CEHS global course proposals earn NU startup grants


Global Competency

CEHS global course proposals earn NU startup grants

29 Jan 2018     By Brad Stauffer

The College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln has landed two successful applications in the University of Nebraska’s “Global Perspectives in the Curriculum” funding competition. Courses proposed by faculty members in Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education (TLTE) and in Nutrition and Health Sciences (NHS) were selected for $5,000 development grants. The courses were designed, in part, to respond to the college’s “grand challenge” focus on immigrant, migrant and multi-cultural populations.

TLTE course

Beginning in the spring of 2019, professors Loukia Sarroub and Ted Hamann will co-teach two different courses under the topic of “Migration, Glocality, and Education in Transnational Times.” Students in a first-year undergraduate course will study how migration, education and transnationalism builds on the key concept of glocality—the present and increasing set of global activities and discourses about locality, community and home in everyday life. The course will help students better understand contemporary migration glocally, both domestic and international, both authorized and unauthorized, and to see how education systems are ready (and not) to respond to these dynamics. The course will reside in TLTE but will be cross-listed in the Department of Anthropology and will be highly pertinent to students across campus.

The other course combines more advanced UCARE undergraduate students and graduate students for advanced inquiry on the topic. The more advanced course will focus on how to teach about education and migration, and feature small group discussion. The two courses will be intertwined and bring together first-year students and advanced students in a unique mentoring and teaching and learning environment.

“With international migration nearly tripling between 1960 and 2015 and with political turmoil, climate change, and changing notions of welcome precipitating still more movement, human migration may be the most important issue of the 21st Century,” said Sarroub and Hamann in their proposal.

NHS course

“Global Research Experiences in Nutrition and Health” was proposed by Mary Willis, professor of Nutrition and Health Sciences, and Catherine Frasier Riehle, associate professor, University Libraries. The undergraduate level course will provide students with an opportunity to structure a global research experience; strengthen their research, science and information literacy skills; and extend and document their global competency. With mentoring from NHS faculty, students will conduct “real-life” research pertaining to global topics, and share their findings in biannual symposia on campus.

Willis, who has led numerous education abroad opportunities for Nebraska students, says the course builds upon international research experiences and provides “a structured curriculum that would allow them to enhance and maximize their global knowledge.”

Students will be able to discuss global issues from a science-based perspective and present and share their global research experiences in an academic conference-style presentation and publication, such as a poster, extended abstract or manuscript. 

“Once armed with new science and information literacy skills, we hope students will be able to research any global issue or topic with competence and ease,” said Willis. “We also hope that students gain a new interest in the world, both in terms of diversity and problem-solving, and find it worthwhile to stay abreast of global issues. Finally, it is our hope that students will be motivated to pursue international topics, issues and education on their own once the course has ended.”

The two proposals from CEHS were the only ones awarded at UNL. Other awards went to:

University of Nebraska at Kearney

  • Matt Mims, Counseling and School Psychology
  • Sharon Obasi, Family Studies

University of Nebraska Medical Center:

  • Andrew Patterson, Anesthesiology, and a team of others from the UNMC departments of Anesthesiology, Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics

University of Nebraska Omaha:

  • Lyn Holley and Chuck Powell, Gerontology
  • Ramazan Kilinc, Political Science

College of Education and Human Sciences
Nutrition and Health Sciences
Teaching, Learning & Teacher Education