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Welcome to the Global Learning Sites Web Site at Trinity College! These pages are intended to inform faculty about the GLS (Global Learning Sites) program at Trinity College, and to help individual faculty or faculty groups establish a learning site. Before exploring this web site, be sure to read the definition of a Global Learning Site below.

Definition and Criteria of a GLS

What is a Global Learning Site and how does it differ from a typical study-abroad program? This question was first tackled by the Global Learning Sites Advisory Committee, established in the fall of 1997, and now known as the Global Studies Advisory Committee. The committee was charged with defining the criteria and procedures for global sites, and with making recommendations to the Dean of Faculty about program proposals that were worthy of further formal consideration. Using guidelines provided by the "Committee of Eight" report, the Committee defined a Global Learning Site (GLS) as a study program generated by Trinity faculty in a city of global significance. Trinity faculty members, or groups of Trinity faculty who have the expertise to initiate and the dedication to develop a GLS submit proposals, along with a financial worksheet, to the committee. Faculty typically elect to participate out of a compelling curricular interest in the particular location. Upon completion of the review, a recommendation is submitted to the Dean of Faculty. Final approval and implementation involve the assessment of appropriate College committees and groups, most notably the Curriculum Committee, the Financial Affairs Committee, and, in some cases, the Academic Affairs Committee and the Educational Policy Committee. (See also the Application section of this web site.)

The Committee has defined a list of important characteristics that should be shared by all GLS. These are listed below.

A GLS is, first of all, a Trinity-sponsored program, which has a number of important implications with respect to curriculum, rigor, staffing, and financing.

A GLS involves, in at least some respects, curricular elements distinctive to a Trinity education. These might take the form of substantial core course work, basic seminar, or other common academic experience(s) related to the rationale for establishing the GLS where it is.

A GLS must have a community learning/internship component. So far, a variety of models have been offered for the core course and for its relationship to the internship. A persuasive rationale for the particular model should be developed by the faculty
sponsor(s) of each GLS. The community learning component should flow from and be connected to the particular expertise and interests of the sponsoring faculty. (By contrast, if the expectation for an overseas program is that a student might take a miscellaneous and wholly self-determined set of courses at affiliated local institutions, this program, however valid in other respects, would not be approved as a GLS.)

A GLS must provide an educationally valid rationale for a student to spend a term or a year studying at that particular site. Follow-up educational experiences in the form of papers, presentations, seminars, or other exercises shall be encouraged upon the students' return to Trinity. Faculty need to consider what, if any, common experiences in Hartford it will be desirable to provide for all or most students contemplating study at a GLS before they depart and when they return. The internship/independent study programs, as well as any other in-residence (i.e. non-transfer credit) courses offered by the GLS shall be approved in advance by appropriate faculty committees and staffed by Trinity appointees.

A GLS should provide opportunities for Hartford-based faculty to participate in its programs in various ways. Hartford faculty need to be involved in identifying the site and taking the necessary steps to establish and sustain the site. This does not, however, imply that the Hartford faculty will be reduced in order to staff the overseas sites. A Trinity faculty member may not teach at a GLS as part of his or her regular teaching load.

A GLS must, within a specific period, be self-supporting. That is, student tuition and fees must cover all costs associated with the site, such as salaries, teaching facilities, communications, fees to associated local institutions, etc., though not costs of student loans or scholarships.

A GLS, to the extent feasible, should in the long-term explore opportunities for two-way exchanges of students and faculty from local institutions.

A GLS should eventually have an individual to provide local support for the students. As our sites grow, we might plan to bring the GLS coordinators to an organizing meeting at Trinity each year. Common living arrangements might be designed to encourage student cohesion and interaction, while offering necessary security in some settings. Living arrangements should, to the extent feasible, also offer students opportunities to interact with the local community.

Over the past year, the Global Studies Committee has reviewed applications for GLS in a wide range of locations from Hong Kong to Trinidad. A summary of the current status of all of the current GLS is available in the Summaries section of this web site. The list also includes two Trinity programs, Rome and San Francisco, that are not considered sites, but rather global campuses.)

What are the educational objectives of Trinity's new GLS program? How does it fit into an undergraduate education at Trinity College? All of these questions are addressed below.

Trinity's Global Learning Sites Initiative strives to transform the ways in which undergraduates both understand and act upon the world. The program will give students a deeper grasp of a world that is profoundly different from that of the Cold War era, one that is colored by growing concentrations of people in urban centers, by profound population movements, cross-cultural influences, economic disparities, social fragmentation, technological sophistication, ethnic and political conflicts, and bio-environmental pressures. The experience will help students to understand the truly global character of contemporary life: from dietary patterns to dress, from market commodities to career options, from linguistic nuances to the construction of cultural identity. It will broaden their understanding of the profound influence of the cybernetic revolution on campus and cultures, and the dynamic role of powerful multi-national corporations in shaping local economies. In addition, it will sensitize students to the diversity of competencies required to function as globally-minded citizens, giving them the ability to work with peoples of all backgrounds, under all manner of constraints. At the same time, it will demonstrate how and why traditional learning, grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, when deepened by meaningful local community engagements where these same global forces are encountered in more familiar settings, offers talented undergraduates the best preparation for careers of achievement and service both at home and abroad.

The Global Learning Sites Initiative is one of several coordinated efforts that Trinity has undertaken in response to a pressing question: what is the role of the high quality, residential liberal arts college in an increasingly urbanized, competitive, technological, interconnected global economy?

The faculty has concluded a strategic curricular review that identified the urban, the global, and a collaborative paradigm of teaching and learning as distinguishing features of Trinity's conception of "liberal arts with a difference." This review led to a new strategic plan, approved in May of 1998 by the Board of Trustees. At the heart of the plan is the creation of a distinctive version of liberal arts education that responds to the challenges of the Information Age and to the changing global circumstances that affect local communities. With it, Trinity will build the linkages and connections necessary to create an "extended community of learning," a community that reaches beyond the ivory tower to enrich our curriculum through linkages with the larger city here in Hartford, Rome and beyond.

Global Learning Sites will play a pivotal role in the realization of Trinity's innovative academic vision for the future. These distinctive sites will provide students with an off-campus learning experience that is demanding, coherent, and integrated into their overall Trinity education. At present, it is apparent that too many "study abroad" programs do not provide the intellectual and cultural challenges that our students need to stimulate fully their intellectual growth. With time, we anticipate that these linked foreign study venues will constitute a preferred model for many of the approximately 50 percent of Trinity students who currently elect to study abroad at some point in their undergraduate careers.

We are convinced that this new educational experience will produce leaders who are able to think and communicate clearly and imaginatively and who possess a strong sense of moral grounding and civic consciousness. In other current initiatives, Trinity is creating programs that carry students out of the classroom and into its neighborhood and city, programs that offer community and service learning components that deepen the impact of undergraduate education. Our goal is to draw our students into learning engagements that begin on campus, expand into the city, and then extend around the globe. This approach will deepen learning and has already begun to attract exceptionally talented and curious undergraduates to the College.

The program will provide undergraduates with a critical and distinctive asset as they choose careers for the 21st century. The College's network of global sites will give Trinity students the advantage of significant learning engagements that will lead to the acquisition of precious and reliable "local knowledge" of at least two urban cultures: first in Hartford, a small but ethnically diverse city, and the second in the global site of their choice.

Leaders for the 21st century will require first-hand knowledge that reaches far beyond our nation's borders, and skills that equip them to function with diverse people and in unfamiliar settings. Through the intense and illuminating experiences they will have during a semester at a Global Learning Site, our students will come to understand and appreciate global trends and forces as they play out in these new contexts. In the process, they will develop the cosmopolitan outlooks on which the next century will place a premium.

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