Global Village Academic Course

Fall: Professor Brian Calhoun, Education Department

Helping Across Cultures

In the classes that I teach, I get the unique perspective of seeing students learn more about what motivates them, and what life goals they would like to achieve. It is also my purpose to provide space to discuss issues of global citizenship, and what it means to formulate solutions to global challenges through reflection and informed decision-making. It is my hope that I can help students interpret global events, values, and practices from multiple cultural perspectives from the perspective of a teacher and professional helper.

Spring: Dr. Paul Jones, Chemistry Department

Nucleosynthesis, how elements heavier than helium are created and a survey of the environmental impact of chemistry and the chemical industry

This course is a non-technical version of nucleosynthesis. This will include some introductory astronomy and I will conduct a sky tour with my personal telescope equipment. Crucially in this portion, I will introduce (again, relatively non-technically) spectroscopy. This topic is important because it is how scientists know about objects that are either very far away or very, very small. That is, objects we cannot touch or see. Spectroscopy is central to modern science and plays a significant role in studying the physical and chemical processes at work in the environment. 

In the second part, I will adapt material from my Chm 351 and Chm 120 classes that cover acid rain and the ozone crisis. These are two examples of recognized environmental disasters that humanity acknowledged and addressed globally. The modules will discuss how the problems were addressed and what political/social hurdles had to be overcome in addressing them. The goal is to guide students in analyzing discussion of climate, environmental, and other scientific issues such that they would be better informed to engage in discussions of the most pressing environmental issues of our time.

Fall: Dr. Keri Epps, English Department

Stories help us understand ourselves and others.
Stories serve as the foundation for human connection
and communication. In a global context that constantly
challenges us to (re-)think our values and our community
with others who may not look or speak like we do,
storytelling is key.
In this course, students will engage with topics of global
citizenship through a focus on narrative and storytelling.
“Story” in this class does not simply refer to personal
narratives; rather, we will focus on how cultural
narratives are shaped in and through media and other
written or multimodal genres of writing. In using a broad
understanding of narrative, we will also focus on which
genres of writing and media might open up possibilities
for counter-stories to develop. Additionally, students in
the course will explore theories of rhetorical listening
and empathy from recent Writing Studies research to
meet the Global Village program’s goal of “interpret(ing)
global events, values, and practices from multiple
cultural perspectives.”

Spring: Dr. Nelson Brunsting, RAISE Center

This course is designed to help students develop knowledge and skills useful for increasing self awareness or understanding that an individual’s gender, race/ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, religion, and intersections influence their identity, how they see the world, and how other individuals see them. Further, how do power dynamics and privilege interact with intersectionality to add additional dimensions to intercultural awareness? In this course we will discuss:

• Intercultural awareness, intercultural competence, global competence
• Identity development and intersectionality
• Critical race theory
• Power dynamics

Fall: Dr. Ananda Mitra, Communications Department

The students will learn about key communication theories that can be mobilized to interpret global events, values, and practices from multiple cultural perspectives.  These theories would include: narrative theory to examine how narratives (stories) are increasingly important in how global events are presented within the public sphere with different authors of stories offering different perspectives on a singular event; theories of information flow within the context of international communication particularly as it has evolved in a digitally connected World where the authoritative institutional voice is supplemented by other voices that were previously silenced; the theories examining interpersonal communication where the “profiles” and “stereotypes” offer the lenses through which people would interpret the stories they encounter in the public sphere.

Spring: Dr. Rais Rahman, History Department

This course explores aspects of global living and citizenry through the lens of cultural encounters. As we inhabit an increasingly globalized world, it is next to impossible to imagine our existence without human interactions and connectedness across the planet. The ongoing pandemic has further reiterated this need. Historically, some cultural encounters have happened through wars and conquests while others have taken place through peaceful means such as trade, exchange of knowledge, and diplomacy. Some encounters happen within our local contexts while others across defined political boundaries. In addition, cultural encounters cut across the confines of racial, cultural, religious, linguistic, gender, and cultural identities.

This course considers movements of people and ideas, and human interactions under specific historical sites and moments such as the Silk Roads, the years of 1492 and 1498 as the points of European’s direct contact with the New World and the East respectively, imperialism and colonialism, industrial revolution, the World Wars, and the changing modes of communication. We will consider what entails encounters – from cultural sensitivity to stereotypes, from defining the self to creating the other, and from the eagerness to learn alternative practices to close attention to contextual factors. In nutshell, this course treats cultural encounters as a tool to understand our own selves as both local residents and global citizens and as one of the most effective ways to understand human existence and diversity.

Fall: Dr. Rowie Kirby-Straker, Communications Department

In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, Stephen R. Covey stated “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” This course will take you on a journey of critical thinking and discussion about how listening is approached in different cultures, with a view to improving intercultural communication in various types of relationships. You will realize that listening is an intentional, active, complex, transactional
process of meaning-making, that requires time, effort, training, and reflection. Even as you delve into listening related scholarship, principles, and practice, ultimately, the class is meant to help you hone your listening skills to help in the achievement of your academic, personal, professional, social, and civic goals.

Spring: Dr. Gary Miller, Health & Exercise Science

By the end of the class, students will be able to:

Broad learning skills

• Engage in productive interactions and communications with faculty, fellow students, and members of the community
• Participate in experiential learning opportunities within the campus and broad community
• Work independently and collaboratively to create and present information on a targeted focus
• Assess other students work through a peer-review process

Course specific skills

• Describe nutrition transition
• Critically evaluate scientific literature on the effect of nutrition transition on a culture or region’s health
• Understand the role of the food industry and government policies on food supply
• Describe how the farmer’s crop production alters food supply and the environment.  
• Communicate in oral and written platforms the interconnections between the farmer, policies, industry, food choices and the health of the environment and individuals
• Enhance awareness of social and sustainable issues in the production of targeted foods
• Compare and contrast organic vs. conventional production on the health of the environment and individual

Fall: Dr. Omaar Hena, English Department

This class will explore debates over free speech over the past century. We will begin by examining some foundational texts on free speech, especially as they impact oppressed and marginalized groups including members of the lower classes, racial minorities, women, and sexual minorities. After establishing this critical foundation, we will then examine contemporary debates over free speech and dissent on college campuses. For instance, we will read Stanley Fish’s arguments against free speech; debates over hate speech and race in Henry Louis Gates, Robert Post, and Bhikhu Parekh; and on-going debates over whether universities “coddle students” (as Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt claim) or whether campus protests are the means for students to claim agency and articulate themselves as “the new intellectuals” (as Walt Hunter argues in The Atlantic Monthly).

Spring: Dr. Beth Ann Way, Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

Works of testimony and witness are key to giving a voice to those we may not hear on a daily basis due to geographic, socioeconomic, linguistic, racial, and national divides. Yet, these are some of the most important ways of voicing how someone experiences and understands global citizenship. We also get to hear from those where their citizenship is denied, unacknowledged, or not wanted. Testimonials can be delivered in a variety of forms; memoirs, documentaries, literature, film, and visual art all stand to teach us something about the speaker’s world and most importantly in his or her own words or images. In this course we shall specifically analyze the intersections of gender, class, race and nationality to understand what global citizenship means to a variety of writers and artists around the world. Texts— whether visual, aural, or printed—all have a unique rationale for voicing their ideas and speaking to a specific audience. Through discussion, debate, writing, and creative projects, students will be exposed to a variety of ways to view global citizenship through five global competencies – expression, engagement, discourse, inquiry, and connections.

Fall: Dr. Alessandra Von Burg, Department of Communication, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

The purpose of this course is to explore the history and theory of citizenship as a participatory and deliberative global practice. We focus on the role of discourse, invention, and imagination in the making of permanent citizens, long-term residents, newcomers, and our role as temporary citizens, along with the norms and rules that make each of these roles unique.

The course emphasizes participatory and deliberative skills as part of the process in which communities are formed and citizens emerge as members, stressing unconventional examples of citizens who exist or struggle in unexplored geographical and metaphysical spaces, like beyond and in between Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, and the surrounding region, the United States as a nation, and the larger global context. Examples may include discourses around what we may consider ideal citizens locally, nationally, and globally; instances of creative and engaged citizenship; traditional and unconventional ways to bring about change; and unique contributions to Wake and the local, national, and global community.

Spring: Professor Barbara Lentz, School of Law

We seek to increase knowledge and capacity for intercultural communication and inquiry, community interaction, and global responsibility by studying humanitarian aid and nongovernmental responses to international disasters. Our work is designed to help students: interpret global events from multiple perspectives; discover and explain how their assumptions influence their understanding; and formulate solutions to global challenges. Course work will encourage each student to reflect on how the student will respond the next time there is a disaster by applying lessons learned to future relief and humanitarian aid, and also to develop the student’s: awareness of our own and other’s ways of making meaning; ability to manage emotions and thoughts; and capacity to bridge cultural gaps in our residential, campus, local, and global communities.

Lead Faculty

Dr. Kline Harrison, Associate Provost for Global Affairs and Kemper Professor of Business

Description

This course is meant to analyze and explore global perspectives. The audience of this class is the Global Village Learning and Living community of Spring 2017. The purpose is to expose students to a variety of ways to view global citizenship. Three primary questions motive this class (How do I know? Who am I? and How do I relate to others?). In order to answer these questions, three domains, Cognitive, Intrapersonal, and Interpersonal, have been identified as lenses to understanding global perspectives. Within each domain are two core competencies (Cognitive: knowing and knowledge, Intrapersonal: identity and affect, and Interpersonal: social responsibility and social interactions). Each competency will be explored through two week modules conducted by professors across disciplines. After completing this course, students should be able to understand, articulate, and engage with the pluralistic development of our society.

Guest Faculty: Fall

Dr. Alessandra Von Burg, Department of Communication, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures

Dr. Steve Folmar, Department of Anthropology

Dr. Rebecca Thomas, Department of German & Russian

Dr. Lisa Kiang, Department of Psychology

Guest Faculty: Spring

Dr. Ron Von Burg, Department Commmunication

Dr. Ana Iltis, Department of Philosophy

Dr. Tanaisha Ramachandran, Department for the Study of Religions

Lead Faculty

Dr. Kline Harrison, Associate Provost for Global Affairs and Kemper Professor of Business

Description

This course is designed to create discussion on issues of global citizenship for the Global Village Learning and Living community. The purpose is to expose students to a variety of ways to view global citizenship. Five global competencies (Expression, Engagement, Discourse, Inquiry, and Connections) have been identified as lenses to understanding global citizenship. Each competency is explored through two week lecture series which are conducted by professors across disciplines. This class is designed to be taken twice, once in the Fall semester and once in Spring semester, by all members of the Global Village LLC. After completing this course, students should be able to understand, articulate, and engage in the many facets of global citizenship.

Fall: Guest Faculty

Dr. Tanaisha Ramachandran, Department of the Study of Religions

Dr. Mary Gerardy, Pro Humanitate Institute

Dr. Alessandra Von Burg, Department of Communication, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures

Dr. John Dalton, Department of Economics

Spring: Guest Faculty

Dr. Paul Thacker, Department of Anthropology

Dr. Ian Taplin, Department of Sociology

Dr. Simon Illesami, Department of the Study of Religions

Dr. Ron Von Burg, Department of Communication

Dr. Helga Welsh, Department of Political Science