Globalize Your Curriculum, Globalize Your Thinking
February 13, 2020
by Margarita Burciaga, Adjunct Professor of Logistics and Supply Chain Management
Getting selected/being able to participate in the Austin Community College (ACC) 2019-2020 Faculty Learning Community (FLC) Globalizing Curriculum cohort has been a great experience.
With about 10 participants this year, plus some previous year’s advisors, facilitators, and guest speakers, we have been meeting on a monthly basis on Friday mornings for 3 hours throughout the academic year.
This year’s participants come to represent multiple areas of study in the college. We all are at different stages in our careers and lives, which I think is beneficial and makes this experience much more enriching and interesting.
I have enjoyed everything! From breakfast tacos and fruit, to a very well thought out and planned line of guest speakers.
Personally, I have found the topics covered by those guest speakers thought-provoking. It’s been an eye-opening experience, really, to learn about global citizenship and to try to apply this new concept in the context of our careers in the academic world. Ever since we started the FLC’s, I find asking myself the same things: “what is to be a global citizen?” and, “how would a global citizen act in any given situation?”
Just to provide some background, from the perspective of two of our guest speakers, if we all are global citizens, how does that connect to human rights violations on immigration issues in Europe and in Italy in particular? Or, how the same relates to social racialization in Albania?
If we think carefully, those two examples from remote places are not very different from what we have been experiencing lately in this part of the world. The rise of “white power” or “alt-right” nationalist movements in the US have gained numerous supporters who all have a shared belief that promotes white interests above those of other racial groups. But wait, let’s not get too political here.
Since the political scene in many parts of the world has become very complex, we could start analyzing global citizenship concepts in the micro-cosmos of our classes. It’s been great to learn from faculty members from disciplines in economics, nursing, ESL, biology, sociology, etc., and how we all are absorbing these concepts and how we all are trying to think critically and planning to globalize our curricula.
As a Logistics/Supply Chain Management faculty participant, my curriculum already covers a great deal of global issues. We explore topics like global supply chain management, international trade, distribution center, warehouse, and transportation management. With this global baseline, I am planning to expand on issues related to the new initiative for businesses to seek the triple bottom line: profit, people, and planet. Sustainability and corporate responsibility would be other topics to re-discover under the global citizenship framework. Finally, and considering the fact that several of my students come from diverse backgrounds and countries in the world, I plan to include a research project in Warehousing around the world. It’s going to be great!
Thanks, FLC 2019-2020! It’s been a pleasure!