New Global Program Launches at Dickinson College

Beijing skyline from the water with a bird flying in the foreground.

Program combines education abroad, classroom learning and values-based education

by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson

A new spring 2021 program will combine global education, rigorous classes and values-based education in a novel way.

The Globally Integrated Semester was created at Dickinson in response to the suspension of regular spring 2021 study-abroad programs. Participating students will take a course that connects to a Dickinson study-abroad program and will also participate in a semesterlong workshop that places what they’re learning in the context of the Dickinson values of social justice, sustainability and civic education. After the close of the spring semester, COVID-19 conditions permitting, students will travel to a Dickinson study-abroad site that's related to their course for a three-week abroad experience.  

“This model creates new synergies between our programs abroad and academic departments,” explains Samantha Brandauer ’95, director of Dickinson’s Center for Global Study & Engagement. “It also connects students to their study-abroad destinations throughout the spring semester and weaves together Dickinson’s pillars of global, sustainability, equity and inclusion, and civic action.”  

Globally Integrated Semester classes will be taught or team-taught by Dickinson faculty in the U.S. and abroad. The semesterlong workshop series will be co-facilitated by faculty and staff in Dickinson’s Center for Global Study & Engagement, Center for Sustainability Education, Center for Civic Learning & Action and Office of Equity & Inclusivity

As in previous years, study abroad at Dickinson is available to students in any major. Students earn one credit for the spring course and an additional half-credit after studying abroad.  

The spring 2021 globally integrated courses are:  

  • Argentina: Argentine Adventures Through Contemporary Literature  
  • Brazil: Elementary Portuguese, Portuguese for Speakers of a Romance Language or Brazil in a Latin American Context  
  • Cameroon: Intro to Francophone Studies or African Government and Politics   
  • China: Chinese language: elementary, Intermediate or Advanced (I or II).   
  • Denmark: History of Science 
  • England: Rings of Norwich  
  • France: Contemporary France or From Baragouiner to Kiffer: Multilingual French Identities  
  • Germany: Germany and the Cold War: Emergence, Duration and Demise of the Bipolar World Order of the 20th Century
  • Iceland: Arctic studies (two-week travel portion) 
  • Italy - European Studies: West European Government and Politics or Introduction to Renaissance & Early Baroque Art of Italy and Bologna 
  • Italy - Italian Studies: Intercultural Seminar or Reading and Writing Contemporary Italian Culture 
  • Spain: Spanish for Business Professionals  

Learn more about the Globally Integrated Semester and global education at Dickinson . To apply for the globally integrated course and study-abroad program, students should email global@dickinson.edu.

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Published November 17, 2020