Jessie Dubreuil, Associate Director for Learning at the Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning (CITL) and Global Engagement Faculty Fellow for Global Classrooms, has been selected to join a new cohort of Fulbright Scholars chosen to tackle global challenges through virtual international exchange. The inaugural year of the Global Challenges Teaching Awards (GCTA), supports three pairs of US-UK faculty to develop and deliver virtual exchange courses and engage in broader pedagogical conversations connecting their campuses. The American Council on Education (ACE) will be providing a Virtual Exchange/COIL Transformation Lab to support innovative digital collaboration and guide partnerships at both the course and institutional level between March and June 2022.
The award is part of a program focused on increasing access to global learning and supporting international teaching faculty and their students to collaborate to address specific global challenges. This year’s call focused on helping undergraduates to explore, understand, and work through the challenges of Racial Justice, Pandemics, and Climate Change.
The GCTA will be presented yearly to faculty from U.S. and UK higher education institutions to co-deliver virtual exchange courses (known as Global Classrooms at UCSC) for undergraduates at both institutions. Benefits include a faculty stipend, travel support for both the faculty members and their international administrators to spend time at their partner institutions, and funds for technical and instructional support for the awardee’s institution. Unique to the award structure is the opportunity to put together an institutional team that includes both an international administrative leader and an instructional design lead from the home campus, and to participate in training and mentored practice through ACE, with ongoing support throughout course development and delivery.
Dubreuil, who is paired with Dr. Jonathan Kennedy, Reader in Politics and Global Health at Queen Mary University of London, will be working in the award category of Pandemics to develop the Global Classroom course on global rhetorics of health and illness, dovetailing with Kennedy’s course on health inequalities and the social determinants of health. Partnerships have been established with the express intent of continuing to collaborate by offering the courses over years to come.
“I began teaching a course on the rhetoric of health and illness at Colorado College almost a decade ago. Emerging from two years of COVID, it felt pressing to engage with students across disciplines to discuss issues of global and community health and their impact worldwide. A rhetorical approach to the topic of pandemics means investigating a wide range of experiences, vulnerabilities, and responses, both locally and globally, and looking at how our representations and arguments help us to think about issues like risk and resilience, blame and responsibility, community and care,” said Dubreuil. “Particularly exciting is the opportunity to offer the course in the context of UCSC’s Global and Community Health Program, whose work illuminates how powerful international collaboration between faculty, students, and their respective communities can be as a tool for examining and addressing these shared, global challenges, and for the kind of perspective-taking, reflective analysis, and authentic discussion that leads to better understanding and health equity.”
GCTA awardees are already engaging in several partnering meetings facilitated by a team from the ACE. The onboarding process includes learning about teaching platforms and getting to know peers across the cohort.
UCSC’s involvement in this award program will also include administrator roles from George Sabo, Director of Global Initiatives in the Division of Global Engagement, and Aaron Zachmeier, Associate Director for Instructional Design & Development. Both have been instrumental to the initial development of the Global Classrooms Initiative at UCSC and hope this experience helps inform the ongoing development of the program.
“I’m honored to be a part of this exciting new program, and to have the opportunity to partner with Jon Kennedy, his fantastic team at QMUL, and the other faculty and administrators with whom the program has already brought us into deep conversation,” said Dubreuil. “The support for the US/UK teaching partnership, and the sustained mentorship and training from the American Council on Education, along with the chance to work with George and Aaron as part of an integrated team throughout, will absolutely help inform the resources and direction of our UCSC training and support for Global Classrooms.”
Faculty leads, along with their selected international administrators and instructional designers, began onboarding and training in April, and will take part in the synchronous and asynchronous ACE Transformation Lab activities concluding in May.
Opportunities such as this create new relationships between UCSC and international institutions that open the door for ongoing initiatives in the future.
Learn more about the Fulbright Global Challenges Teaching Award.
Virtual exchange initiatives such as Global Classrooms endeavor to increase opportunity and access to global learning as outlined in UCSC’s Strategic Plan for Internationalization.
