaboration, and collective knowledge production

• An emphasis on the PROCESS in addition to PRODUCT

• Case Study from IU: Framing the Global Research and Publication Project

Global Knowledge Production in the

21st Century

• Creating a new approach for global studies through global and interdisciplinary conversations with scholars from around the world

• A new lexicon is needed

• A new framework is developed collectively

• Flexibility

Framing the Global

Framing the Global

Framing the Global

• Busting categories • Undoing binaries • No set analytic framework • Emphasis on the empirical • Ratcheting down the level of abstraction • Slicing up reality different • Anchored • Navigating the general and the particular • Plurality of perspectives

A Critical and Grounded Approach to Interdisciplinary Global Studies

• Recognizing the role of responsibility

• Taking action

• Taking a stand

• Bridging the scholarly and the practical

A Critical and Grounded Approach to Interdisciplinary Global Studies

• The transferability of this research model to teaching, learning, and to the internationalization of higher education

• Bridging research, teaching, learning, and internationalization

• Internationalization is an intellectual pursuit

A Critical and Grounded Approach to Interdisciplinary Global Studies