SMC
Launches “Global Citizenship” Crusade |
By Jorge Casuso
November 27 -- Santa Monica College is launching a pioneering
“crusade” that will help all students become “global
citizens” in a world of “great opportunities but also
sobering responsibilities,” college President Chui Tsang announced
this month.
In a keynote
address delivered at the USC Rossier School of Education, Tsang
outlined an ambitious program backed by a special task force, faculty,
student leaders and the Board of Trustees that calls for adding
required courses, expanding the study abroad program and offering
a lecture series.
“We have embarked on an exciting campuswide campaign – maybe even
a crusade – to prepare our students for the future world,” Tsang
said in the November 15 keynote speech.
“We as educators understand -- and increasingly, our students instinctively
know -- that the rules have changed,” Tsang said. “And
they continue to change almost daily, it seems.
“The old way of doing things is simply not going to work. This change
must affect all students who come through our doors, regardless of which area
of studies they will be focused on.”
Among the steps taken in its “global citizenship” drive, the college
has:
• Sent a group of faculty, trustees and administrators to conferences
and seminars in New York, Salzburg and Beijing. In China, the SMC delegation
discussed offering joint programs with an educational institution in Beijing.
• Adopted global citizenship as a major area for development, concentrating
on four areas -- curriculum, study abroad, international students, and international
commerce and education.
• Formed a Global Citizenship Task Force that was quickly expanded to
include administrators and non-teaching employees.
• Set aside funds for three years in its budget to support the development
of the academic concept of global citizenship.
• Launched a Global Connections Lecture Series held every semester that
covers a wide range of international topics.
Exposing students to new opportunities, international ravel and students from
other nations will prepare them for an increasingly interconnected world, Tsang
said.
“Advances in technology and transportation have greatly reduced the time
and work it took to communicate directly with one another over a long distance
or for one to travel across the vast oceans that separate the continents,”
Tsang told the crowd.
“The rise of the market economy on a Global scale has also opened up
national boundaries, which has eased the transfer of goods and people,”
Tsang said, adding that there are “new challenges we must face in this
increasingly global community.”
While other schools teach world history and politics, foreign languages and
international commerce, SMC plans to take it a step further by focusing on turning
students into global citizens who are “knowledgeable of peoples, customs
and cultures in regions of the world beyond one’s own.”
“The term differs from more traditional approaches to globalizing or internationalizing
the curriculum,” Tsang said. “It is more far-reaching and it addresses
explicitly not only knowledge, comprehension and opportunity, but also to responsibility.
“There is a moral imperative for the community college to ensure that
our students will benefit from the trends and opportunities of globalization,”
Tsang said. “Moreover, our potential as a nation to fit into
the global community and maintain our leadership position may depend
on our success in nurturing our diverse students to become our leaders
in the next few decades.”
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