The Assumptions
Keys to Outcomes: Studying together is key. Studying the right things once students are together is also key. Studying in an online classroom can build strong social bonds, and when augmented by trips, the social bonding increases even more. Cross-cultural friendship is a powerful social tool. Creating millions of these friendships means having a wider foundation upon which to build multicultural understanding, and peace.
International Exchange and Study Abroad: The Initiative assumes that people who study and interact with their colleagues from other parts of the world will make more worldly decisions when it is time to do so. The virtues of international exchange and study abroad are obvious to all who have ever experienced them. If education is designed to free a person's mind, there are few things that do it better than exchange. Perhaps a perfectly designed education system would ensure that this would happen. But we do not have a perfect system for many reasons. Some students do not have the financial means to exchange, and some are constricted by tight academic schedules, among others. The C-Global-E program of studying together online and periodically experiencing short, well-designed trips should provide these students with an opportunity to do so, irrespective of their majors or financial means. Most organizations thus far have understood that a program like this would ultimately increase students' and faculty's appetites for longer-term study abroad. In no way is this a threat to traditional study abroad. To the contrary, this should be a windfall for it.
Logistically Possible: Technology and the evolution/revolution in online learning are providing solutions to many of these impediments. Students from disparate locations can easily and inexpensively come together online. Exciting new technologies like Second Life provide hyper-interaction on an electronic level. Not only will it be rewarding academically, it will be fun.
A Precedent: In the same way that millions of adults rushed back into education on the strength of the online education evolution/revolution, so will students in the coming decade wanting an international experience. Given the opportunity to study with students from fifteen different countries and experience life-changing activities with them, students will rush to it as well. Online education has empowered millions of adults. It now has the ability to empower millions of traditional-aged undergraduates and let them experience the world in a way that they could not have before.
Vehicle: This model does not establish a new university. Thus, it does not need to be burdened with millions of dollars of marketing money to attract new students. It utilizes existing universities and their existing students. The model assumes that universities want their undergraduates to experience some sort of study abroad experience, but the model also assumes that by virtue of the extremely low percentage of students worldwide who are able to study abroad, that we as educators have a fairly large hole to fill. All presidents, vice presidents, deans, and faculty members at universities where this concept has been shared have fully agreed on the need to be filled and the viability of this vehicle to fill it.
Curriculum: The curriculum will most likely fit into any average student’s academic plan, and most likely will qualify the student for a minor in international studies or some other kind of recognition.It is assumed that courses taken would qualify for core or elective courses at each school, but most schools already have some version of these courses on their books. If they do not, their dean would simply have to sign off on the transfer credit. The school whose professor teaches the class would most likely issue the credits. Students pay their own schools their own tuition.
Small Planet: For many years our civilization, and its underlying education system, was built upon a presupposition of a large planet, numerous frontiers, and highly autonomous countries. The Initiative builds upon a presupposition of a small world, finite resources, and the desperate need for nations to collaborate economically and politically and for individuals to understand each other’s culture and religion.
Long-term: The Initiative presumes that education is a partial but effective long-term solution to the challenges noted above. Education cannot solve everything, but it probably has the best chance of making the most impact. Education is very effective in the long-term, but it takes years to germinate and turn into products, legislation, and scientific breakthroughs. It is the solution at the most grass-roots level, changing the way future business, NGO, and government leaders think, act, and interact.
Mainstream: The Initiative will not be an education for extremists on the left or right. It is a mainstream organization designed to educate millions of students in sound, realistic, and workable approaches and which recognizes the reality of economic, political, and social systems and works within them. While stating such values upfront may offend a few, the Initiative is designed to appeal to the masses. It does not chastise capitalism; rather it celebrates it while seeking to push it in directions that can work for a small, borderless planet of limited resources and uneven benefit. It does not embrace far-flung, radical environmentalism, but seeks to make students aware of impending challenges of living on a small planet, educating them to possible solutions, and challenging them to develop better solutions. It is not an organization that grasps protectionism and inward-looking political and economic isolation, rather one that believes that autonomous countries working together within a cooperative framework can indeed make a difference.
Impact: With the arrival of each new decade, global education as described herein would geometrically increase in its stabilizing effect. Young students turn into business people, politicians, and NGO leaders. They then develop new products, new legislation, and new attempts at diplomacy. A few foundational blocks are laid the first decade, twice that many in the second, and 100 times that many in the third.Though we will never be Utopian bound, the probability of social stability, maintained economic growth, and environmental sustainability can drastically increase with several generations of leaders educated to be aware of and work together in the areas above.
Other important issues:
The Initiative is not a get-rich-quick educational scheme, though it is quite capable of maintaining surpluses. It will use pre-existing resources initially, and then generate its own resources eventually to ensure its mission is met.
I do not pretend that programs with this underlying spirit of mission do not already exist. But they are few in number and tend to involve a high degree of residency at the institution or at a partner institution in another country. The programs that do exist are not marketed to the degree that is needed to make a dent in the worldwide challenges mentioned above. Existing programs generally are sponsored by one organization or two at the most. What is anticipated with The Initiative is that it would become a far-reaching phenomenon, an educational approach so successful that it would become more of the norm instead of a small slice of the overall distribution.
At the formation and endowment level, the Initiative will be powered by people with vision who want to have a long-term effect on social stability, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. At the academic institutional level, the organization will be backed by curriculum and programming from some of the world’s top universities and academicians who share the vision and who will benefit from a wider distribution of their programming. In years past, such an effort would not have worked, as education was delivered in vertical segments by individual institutions that provided all of the components of the value chain. With the decoupling of that value chain in the last ten years, it is more acceptable for academic institutions, faculty, governments, marketing specialists, and even private investors to come together to provide education on a far wider and deeper scale, each one bringing their special talents and resources to the Initiative. Universities are becoming more accustomed to working with strategic partners on joint ventures or research projects. The Initiative will leverage that trend and enable a dozen or so universities from around the world to provide the world to their students, wherever they are, and make a long-term difference in the world.
We, as faculty, must step out of our vertical integration if we want to have a world-wide impact, not just a local one. It is we who hold the keys to this successfully working. If a handful of faculty at a handful of institutions embrace this opportunity, we can bring about great change.
We will be methodical in our planning, and once launched, we will be measuring a number of benchmarks so that we can share our successes with organizations capable of endowing our efforts within C-Global-E. At the individual school level, such international activities are quite marketable as fundraising magnets for individual school campaigns. This Initiative should provide plenty of magnetism for such campaigns.
Please continue reading on Page #5 - The Role of C-Global-E
Education for Long-term Peace, Economic Prosperity, and
Environmental Sustainability
