The African Studies Program offers assistance in internationalizing university and college courses with Africa content. Our priority is to assist Minority Serving Institutions, such as HBCUs, and community colleges. We offer professional development opportunities, workshops, topical conferences, and more for faculty. We can also assist with expert speakers for your courses – presenting virtually or in person (within 50 miles) through IU’s Global Speakers Service. For more information, please contact Associate Director, Dr. Tavy Aherne.
Higher Education Outreach
Creating global competency at IU
Indiana University and the Hamilton Lugar School (HLS) seek above all to prepare graduates who are globally ready, able to keep up with the constantly changing pace and demands of a world where boundaries between nations, regions, cultures, and peoples are fluid and shifting.
To that end, in 2008, with the support of the Center for the Study of Global Change, a university-wide Global Learning Faculty Community, comprised of faculty representing twelve disciplines and five schools, established a set of global learning outcomes. It was the first step in IU’s ongoing effort to internationalize its curricula. Four years later, the IU National Resource Centers worked collaboratively to revise these outcomes, with help from faculty of the Internationalization Collaborative Across Bloomington initiative and the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning.
Today, as schools, departments, and faculty develop courses, construct syllabi, and design content and assignments, they have a carefully considered list of outcomes to guide them. It goes without saying that the outcomes will change as the world continue to change.
Global learning outcomes
IU seeks to groom globally competent students in the following areas.
Knowledge + Skills
Students have the ability to:
- Effectively communicate across cultures
- Contextualize and analyze complex connections among local and global phenomena
- Apply an interdisciplinary and international body of theory, resources, and methods
- Communicate in at least two languages
- Make choices and design solutions informed by multiple frames of reference, including international, global, and cultural contexts.
- Recognize themselves and their culture through the perception of others
- Apply deep and contextualized knowledge of at least one culture, nation, and/or region beyond the U.S.
- Critically analyze the history and diversity of the U.S. and its role in the world
- Recognize how professions are defined and practiced in international and cultural contexts
Attitudes
Students can demonstrate:
- Openness, recognition, and acceptance of differences
- Humility and willingness to adapt their own practices, values, and behaviors
Action + Responsibility
Students are willing to:
- Act upon acquired knowledge, skills, and attitudes in global and local contexts
- Think ethically about global issues, inequalities, and their efficacy in the world
- Participate in international experiences, interactions, or collaborations
Internationalization Collaborative Across Bloomington (ICAB)
Since 2010, IU’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies National Resource Centers, including African Studies, have partnered with faculty at IU and Ivy Tech Community College to internationalize curriculum for students and provide professional development opportunities for faculty. From 2018 onward, those efforts have expanded to other Ivy Tech campuses. For more information on ICAB: https://global.indiana.edu/global-learning/past-programs/icab.html