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Institute of
International Education
809 United Nations Plaza
7th Floor
New York, NY 10017
USA
Tel: +1 (212) 984 5367
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Paths to Global Competence: Preparing American College Students to Meet the World |
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By William I. Brustein
At the risk of being labeled an alarmist, I propose that it is time to sound the alarm for “internationalized” education at U.S. institutions of higher learning. Confronted with a world that is strikingly different from what it was just a decade ago, the U.S. faces rapidly shifting economic, political, and national security realities and challenges. To respond to these changes and meet national needs it is essential that our institutions of higher education matriculate globally competent students. Without global competence our students will be ill-prepared for global citizenship, lacking the skills required to address our national security needs, and unable to compete successfully in the global marketplace.
Global competence, as defined in the recently-published National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) report, A Call to Leadership: The Presidential Role in Internationalizing the University, is the ability “… not only to contribute to knowledge, but also to comprehend, analyze, and evaluate its meaning in the context of an increasingly globalized world.” The skills that form the foundation of global competence include the ability to work effectively in international settings; awareness of and adaptability to diverse cultures, perceptions and approaches; familiarity with the major currents of global change and the issues they raise; and the capacity for effective communication across cultural and linguistic boundaries.
How near are we to achieving the goal of global competence in higher education? The report card on the United States as it pertains to international education is far from promising: In the National Geographic-Roper (2002) poll of geographic knowledge Americans finished next to last; less than 25 percent of Americans surveyed could name four countries that acknowledge having nuclear weapons; only 3 percent of U.S. college students in 4-year programs participate in education abroad each year and those who participate are disproportionately white, female, middle-class majoring in the Humanities or Social Sciences and choose European or English-language destinations; enrollment in foreign languages has fallen from 16 percent in the 1960s to less than 9 percent today; and between 1965 and 1995 the share of 4-year institutions with language-degree requirements for some students fell from roughly 90 percent to 67 percent.
If the training of globally-competent graduates is accepted as one of the chief goals of our system of higher education, our curricula will have to be redesigned to ensure that outcome. Most of our institutions address the need for global competence by adding a diversity or international course(s) requirement – hardly sufficient to instill global competence in our students – or by offering degrees, minors or certificates in area or international studies. However, there are major shortcomings in the way both area and international studies are generally carried out. Area studies programs tend to be highly descriptive and too often display an apparent abhorrence towards theorizing. The curriculum frequently resembles a cafeteria-style menu: one selection or course from this shelf followed by selections from various other shelves. Somehow students are expected miraculously to pull together the disparate pieces into some coherent whole.
Area studies, on the other hand, fails frequently to take advantage of opportunities to generalize from their rich contextual findings to the broader world. International studies programs (particularly when they fall under the rubric of international relations) too frequently manifest a lack of appreciation for the importance of the local and regional cultural contexts. There are few, if any, attempts at applying the theoretical approaches to the empirical context of the regions. Students too often matriculate from these programs without any competency in a foreign language or any knowledge of or any specific grounding in the culture of a society outside of the U.S.
Additionally, our area and international studies programs often fail to give appropriate attention to such crucial steps as 1) integrating relevant learning abroad opportunities into the degree, minor or certificate, 2) incorporating critical thinking skills of knowledge, comprehension, analysis, synthesis, explanation, evaluation, and extrapolation into the learning experience, 3) assessing or evaluating global competence as an outcome, and 4) aligning the area or international studies concentration to a disciplinary major (e.g., biology, anthropology, history, engineering).
This last point deserves further examination and will likely engender controversy among international educators. We must continually ask ourselves if we are doing an injustice to our undergraduate students by encouraging them to spend their undergraduate years pursuing stand-alone degrees in area or international studies. In my capacity as the University of Pittsburgh’s chief international education administrator, I often meet with heads of multinational corporations, government offices, and NGOs. When I ask these leaders to describe to me what they look for when making hiring decisions they invariably begin by reminding me that they hire engineers, chemists, economists—in other words graduates with disciplinary expertise. They go on, however, to inform me of the enormous added value they see in graduates who combine a disciplinary expertise with area and international studies knowledge, foreign language, and learning abroad experience. It would appear that the assessment of these leaders is consistent with remarks advanced by Thomas L. Friedman in his recent best-selling book, The World is Flat. Friedman suggests that companies of the 21st century will seek to hire graduates with disciplinary expertise, especially in engineering, science, and business. But he notes that these same companies in an effort to come to terms with “glocalization”, that is, the interface between global economic tendencies and local cultural values will require that our disciplinary experts possess a familiarity with regional and local cultures, for without knowledge of these cultures our companies are unlikely to be successful in understanding local consumer tastes.
I proffer an additional criticism of stand-alone undergraduate degrees in area and international studies. In my view, if we are to achieve global competence then we are obliged to internationalize the educational experience no matter the discipline. If we require students to select either a stand-alone major in area or international studies or a traditional disciplinary degree, students most likely will opt for the latter and we will be left with a situation where only a small number of students will have exposure to an international studies concentration. Global competence cannot be the preserve of only a few students. It is incumbent upon us as international educators to gain Deans’ and Department Chairs’ buy-in and participation in designing undergraduate programs that will let their students earn area studies certificates or minors truly linked and relevant to their disciplines, or carefully thought out disciplinary or international and area studies majors where both disciplinary expertise and area/international studies are fully integrated. The answer is not area studies or disciplines—it is developing a comprehensive and coherent curriculum that will train our students to become globally competent critical thinkers.
The Pitt Global Studies Certificate
In an effort to institute global competence into the curriculum, the University of Pittsburgh has taken an important step forward by providing new options and opportunities for an internationalized educational experience. In 2001 Pitt established a certificate in Global Studies (adding to the University’s long-standing area studies certificate programs) and in 2005 a Bachelor of Philosophy (B-Phil.) degree in international and area studies—both of which are intended to complement disciplinary degrees while not extending a student’s time at the institution beyond what is typically required to earn the disciplinary degree. Neither the Global and Area Studies certificates nor the B-Phil in International and Area Studies are stand-alone certificates or degrees. These programs are complements to a student’s disciplinary degree and are designed in a way that they are relevant to those disciplinary degrees.
The Pitt Global Studies certificate provides undergraduates and graduate students across the entire campus with an opportunity for interdisciplinary training concurrent with academic or professional degrees in a major field. In consultation with an academic advisor, students design an individualized program of study requiring no less than 18 credits. Global Studies students choose one of the six global concentrations (sustainable development; globalized economy and global governance; changing identities in a global world; communication, technology and society; global health; and conflict and conflict resolution) and unite it with the study of a particular region and a language of that region. In so doing, the program effectively integrates the study of major global issues with the study of their application in different regions and cultures, ensuring both the global relevance of area studies and the empirical grounding of globalization studies.
The six Global Studies concentrations are thus designed to promote holistic learning while creating new and specialized forums for discussion and learning that break across disciplinary boundaries in order to better address the causes, consequences and search for solutions arising from globalization. To ensure interdisciplinary learning, students take three courses in two departments other than their major. Each certificate student must complete a capstone research project as part of the coursework on a topic relating to chosen global and regional concentrations. The certificate programs also encourage students to take advantage of the many international learning opportunities available at the University of Pittsburgh which will soon include the Program for Trans-Regional Education – a unique global studies learning abroad experience in which students can earn 15 credits by examining two global studies themes from a multi-country perspective via extended stays in four countries.
For the most highly-motivated students and to the end of developing a globally-competent critical-thinking undergraduate curriculum, the University of Pittsburgh’s University Honors College (UHC) in collaboration with the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) is piloting a Bachelor of Philosophy (B-Phil.) in International and Area Studies (IAS). The new major is organized around the six Global Studies thematic concentrations. Students specialize in one of those concentrations, and unite this concentration with a regional and language specialization. They take ten courses and demonstrate third year university level language proficiency. The major includes three core courses: Introduction to Global Studies; Scopes and Methods course to guide their international research; and a six-credit Capstone Seminar. Students take a second, more specialized methodology course (quantitative or qualitative) relevant to their research which they may choose from existing methodology courses; four international content courses from one of Global Studies’ six international thematic course lists, and two regional content courses from any one of the area studies centers course lists. Before the completion of the major each student will participate in an approved learning abroad experience and complete an Honors College thesis. If the Honors College IAS B-Phil. proves a success in its pilot phase, it will eventually be offered across the entire university. The IAS model, we believe, combines the strengths of area studies and international studies approaches while eliminating their shortcomings.
Although we feel we have made significant progress towards the goal of providing avenues to global competence, we have still much further to travel. In particular, far too few students at our institution are enrolled in either our global and area studies certificate programs or in our Bachelor of Philosophy in International and Area Studies. If global competence is acknowledged as a crucial component of a contemporary undergraduate education, then it cannot be limited to the handful of students who make the special effort to seek it out. To address this issue, our Provost, responding to the NASULGC “A Call to Leadership…” report has required that all Deans incorporate into future strategic plans the steps they are taking to integrate global competence into their schools. This commitment is essential to assure that all graduates will be prepared to function as global workers and citizens.
In conclusion, there is no single path or recipe for instilling global competence in our students. Many institutions do not have the resources of the large private and public research universities, and will not be able to implement dramatic changes in the short run. Nonetheless, if we are to achieve global competence at our institutions—and there is no excuse for not striving to attain this overall goal-- it will require international educators in consultation with administrators, faculty, staff, and students to design and implement a curriculum that is comprehensive, coherent, accessible to all students, and has as its principal goal the ability to know, comprehend, analyze, and evaluate information in the context of an increasingly globalized world. If we miss this opportunity we will surely fail to prepare our graduates for the enormous global challenges of the 21st century.
William I. Brustein is Director of the University Center for International Studies and Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and History at University of Pittsburgh.
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