Global Education: Existing Resources

It is important to begin by acknowledging the rich resources that already exist in departments, colleges, programs, student organizations, and co-curricular activities in all corners of the University. Even a brief survey of the different dimensions of international education at BU shows a wide array of possibilities. Many of these are the result of deliberate University policies from the highest levels of the administration, but others have been developed in response to student and faculty interest. International education at BU is as much a grassroots activity as it is a programmatic commitment of the University. In fact it is the convergence of interests on the part of administration, faculty, and students (to say nothing of the rest of American and global culture) that makes international education such a lively and essential part of the BU experience.

The number and diversity of courses and organizations with an international focus show that “globalization” is not a single, monolithic phenomenon. To be a good global citizen also requires the skill of a good local citizen, to be sensitive to the nuances of different cultures, to understand that people have different needs, customs, and traditions, and to adapt to their expectations without offense or disruption. These are the skills of a tourist visiting a home in Japan, a platoon leader leading a squad of soldiers into an Afghan village, a marketing executive developing a new product for the Indian market, or an aid worker delivering health care to an African village. This practical understanding of “the local” is part of what we mean by a “global” education.

Study Abroad

Boston University’s International Programs are among the most extensive in the nation. Described as “the premier study abroad provider in the country,” BUIP manages more than seventy-five programs in over thirty-three cities in more than twenty countries with programs in language, liberal arts, fine arts, engineering, and science. BU International Programs are well known for their internship programs in a wide range of potential career opportunities, including the arts, business, communications, journalism, advertising, marketing, law, international relations, NGOs, political science, psychology, and social policy. In a recent year more than 2,100 students from over 200 colleges and universities have chosen to study abroad with Boston University International Programs, and almost 45 percent of BU undergraduates currently take advantage of a study abroad program. For many of these students study abroad is a life-changing experience. “Life changes” do not lend themselves to statistical summary, but everyone who has worked with undergraduates at BU will have a favorite anecdote to illustrate this point.⁽¹⁷⁾

Towards a Global Curriculum

Course offerings with an international dimension have grown substantially in recent years. Using the College of Arts & Sciences as an example, the newly created Department of Modern Languages & Comparative Literature is growing rapidly in the languages and cultures of East Asia and the Middle East, including not only Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Hebrew, but Persian and Turkish. The Department of International Relations has the largest number of undergraduate majors in CAS and continues to expand course opportunities in all areas of international relations. Boston University’s new Center for the Study of Asia provides a programmatic setting for fresh initiatives in the study of Asia, including an application for a major government program to support the study of Asian languages; there are many other examples in this vein within and beyond CAS. The largest course in the Religion Department, for example, is RN 103 (“The Religions of the World: East”). Each semester more than 150 students from almost all colleges in the University pursue their interests in the study of Asian culture and religion. Many of these programs have benefited from support by the administration. But the engine that drives them is student and faculty interest. Without engaged faculty and interested students, these courses and programs would not exist.

An International Student Body

With a freshman student body of 4,100, of which almost 14 percent are international students, Boston University has one of the most diverse undergraduate cohorts in the country, as is indicated by the important metric of approved student organizations with an international dimension. A recent count numbered approximately ninety-five such organizations, ranging from the African Students Organization to the Vietnamese Students Organization and the World Affairs Forum. Stops along the way included the Bangladeshi Students Organization, the Cape Verdean Cultural Students Association, BU for Burma, Foundation of International Medical Relief of Children, the Model United Nations, the South Slavic Society, and JIVA (Jains in Voice and Action). The diversity of student organizations reminds us that the global dimension of a BU education is not limited to academic programs and curricular choices. It is deeply woven into the co-curricular fabric of University life as it is designed out of the interlaced threads of student organizations and interest groups. Indeed, students can have a rich encounter with “global perspectives” without even leaving Commonwealth Avenue.

Recommendations for Achieving a Global Competency

• Integrate the study abroad experience more fully into the regular curriculum by:
  • Developing departmental courses and programs that are specifically linked to the study abroad experience. These might be optional 1- or 2-credit extensions to existing courses in which students travel with faculty to explore the issues of the course in an international setting.
  • Improving coordination between departments and International Programs. We recommend that each department designate a particular faculty member to serve as liaison with International Programs, attend orientation meetings, and assist with the development of new study abroad initiatives.
  • Increasing access to the study abroad programs. We recommend the elimination of the GPA requirement for access to study abroad—it currently stands at 3.0, which, if enforced unequivocally, restricts access to about half the student body—or lowering it, as well as the consideration of additional financial aid targeted specifically at foreign study.
  • Integrating life-changing study abroad experiences more fully into the continuing education of returned students and their peers, and showcasing this experience through, for example, the compilation or designing of a portfolio.
  • Continuing to prepare science and engineering majors for participation in the international scientific community (the Department of Physics is starting a program at CERN for junior physics majors in spring 2010).
  • Continuing to include language learning as a component of all (or nearly all) BU international programs in non-Anglophone host countries.⁽¹⁸⁾
• Encourage courses that have a global component by:
  • Requiring students to incorporate a global perspective into their academic programs. This can be done in many ways: by incorporating a more pronounced global or comparative dimension wherever that makes sense in existing courses; by developing new courses, or making existing courses more well-known by branding them differently; or by clustering courses together so that contemporary and historical issues—religion, the arts, health, sustainability, power and politics, conflict and diplomacy, race, literary and philosophical texts, to name just a few topics—are studied in a global context. It also would be possible to institute a new requirement, in which students would be expected to demonstrate “global competency” through some combination of coursework, study abroad, or international service.
• Support student organizations and other co-curricular opportunities by:
  • Showcasing the diversity of the BU student body in new ways through a series of public events that draw attention to the wide array of international organizations, and incorporating their contributions more fully into the undergraduate experience.
  • Developing language-specialty housing as centers for cultural events and programming, as well as living-learning communities for residents.
  • Increasing global community service opportunities that are incorporated into classroom discussions and University-wide programs.
• Encourage greater curricular and co-curricular involvement with cultural and linguistic programming in the City of Boston and surrounding communities.

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17. One of the best examples is the career of Anastasia Pilyavsky, a Religion and Anthropology major who studied abroad during her junior year in Mongolia and India. She returned to BU, wrote a fine undergraduate thesis on a tribe of Indian thieves, and went on to win a Rhodes Scholarship. She is now completing her D.Phil. at Oxford and is planning a career in Anthropology.

18. In fact, nearly all BU International Programs at non-Anglophone sites do already include a significant language component. For example, ENG and CAS life sciences students in Dresden, Grenoble, and Guadalajara take German, French, or Spanish, respectively, along with the prescribed engineering and science courses that keep them on track in their majors. Pushing that one step further, physics majors going to CERN in spring 2010 (as mentioned above) will take even their physics courses in French, on an experimental basis, with advance preparation in Boston during the fall semester.