Northern Arizona University
IN-2: Innovation 2

The Global Learning Initiative aims to engage all academic departments and programs at Northern Arizona in an intentional process of infusing global perspectives in the curriculum as a way of preparing students to become globally competent. The principal site for global learning is viewed to be the major but the liberal studies program and the co-curriculum are also important sites that can be marshaled in support of global learning in the disciplines.

Global learning, as defined by Northern Arizona University includes three central themes that include diversity, environmental sustainability and global engagement. These themes are deeply embedded in the values of the university community. As these themes are filtered through the lens of each discipline, students gain a comprehensive and contemporary understanding of the futures for which they are being prepared and leave the university equipped with the skills, knowledge and dispositions necessary to negotiate careers, graduate education and even life in more effective ways.

The Global Learning Initiative calls on departments to create a realistic vision of what a globally competent graduate in each respective discipline would look like by developing global learning outcomes, curricular and co-curricular strategies to help students realize these outcomes, and assessment strategies that would ensure that these outcomes are being realized. As departments develop concrete commitments around these objectives and then seek to implement them, in due course, we anticipate that global learning will become part of the fabric of each department and eventually be institutionalized in the academic experience afforded to all NAU students.