Curriculum Integration through Partner Collaboration: A US/ UK Bachelor’s towards Master’s Initiative

Authors

  • Jenifer Cushman Juniata College
  • Tom Kyle University of Leeds

Keywords:

global citizenship education, teacher training, drama pedagogy, Nobel Peace Prize

Abstract

Global learning is an emerging imperative for the higher education in the twenty-first century.  In the context of the work of Jane Knight, Susan Buck Sutton, and Daniel Obst towards internationalization, strategic partnerships, and collaborative degree programs, a UK and US institution are working through challenges to create a new kind of partner degree that could be a model for liberal arts colleges in particular.  With the standpoint that, as institutions of higher education work together to enhance global learning, they can be most effective by adopting a collaborative rather than competitive approach, international officers at the partner institutions are engaging faculty and departments across the institutions to formalize and streamline the bachelor towards master’s degree across a number of disciplines.  Already in 2013, a pilot student who studied abroad in the UK while working on her undergraduate degree at a liberal arts college has returned to the study abroad site to complete her master’s degree in museum studies.  It is hoped that the fruit of such efforts will attract domestic students interested in global learning as well as international students unfamiliar with the concept of a liberal arts college, and will form the basis of future collaborations towards curriculum integration, perhaps through technologically-facilitated learning.

Author Biographies

Jenifer Cushman, Juniata College

Jenifer Cushman is International Dean and Associate Professor of German at Juniata College, winner of the 2012 NAFSA Senator Paul Simon-Award.  Cushman earned her PhD in German from the Ohio State University, after which she engaged in the University of Minnesota study abroad curriculum integration effort as a faculty member at UMM. One of the first Association of International Education Administrator’s Presidential Fellows, she now mentors for the program, chairs the 2014 Simon committee, and is a contributor to the recent NAFSA publication "Improving and Assessing Global Learning.”

Tom Kyle, University of Leeds

Tom Kyle has worked at the University of Leeds since 2007, initially in the Study Abroad Office before moving into their International Marketing team in 2010.  Tom graduated with a BA (Hons) in Music for the University of Nottingham and is currently studying part-time towards an MA in Management of International Higher Education at Edge Hill University.

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Published

2014-04-30

Issue

Section

Volume 4