Miami earns spot on national education project

Miami University is one of 32 universities selected in a competitive process to participate in General Education for a Global Century, a curriculum and faculty development project that is part of the Association of American Colleges and Universities' (AAC&U) Shared Futures Initiative, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Recognizing the critical need for Miami students to understand world cultures and issues, the university already emphasizes cross-discipline global education through its liberal arts curriculum, revised in 2008 and now in effect. Beginning with this year’s first-year class, students must incorporate a certain number of credits from courses with a global emphasis as part of their graduation requirements.

In this regard, faculty are currently developing courses to help students meet the new “Global Perspectives” requirement of the Global Miami Plan. Through these “global courses,” students participate in multicultural events and with organizations on campus. They also collaborate with individuals and groups around the world to address global issues.

As a project participant, Miami will help lead a high profile, national effort to:

• articulate essential global learning outcomes for all students;
• refine and disseminate models of global general education curricula that can be adapted across all institutional types;
• provide faculty development opportunities to assist college faculty in designing and teaching interdisciplinary, integrative courses that focus on real-world global issues; and
• develop rubrics to assess global learning outcomes.

“Our participation in this AAC&U program will help us to coordinate and strengthen the many globally-oriented initiatives already underway at our university, to learn from other institutions, and to generate new ideas for liberal education not only at Miami but also for schools across the country,” John Tassoni, Miami’s director of liberal education and coordinator of the university’s involvement with this project.

More than 140 institutions applied to be part of the initiative, which also includes schools from all regions, two-year, and four-year, public and private. Miami is the only public school from Ohio. The complete list can be found at the General Education for a Global Century’ website.

Institutional teams will spend fall and winter refining their programs on their home campuses. Working through a social networking website, team members will help identify common areas of interest and concern. Critical issues will be addressed in the project’s central activity—an intensive summer institute in 2011.