NC State ACE At Home in the World Faculty Fellows Named

Ten Proposals Selected for Development of International and Multicultural Education

In the fall of 2011, NC State joined the American Council on Education’s current three-year At Home in the World: Educating for Global Connections and Local Commitments initiative, which is aimed at promoting collaboration between internationalization and diversity/multicultural education on college and university campuses.

Along with seven other institutions named to the project, NC State’s cohort explores connections between on-campus international and diversity efforts that prepare students for the impacts of globalization and improve cultural communication skills among students, faculty and staff. Ingrid Schmidt, Assistant Vice Provost for International Affairs and Director of Study Abroad, and Joanne Woodard, Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, lead NC State’s At Home in the World initiative and team.

To date, the project has generated multiple efforts, including a new course housed in Counselor Education titled ECD 296: Developing Cross-Cultural Competence for Professional Success that was launched in 2012; research-based collaborations to examine the global competencies required by business and industry from today’s students; the development of workshops for faculty and staff to increase knowledge of cultural competence concepts; and partnerships with academic units to identify discipline-specific global learning outcomes to develop well matched programs and courses.

Recently, ten NC State At Home in the World Faculty Fellows were named:

Agnes Bolonyai, Department of English: “Language in Globalization,” an undergraduate course “examining language, identity, and culture in globalization.”

Chandra Cox, Department of Art + Design: “Summer Design Studio in Johannesburg, South Africa," to exchange “perspectives of American youth culture” for exposure to “the practice of design for profit in African nations.”

Sandria Freitag, Department of History: “NonProfits in the Global Context,” an undergraduate course examining “NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), which serve as both a crucial component and a revealing characteristic of the strength and effectiveness of a country’s civil society.”

Suzie Goodell, Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition Sciences: “Food and Culture,” an undergraduate course examining the food preferences and practices of “a myriad of cultures” within the United States that persist even after groups of people “acculturate and assimilate into a new society.”

Crystal Hayes, Department of Social Work: “Exploratory Trip to Cape Town, South Africa,” a “trip to plan for a 2014 summer course or volunteer opportunities in Cape Town, South Africa on international human rights, social justice, and social work leadership.”

Charles Ludington, Department of History: “How Did We Get Here? A Global History of American Food and Drink,” an undergraduate course examining the “history of food and drink through a global and interdisciplinary perspective.”

D. Seth Murray, Department of International Studies: “Sixteen Intercultural Competency Instructional Modules,” a series of modules “centered on the intercultural competency and multicultural training of NC State students enrolled in International Studies courses both pre- and post-study abroad.”

Francis L. de los Reyes, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering: “Water and Sanitation for Developing Countries,” an undergraduate course for juniors that will discuss “the global realities of water and sanitation infrastructure in developing countries, with a focus on sustainable and appropriate approaches.”

Lori Snyder, Crop Science: “Feast or Famine,” an undergraduate course focusing on “the change of the global landscape in the last decades as well as the causes of hunger and famine from a global perspective."

Lori Thompson, Department of Psychology: “Voluntourism,” an instructional module that provides an “evidence-based, theory-driven, balanced perspective on the complexities surrounding the delivery of short-term volunteer aid work abroad.”