Global+ Courses

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Developing Global Competence

Global+ Courses are intentional about embedding a significant global component into the student learning experience.

Courses that are designated as Global+

  • Identify a Goal: Identify a goal (or goals) and corresponding outcomes that best align with the class, program, or learning experience.
  • Develop Global Learning Outcomes: Utilizing the associated outcome statements, expand on the specific elements unique to the learning experience you are designing. Write your own learning outcome statements that break down the high-level outcomes in more detail.
  • Align Activities: Align student learning activities with specific Global Learning Outcomes. Determine strength and intensity of learning activities to achieve outcomes.
  • Gather Evidence: Gather evidence of student learning.
  • Assess Global Learning: Utilizing shared resources, examine artifacts and evidence of global learning against established program learning outcomes and the framework.

Examples of Global+ experiences

Global+ learning can take many forms:

  • Classes may incorporate globally-focused or comparative perspectives to examine issues through a global lens. Faculty may include content and speakers that explore global diversity. Course activities, projects, teams, online intercultural collaborations, and assignments may support engagement with global perspectives and/or action on global issues.
  • Outside of classrooms, global learning experiences may occur on campus by attending campus events with a global focus, engaging in student-faculty research on global topics, joining globally-themed student communities or clubs, taking a workshop on global/intercultural leadership or doing archival research around the world, living with culturally-diverse peers or in globally-focused living and learning communities, and more.
  • Global learning experiences may take students into regional communities to learn about an unfamiliar culture, work or intern with businesses with a global footprint, and/or participate in community engagement to address global challenges.
  • Students may also travel for domestic study away or programs in other countries including study abroad, service learning, international research or field-work, or community and internship programs.
  • Virtual learning experiences with a global focus can transcend place-based boundaries—allowing connection with peers around the world through technology or participation in international internship experiences without leaving home.
  • Life experiences such as immigration/migration, growing up speaking multiple languages, and helping family members navigate across cultural boundaries support global learning.

Sample NEW Global+ Courses

As part of a two-year UISFL (Undergraduate International Studies & Foreign Languages) grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the Global+ Program is designed to strengthen and improve undergraduate instruction in international studies and foreign language at Maryville College by increasing global/intercultural competencies across the curriculum. Below are examples of courses developed as part of the Global+ Program. Global+ Designated Courses may be found with the GL+ label in Self Service.

GER 120 Beginner German I – Language Lab

Dr. Zsusanna Roth

This course offers students the opportunity for applied language and cultural enrichment through live conversation sessions with professional native-proficiency German language instructors throughout the semester. The topic and structures that act as the basis for conversation are aligned with course topics.

PSY/SOC 221 & PSY 224 Portfolio

Dr. Crystal Colter

Goal: Integration of foreign languages into disciplinary topics. Increase exposure and opportunities for Maryville College students to engage in foreign language.

  • Build, practice and enjoy Spanish language skills
  • Learn new Spanish vocabulary around particular events and issues (e.g. racism, political divisions COVID pandemic)
  • Grow in confidence and enhanced identity as a Spanish language speaker
  • Enhance global competence and/or support the growth of global competence among peers in the classroom community.

Global+ Components:

Addition of a “4th hour” Spanish language contemporary issues and current events experience. This additional hour will be offered to students in PSY/SOC 221 and PSY 224 and will be conducted in Spanish and will involve discussion of current events and social issues in connection with course material. any student with some Spanish background is welcome.

The course includes:

  • Disciplinary Course taught in Spanish
  • Review of articles in Spanish
  • Applied Spanish language practice through class discussions

BUS 349 Leadership & Governance in Business

Dr. Rebecca Treadway

Using a comparative global approach, the course will examine business leadership and governance. Relationships between the Board of Directors, the CEO, and management as well as board responsibilities, structure, and composition will be discussed. Current governance issues like activist investors, diversity, and sustainability will be addressed. Using case studies, readings, and media, the governance structure will be analyzed from a cultural context. Business leadership and governance in the United States and Japan will be studied. (Prerequisite – BUS201 or Permission from the Instructor)

Global+ Components:

  • Comparative study of business leadership and governance in the US and Japan
  • Global case studies & readings

BUS 333/305/349 Organizational Behavior & International Human Resource Management

Dr. Jenifer Greene

Study of the behavior of individuals in pursuit of organizational goals in relation to internatoinal human resourcemanagement. Topics include cross-cultural communication, comparative human reource management activities across cultures, and international performance management.

Goal: In-depth exploration of organizational culture in the context of differing national cultures.

Global+ Components:

  • Integration of global competencies provided within the SHRM Competency Model
  • Global case studies and readings
  • Experiential learning activities

OST 103 Introduction to Sustainable Tourism

Ms. Kirsten Sheppard

This course explores the three central components of sustainable tourism: environmental stewardship, socioeconomic issues, and local culture. The concept, principles, and practice of sustainable management are now widely acknowledged as essential factors for the tourism, leisure, and event industries. This course focuses on the fundamental concepts of sustainability that have application to the management of all forms of these industries in developed and developing countries. The class aims to provide a theoretical and practical understanding to maintain environmental, social, and economic wellbeing of natural, built, and cultural resources while protecting natural ecosystems.

Global+ Components:

Goal: To provide a perspective on the field of study from a different part of the world. Students will learn to recognize their own and others’ perspectives on sustainable tourism. Students will also practice communicating their ideas with a diverse audience.

The course includes:

  • 3 Guest lectures from Ecuador & 1 from Costa Rica
    • Introduction to Ecuadorian Culture & Values
    • Sustainable Tourism in Ecuador
    • Case Study: Carrying Capacity in the Galapagos Islands
    • Tour Operator Perspective: Sustainable Tourism & Community Development in Costa Rica
  • 2 Buddy chats with Ecuadorian students

Global Partners: Kaya Responsible Travel, Costa Rica Experience

BUS 329 International Business

Dr. John Gallagher

An introduction to the fundamental economic, cultural, legal, and political issues involved in transacting business in an international setting. Among topics discussed are government influence on trade, international financial market, and social issues. May involve readings in the student’s second language.

Global+ Components:

Goal: To incorporate genuine and authoritative voices from other countries into the course content. In addition, to add a real cross-cultural and cross border experience to the course. The below activities will help develop global competencies particularly as regards a knowledge of culture, recognizing cultural perspectives, and acting (completing analytical assignments) as a difference maker, and cultivating curiosity, open-mindedness, respect, empathy and appreciation of other perspectives.

  • The course includes:
    • Three cultural workshops hosted by our travel or university partners in each of the 3 countries
    • Guest lectures from those same partners that engage students in thinking about the challenges of a U.S, company doing business in any one of the countries.
    • Global Project evaluating the economics, politics, geography, and culture of one country and the crucial differences between that country and the United States in the context of a hypothetical business expansion to that country.

Global Partners: Maynooth University (Ireland), South Bridge Access (Chile), & Kaya Responsible Travel (Ecuador)

PHY 101/201/149/111 Implementation across the Physics Curriculum

Ms. Irene Guerinot

Goal: Integration of global competency across projects, lab work and homework throughout all Physics classes offered at Maryville College

Global+ Components:

  • Global Competency project focused on Women in STEM (across generations and countries)
  • Intercultural interviews & research projects
  • DIEP (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Physics) labs

ENG 249 Global Literatures in English

Dr. Will Phillips

literature course focused on international Anglophone literatures and literature in translation, mainly from authors with roots outside the United States and Europe. The course will explore frameworks for understanding literatures dealing with issues of colonialism, modernization, Westernization, and international conflicts from a variety of perspectives.

Goal: Increase knowledge of world literatures, and perspectives of the non-western world. Greater emphasis on the international perspective on the modern world. Explore differing ways of constructing a world that are still fully human. Global competencies will be rooted in a set of comprehension and reflective exercises on global literature texts and readings.

Global+ Components:

  • Global readings & reflections

PSY/INT 249 Global Child Welfare

Dr. Ariane Schratter

Cross-listed as NSC249, SOC249, and INT249 This course focuses on economic, health, and safety issues faced by children around the world, emphasizing the interplay of culture, race, gender, policy, and socioeconomic status. Students will also examine the social, emotional, physical, and neuropsychological impact of child trauma. Several contexts of child welfare will be explored, including juvenile justice, health care, and maltreatment, as well as global aid and monitoring systems.

Global+ Components:

Goal: To increase students’ knowledge and skills related to worldwide child advocacy frameworks, perspectives of human rights from various cultural viewpoints, and openness for and curiosity about interactions with culturally different others.  

The course incorporates National and International Curriculum and interaction:

  1. Children’s Human Rights—offered though the University of Geneva, by experts with extensive international experience, this curriculum includes lectures, assessments, and discussion forums drawing from several academic disciplines including law, psychology, sociology, history, education, health sciences, economy, and anthropology. Topics include international standards and monitoring systems, history of children’s rights in the context of human rights, juvenile justice, violence against children, children’s right to participation, and children’s rights and global health. We will explore the evolution of challenges faced by children and society’s efforts to respond, including international strategies, programs promoting children’s rights, and international organizations in this field. Students will be required to participate in discussion forums with individuals from all over the world. 
  1. America’s Poverty and Inequality—offered by Stanford University and leading poverty scholars from around the world, this material features the science of poverty and inequality underlying our country’s policies and practices. Topics include income inequality, experience of poverty, causes of poverty, educational access and outcomes, social mobility and jobs, and gender, racial, and ethnic inequality. Because experiences of poverty vary by age, race, and region, it is essential for students to understand this complex American context. 
  1. Child Protection: Children’s Rights in Theory and Practice—Harvard University’s course examines the foundations of child protection in international human rights law, child protection issues around the world, and the severe impact violence and exploitation on the development of children.  

Global Partners: University of Geneva (Switzerland), Stanford University (USA), & Harvard University (USA)

PSY 249 Child Trauma & Resilience

Dr. Ariane Schratter

Students will be introduced to contemporary issues surrounding inclusion of people with developmental disabilities. The course will focus on how institutions and individuals work to increase inclusion and reduce stigma. Students will explore these topics as they relate to public policy, education, and attitudes.

Global+ Components:

Goal: To have students explore regional idioms of distress and how they vary across people and regions. To promote students’ empathy and skills recognizing the feelings of another cultural group, verbal and non-verbal communication, and openness for and curiosity about varied cultural perspectives. The following opportunities are embedded into this course:  

  1. Through the Arizona Trauma Institute, students will complete a 10-hour online course related to the effects of trauma.  Through this material, students will experience how exercising cultural competence when interpreting behaviors, coping with, and/or supporting others with trauma is essential for promoting resilience. PSY 249 is community-engaged so students will also have opportunities to practice these skills.  
  1. Upon completion of the online course, students will be offered the option to enroll in a 0 credit  PSY 337 internship to earn the Certified Trauma Support Specialist (CTSS) certification from the Trauma Institute International which promotes international standards for trauma support and care. Students will participate in both online and live (virtual) classes, assessments, and forums in which they will continue to develop their intercultural competencies. Engaging with this certificate opportunity provides students membership in a world-wide network of peers with whom they can network and stay well-informed of current developments in the field of trauma treatment and trauma care. Due to the sensitivity of the topic and personal suitability to work within this field, this would be an optional opportunity rather than a requirement of a course.  

Global Partners: Trauma Institute International (USA)

INT 201 Contemporary Global Issues

Dr. John Gallagher

An interdisciplinary course comparing culture, history, geography, and institutions of various countries in the context of globalization. The course is a prerequisite to overseas study for students majoring in International Business or International Studies who intend to take academic courses for Maryville College credit in another country.

Global+ Components:

  • 16-week virtual cohord field project placement with weekly project work with an international organization
  • Cultural Workshops
  • Local Buddy Chats
  • Face-to-Face team meetings with project supervisor

*course did not receive Global+ mini-grant funding.

Global Partner: Kaya Responsible Travel

SPN 349 U.S. Latinx Experience

Dr. Dan Hickman

Concentrated study on a selected topic in Hispanic literature, language, or cultural studies. The topics may include the short story, poetry, drama, the novel, Spanish for the professions, linguistics, or cultural studies.

*course did not receive Global+ mini-grant funding.

PHL 348 Comparative Philosophy

Dr. Andrew Irvine

The study of competing philosophical conceptions of the world and of reality as expressions of human, cultural, and intellectual diversity. Western and non-Western philosophies will be compared and critically examined. Even if we don’t travel physically around the world, globalization brings the incredible diversity of human society home to us. It becomes hard to keep a wise love for our own culture once we realize that our way of life is not necessarily the right or the best of ways, but is perhaps merely the one to which we are accustomed. The pursuit of comparative philosophy is a way to steady ourselves as we face that realization. On the one hand, comparative philosophy can keep us from losing confidence altogether in our inherited values; on the other hand, it can help us recognize worth in other ways of life, incorporate something of them, even, without distorting them too badly. 

Global+ Component:

The Global+ grant will be used to strengthen students’ intercultural knowledge, deepen their knowledge of global issues, and help students grasp the practical relevance and ramifications of these skills, such that they demonstrate abilities to explain complex situations or problems, understand differences in communication, or evaluate actions and consequences. 

Global+ components are intended to enable more students to practice those skills. They will do so especially by:  

  1. examining issues that are at once local, global and intercultural as lenses for doing philosophy in a comparative way; 
  1. completing an assignment(s) that required them at least to project how to take action for collective well-being and social sustainability in reference to one of those issues. 

Anticipated outcomes would include: 

  1. ability to compare and learn from culturally different philosophical resources how to  understand and address a complex problem or situation (cf. the language of CCSSO and the Asia Society: to “analyze, integrate and synthesize evidence to construct a coherent response); 
  1. ability to recognize and critically appreciate the resources of one’s “own” culture and one’s attachment to them (cf. the language of CCSSO and the Asia Society: to “recognize and express their own perspective and identify influences on that perspective”); 
  1. ability to recognize how one is implicated in a global problem(s) and how one may effectively contribute to ameliorating the problem(s) (cf. the language of CCSSO and the Asia Society: to “identify and create opportunities for personal or collaborative action to improve conditions”). 

EVS 310 Exploring Ocean Worlds

Dr. Joy Buongiorno

“What is our place in space?” is one of the largest queries that students can undertake in a science course. My Earth System Science class (EVS310) allows interrogation of this question by building an integrated understanding of how all of Earth’s spheres (the biosphere, geosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere) presently interact and have changed throughout geological time to create our present habitable planet. Excitingly, within the past few decades, advances in planetary monitoring and astrobiology have expanded our knowledge of what it means for a planet to be habitable. This proposal would add a course module to EVS310 that would place the students in the shoes of planetary scientists at NASA, tasked with choosing which sites on Earth would be good analogs for life on other planets. In this way, students will review existing literature focused on the characteristics of potentially habitable planetary bodies, work in teams to craft arguments based on evidence, and effectively communicate their arguments.

Students will be asked to propose and justify global field sites for exploration. In addition to being scientifically robust, their justifications must also pay mind to the cultural, ethical, and economic challenges their field site location decision would bring about. For example, NASA scientists are in the beginning stages of moving away from Arctic sites as analogs for ice or ocean worlds in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint and reduce the amount of disturbance their studies have on Arctic regions. NASA is actively accepting propositions for non-canonical (aka non-Arctic) sites from the scientific community. Through assigned readings and write-ups, students will learn to think in a more globally sustainable way.

BUS 349 Comparative US/UK Business Practices

Dr. Gabie Kerr

This course a new course offered in May 2023 as a faculty-led program abroad to England. Course goals included:

  1. Students will an in-depth knowledge of another country other than one’s own such that a student can analyze the social, economic, environmental, cultural, and political
    environment of that country.
  2. Students will experience and be open to new and different ideas, values and norms; cultural-selfness, and curiosity.
  3. Students will understand the external forces – economic, political, social, and physical – that impact organizations whose operations cross national borders.

BUS 349 Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

Dr. Scott Henson

This course is a newly designed course that will take place in Scotland as a faculty-led program abroad in summer 2024. Beyond traveling abroad, this course incorporates intentional global content, including global case studies and academic articles. It includes community engagement projects with social enterprises in Scotland.

PSY 228 Human Sexuality

Dr. Karen Beale

This course incorporated new global content as a result of an international certification program taken by the instructor. It embeds global research that analyzes data from international participants.

CRJ 349 Alternative Justice

Dr. Rachel Ponder

This is a new course that provides an approach to justice that offers alternatives to the retributive justice model seen in the American criminal justice system. Through the exploration of a variety of histories, theories, and practices of justice, this course will encourage students to reimagine a justice system that shifts the focus away from the punitive practices of the carceral state and towards that of community building and restoration. Alternative Justice pushes the boundaries of justice as we know it to address the current political moment in which the crisis of criminal justice and state violence has assumed center stage in the United States.
Global competencies will be incorporated in the course through the use of case studies. Students will incorporate models of justice used globally (for example: Gacaca court following Rwandan Genocide, Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, transitional justice in Peru, etc.) to encourage students to reimagine the possibilities of the American criminal justice system. Students will produce a final project in which they conduct a comparative analysis of two models of justice and offer solutions to current criminal justice issues.

*Process & Examples adapted from UC Davis