Globalization is shrinking the world, transforming every aspect of our lives, including higher education.
“Baruch needs to prepare students with the linguistic, cultural, social, and political abilities to navigate a globalized world,” says Jeffrey Peck, dean of the Mildred and George Weissman School of Arts and Sciences and vice provost of global strategies.
At the same time, U.S. colleges are becoming increasingly diverse, presenting educators with both an opportunity and a challenge. “Diversity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for globalization,” Peck explains. “A global perspective implies experiencing one’s own perspective refracted through multiple lenses.”
Peck is CUNY’s representative to the WC2 University Network, a consortium of universities located in world cities. In April Baruch hosted a WC2 summit, and Peck organized a panel discussion on the challenges of educating for a global workplace.
“One size doesn’t fit all anymore,” says Peck of study abroad programming. “Students have different intellectual and economic needs.” Most Baruch students, who have very limited resources and lack the luxury of extending their course of study, cannot study abroad for a semester, much less a year. A year abroad defined the international experience a generation ago, explains Peck.
The College has responded to Baruch-specific challenges by creating short experiences abroad. In January, Baruch offered courses on arts and culture in Cuba, economics and sustainability in Costa Rica, and on European business practices in Lyon, France.
The Lyon course “offers a level of immersion you only dream of,” says Richard Mitten, Baruch’s study abroad director. “Our MBA students are studying next to French students in courses that are a required part of the Lyon curriculum.”
While offering more options for shorter international learning experiences, Baruch has also managed to buck the trend. The new undergraduate international business major requires students to spend a semester abroad. To facilitate the experience, Mitten negotiated exchange agreements with several international institutions, ensuring students get full credit towards their IB major.
The Zicklin School of Business, like many of its American counterparts, led the international charge on campus—success in the business world has long required a global perspective. But now, the urgency to provide a worldview is being felt at public affairs schools also, according to David Birdsell, dean of the School of Public Affairs. “Although national identity, politics, and economics do shape policy, students need to know how other societies have addressed problems, as well as what has been done historically in their own country,” he says. Many policy issues, Birdsell adds, are international to begin with, including the environment, immigration, and legal rights in a digital age.
This fall, SPA and Belgium’s Ghent University will offer linked graduate courses on aging populations. About half the classes will be teleconferenced, and students will tackle problems in small groups via Skype.
While massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are demonstrating the potential of U.S. universities to educate the world, SPA’s more collaborative endeavor may demonstrate how the world can educate Baruch students. If successful, the Internet’s ability to foster global perspectives is likely to be exploited by other Baruch courses. After all, says Birdsell, “the College has a mission imperative to provide students with a world’s worth of learning and best practices.”
—Brian Kell
Related Article: Baruch College: A Global Player