Higher education
become richer and deeper. As for the disproportionate num- ber of upper-middle-class female students taking part in study-away opportunities at PLU and across the U.S., the university has a plan for that too. Williams said adding global curricula that traditionally appeals to males, like science or business, will help.
For students who can’t afford
to go, PLU plans to establish more global experiences at home. One example might be for the school to tap its students into a population of Sumatrans living in Seattle to build domestic intercultural competence. “You don’t have to go to another country to exercise those skills,” Krise said. That can take many forms. Global education can be serving others,
which Martin Luther emphasized; or striving to eliminate poverty, as Wang envisioned; studying the global environment through lit- erature, as Bergman promotes; or tapping into foreign communities at home, as Krise sees. And it’s about preventing another
9/11. “The best hope we have in not blowing up the world is global edu- cation,” Anderson said.
Shining a light on global education at home A
ll 26 ELCA colleges and universities offer students the opportunity to study abroad through programs of their own and with partners. A few meet and even surpass Pacific Lutheran Universi-
ty’s 40 percent of students who study-away, to say nothing of the 3 percent national rate. Like the Tacoma, Wash., school, some ELCA colleges have or are planning new interpretations of global studies at home. It may be because it’s easier or less expensive for students and the college, or perhaps it’s a deeper apprecia- tion of what immigrant communities have to offer. Even before freshmen at California Lutheran Univer-
sity, Thousand Oaks, settled into class this fall, they had a chance to participate in a five-day immersion called Telios: Urban Experience.
Five students lived with Salvadoran immigrant families
in Los Angeles in August. They studied urban social jus- tice issues involving hunger, youth and workers. And they served with organizations such as the St. Francis Center for the homeless, the Mama’s Hot Tamales economic develop- ment project and HomeBoy Industries.
The idea is that CLU students will gain cross-cultural awareness without leaving the country, then build on it, said CLU spokeswoman Karin Grennan. In the past, students researched the local Armenian pop- ulation and drafted position papers on whether the Turkish acts against them in 1915 should be recognized as geno- cide. They submitted their papers to lawmakers. CLU students also visited a Thai community in Los Angeles, analyzed whether social services were hitting the mark, and made recommendations for improvements. Wagner College also takes global education local. The Staten Island, N.Y., institution provides students with opportunities to serve Latino, Liberian and Muslim com- munities on the island.
38 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa, which upped its international student count from 129 last year to 150 this year, values what they bring to the education table. “Even students who might not be able to leave cam- pus have a common resource with all the international students. That’s part of the experience of learning to be part of a bigger world, interacting with people from other cultures,” Wartburg spokesman Saul Shapiro said. Nataly Kelly, a 1996 Wartburg graduate who works at Common Sense Advisory, a language-services company in Boston, told Shapiro about the impact that rubbing elbows with international students has had on her: “I continually run into people with misconceptions. They’ll say something about Pakistan, and I’ll say that I went to college with a few students from Pakistan. I knew that my friends from Pakistan were always watch- ing Bollywood films from India. I remember thinking, that’s weird. But Urdu and Hindi are mutually intel- ligible, so they can understand everything that’s said, although the written languages are different. I learned that at Wartburg.” Some ELCA colleges and universities link study with travel. Students study a region’s history, culture and art before setting foot on a plane—preparation that can transform a trip into a life sojourn. Wagner’s Expanding Your Horizons program calls for a semester of study before a two-week visitation during winter or spring breaks. Bangladesh was a destination this year.
Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa., also links study to travel through its Integrated Learning Abroad pro- gram. Destinations also have included Bangladesh, as well as Costa Rica, China, Turkey and Ghana. Spain and Egypt will be added in spring 2013.
Rachel Pritchett
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