New learning and teaching from where you've been: The global intercultural experience for undergraduates

Abstract

When we began to design the Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates (GIEU) at the University of Michigan, we were looking to create a comprehensive program that would have a profound impact on the way students learned at the university and on the way faculty approached their students and taught. This was in addition to the mandate to both broaden and increase the level of "global" education at the university and to make sure that such a program drew in a far more diverse range of students and faculty than past efforts at experiential, community, or international learning. We wanted to be sure that our program had a positive impact on the community sites that were involved and a lasting impact on campus as well, building real and recognized skills among the student and faculty participants. All of these goals demanded a rigorous assessment regime and a complex and integrated set of activities that would build and develop from each other around a set of central field experiences. Program DescriptionEach year GIEU funds eight to twelve faculty-proposed projects at sites both domestic and international. Each group is diverse and includes ten to fourteen undergraduates (GIEU student scholars) from across the university, 55 7

Towards a Global Virtual Community of Female Engineering Students and Professionals: I. Impacts of Grassroots International Partnerships of Student Organizations on U.S. Engineering Undergraduate Cultural Competency

“…the University of Michigan undergraduates resided in separate spaces from the Liberian students and participated in separate activities), and due to the difference in academic disciplines between the two groups (i.e. the University of Michigan participants for this specific program were selected from a variety of disciplines from the University of Michigan with a small percentage having a background in engineering, and therefore as a whole a missing shared interest in engineering) [11].…”