TO: Dr. Richard J. Telfer
Associate Vice Chancellor
UW-Whitewater
FROM: Sibdas Ghosh, Chair
General Education Review Committee
Department of Biological Sciences
UH 327; x 5138
DATE: May 9, 2000
RE: Recommendation of Self Study Report for 900-140 (Global Perspectives)
The General Education Review Committee has met on Thursday, April 20, 2000, at 3:45 p.m. in UC 213. The committee has approved to forward the self-study report for 900-140 (Global Perspectives) submitted by Dr. Jayati Ghosh of Geography & Geology and Dr. Anne Hamilton of Political Science. The GERC also recommends that the UCC accept the report and take appropriate actions.
CC: Dr. Lawrence Schuetz, Co-ordinator
General Education Program
Dr. Jayati Ghosh
Dr. Anne Hamilton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SELF-STUDY
REPORT: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES (900-140)
University of
Wisconsin-Whitewater
April 1, 2000
A. Sources of information in
this report
Information
included in this report is based on course syllabi, interviews with individual
instructors, a workshop attended by Global Perspectives instructors, timetable
information, the General Education Review Committee Report (May 1992), the Core
Course (Global Perspectives) 1998 review, the Undergraduate Bulletin, and
student evaluations.
B. Compliance with Course
Guidelines
Core
readings are intended to expose students to important ideas in the areas of
economics, geography, and political science, as well as key social science
concepts essential for a basic understanding of international trends, problems,
and issues of global importance. Each
of the three departments teaching the course has chosen a different set of
texts to meet those goals (see course syllabi, attached), reflecting their
differing disciplinary backgrounds.
The General Education Committee Review Committee
(1992) report indicated that Global Perspectives should achieve the following:
1.
Help
students identify countries of the world and basic geographical features and
patterns of resource
distribution.
2.
Discuss
international current events and world problems.
3.
Include
information on contemporary population concepts and trends.
4.
Help
students to understand factors contributing to regional conflicts.
5.
Compare
political and economic systems and their effects on international relations.
6.
Explore
relationships between nations.
The
major subject areas of the Global Perspectives course 8 years later, as
reflected in the attached syllabi, include the following: core-periphery
structure, population concepts and trends, patterns of resource distribution,
patterns of development, human welfare issues, environmental issues, the
sources of international conflict and cooperation, comparative political and
economic systems, international trade, women in international politics, human
rights issues, and the major institutions (or actors) in international
relations. In addition, instructors in the political science and geography departments
devote considerable time to map exercises and discussion of current events.
On
the basis of discussions in a Global Perspectives workshop held in May/June
1999, as well as the course outlines in the syllabi, it is apparent that the
faculty from Political Science and Geography are more committed than the
faculty from Economics to an interdisciplinary approach in teaching this
course. The course, as it is taught in
Economics, has little overlap with the courses in the other two
departments. There is scant coverage of
international political or geographic issues in the economics sections. By contrast, the faculty from the political
science and geography departments consciously adopts a multidisciplinary approach
in teaching the course.
1.
Anne
Hamilton and Jayati Ghosh replaced Zohreh Ghavamshahidi as coordinators for
year 1999-2000.
2.
Sections
taught:
Departments |
Spring 1998 |
Fall 1998 |
Spring 1999 |
Fall 1999 |
Spring 2000 |
Economics
|
5 |
6 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
|
Geography |
7 |
10 |
5 |
8 |
7 |
|
Political
Sci |
12 |
14 |
13 |
16 |
11 |
|
TOTAL |
24 |
30 |
23 |
29 |
23 |
Since the last report was
written in 1997 there has been very little turnover in faculty teaching the
Political Science and Geography sections of Global Perspectives. The three faculties currently teaching Geography
sections were teaching Global in 1997.
Of the five faculties currently teaching Political Science sections,
four have been teaching the course since at least fall 1997; the fifth began in
fall 1998. By contrast, there has been
considerable turnover in the economics faculty teaching the course. This turnover undermines the coordination of
approaches between the three departments.
3.
Geography
has offered one section of Global Perspectives each summer and one section
during winterim
99/00;
Economics has offered one section in winterim 98/99.
4.
Two
of the Political Science sections currently being offered (spring 2000) are web
courses. All instruction
and
student/faculty interaction takes place over the web. See the attached syllabus (Susan Johnson) in the
appendix.
5.
The
Department of Geography has revised its Global
Perspectives Geography Core Course Readings on an
annual
basis.
6.
Increased
efforts have been made by all faculties to incorporate instructional technology
into course. All
sections
rely heavily on the WWW, and other technology.
For example, course homepages include many
relevant
links to the WWW.
7.
During
May/June 1999, the three departments held a joint workshop on the course. Two representatives
from the
Department of Economics (Tom Schweigert and Jeff Anstine), one from the
Department of
Geography
(Jayati Ghosh) and six from Political Science (Paul Adogamhe, Ken Glaudell,
Zohreh
Ghavamshahidi,
Anne Hamilton, Susan Johnson, and Farhad Malekafzali) participated. The objectives
of the workshop
were the following:
a.
To integrate course materials from all three disciplines.
b.
To encourage further cooperation and communication among instructors
from the three
departments.
c.
To create a common database in forms of both hard print and or electronic
as primary
text
that includes basic theories in political science, economics, and geography.
d.
To share information on education materials, such as maps, documentary
videos,
games,
etc.
Objective
b and d were met successfully during the course of the workshop. There was extensive discussion and
evaluation of syllabi, course resources, and different teaching methodologies
adopted. Participants found this aspect
of the workshop very valuable.
The
workshop was less successful in meeting objectives a and c, both of which
involve greater integration and coordination of course materials across
disciplines. As noted above, the
representatives of the Department of Economics were not fully committed to
teaching a multidisciplinary course.
Further, although objective c had been agreed upon during the last
review, the participants decided that an effort to produce a CD-ROM and other
hard print or electronic primary text was not necessary at this point. Since the course covers issues that change
every day, we need to maximize flexibility with respect to materials used in
the course. We also all use the WWW
extensively in class. Given the vast
amount of material available on the WWW and the ease of access to it in the
classroom, there was little enthusiasm for devoting energies to the production
of a CD-ROM.
8.
Prof. Ghosh contributed questions related to Global Perspectives as part
of the development of an assessment tool for the General Education,
administered by the Learn Center.
It
is somewhat difficult at this point in the development of the General Education
program to plan future activities, given the uncertain future enrollment in
Global Perspectives as a result of the recently approved changes in the core
curriculum. Nor do we know how the
changes will affect staffing in Economics, Political Science or Geography.
The
faculty in Political Science and Geography are concerned about the adopted
changes from a curricular perspective as well.
With the internationalization of the curriculum, which is one of
Chancellor Miller’s goals and has been promoted by the UW- System for a number
of years, the decision to allow students to choose between Global Perspectives
and US History in a World Context will likely result in students having less exposure to international
issues. Even if the international
component of the curriculum of US History in a World Context is enhanced, the
overall effect of the changes in the core is to have students take one course
instead of two with international content.
In the US History Course, the focus is on the US perspective, as it
should be. What most of our students
lack is an international perspective, an appreciation for other worldviews and
cultures, which is currently offered in Global Perspectives. Students who have taken the course since the
last review have generally responded favorably to it, judging from student
course evaluations. One of the
complaints in the past review – that faculty teaching the course suffer from
lower evaluations in core courses than in other courses because the students
are required to take the core course – is no longer an issue. Faculty teaching the course in geography and
political science receive higher than average teaching evaluations, with no
significant variation between scores for Global Perspectives and other
departmental courses.
Despite
the uncertain future of Global Perspectives, faculty teaching it are committed
to achieving the goals of the course, in particular, and of the General
Education program, in general. As
indicated in the recommendations, we plan to have annual workshops to
coordinate our efforts to remain up-to-date with respect to the key themes and
issues covered in the course.
E. Recommendations
1. Faculty lectures in areas of expertise in other departments. The
course is multidisciplinary, but the professors
who teach the courses are trained in a single discipline. Such guest lectures would help to enrich the
learning
experience for the student.
For example, Prof. Ghosh could lecture on population trends in political
science
and economic sections.
Similarly, Prof. Hamilton could lecture on the United Nations in the
economics and
geography sections.
2. Observing each others’ classes to promote commonality in
approaches and communication across
departments.
3. Hold an annual summer workshop for course enhancement. Workshops would be organized around a
substantive theme and participants would be required to
research and present information from their
disciplinary perspective.
This could help us to update our courses with multidisciplinary
material.
4. Increase efforts to incorporate instructional technology into all
sections of Global Perspectives, as a
means of making the course more interesting and current for
students.
5. Consider having Department of Women’s Studies offer sections of
Global Perspectives. This would
contribute to the system-wide effort to internationalize the
curriculum, and to integrate issues faced
by women at a global level into the curriculum. In addition, based on discussions at the
last Global
Perspectives workshop (May- June 1999) it was clear that the
present course content does not focus
on the issues faced by women at global scale. The past decade has been a decade of
globalization.
Political and economic changes, technological advances, global
integration have altered the lives of
people all over the world, especially women. There is a need to examine and expose the
students to
information related to global changes and the impact on women
and contemporary issues facing women
worldwide.
6. Consider a team-taught multidisciplinary section, perhaps an
honors section, with professors from
Political Science, Geography, and Women’s Studies. This would provide depth and balance among
areas and disciplines, as well as an exciting new opportunity
for students.