Crisis as Opportunity: Reimagining Global Learning Pathways through New Virtual Collaborations and Open Access during COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT
 In the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 forced the suspension of most U.S. education abroad programs, study abroad students returned home, summer programs were canceled, and international educators pondered the unlikelihood of resuming fall 2020 study abroad; larger questions about the future of international education and global learning with limited student mobility weighed heavily, two small liberal arts colleges in Pennsylvania, Haverford and Dickinson, and the membership of the Community-based Global Learning Collaborative started reimagining the future of global learning. What drove us was our collective commitment to building just, inclusive and sustainable communities, a spirit of collaboration and a desire to seek out future-forward and innovative opportunities for continued global learning. Around the world, xenophobia and nationalism were on the rise. One of the clearest continuous mechanisms for combating those horrors, student international mobility, would cease. It was clear that global educators had to do something, but what? This article is a case study about how we began to answer the question of what we could do. It follows the evolution of our thinking, emergent projects, lessons learned and new collaborative pathways.

Virtual Transborder Service Learning as a Transformative Educational Pedagogy: A California, USA - Baja California, Mexico Academic Partnership in Sustainable Tourism

“…While at the outset of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, anecdotal evidence suggested many instructors saw online instruction as a barrier to achieving SL outcomes (for exceptions see Brandauer, Carnine et al, 2022;Brandauer Sabato et al, 2022;Figuccio, 2020)…”

Study Abroad in a (Post-) Pandemic World: Our New Normal and Some Reasons for Optimism

“…This essentially means having students participate in international instruction in some form while remaining in their home countries, such as through telecollaboration or courses created abroad for use by students remaining at home (e.g., Kautz, 2021;Liu & Shirley, 2021;Wirtz, 2022). Brandauer et al (2021) offer one of the most optimistic versions of this, detailing a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary, and multimodal open-access summer course entitled "The Interdependence: Global Solidarity and Local Action Toolkit," intended to respond to the curtailment of international student mobility and counter xenophobia and nationalism internationally. One must note, however, that this and similar projects were never intended to replace study abroad, rather merely mitigate the immediate crisis.…”

Virtual International Group Study Program: Towards Understanding Sustainable Development Goals and Community Development in Nepal

“…is not yet known, but, as Upson and Bergiel (2022) (Tuan, 2022, para 11), with specific aspects of GSP likely to persist into the foreseeable future (Gallagher, 2021). In reframing the pandemic crisis as an opportunity, Brandauer et al (2022) assert virtual international education can be a mechanism for achieving our "collective commitment to building just, inclusive and sustainable communities, a spirit of collaboration and a desire to seek out future-forward and innovative opportunities for continued global learning" (p. 9).…”