Teaching Global Issues in an Undergraduate Program

Abstract

In preparing cadets to be officers, U.S. Coast Guard Academy (CGA) is committed to developing the whole person. CGA has increasingly developed program-specific ways to achieve educational goals and learning outcomes. While character development and ethical education have long been important learning outcomes, today's CGA curriculum has incorporated multicultural concepts and inter-cultural perspectives to encompass learning about problems and issues that cut across national boundaries. This paper discusses how student learning, growth, and development can be achieved in an undergraduate program to ensure that graduates are prepared to meet many challenges they will face throughout their professional careers and lives in an increasingly global environment. non-academic program which focuses on universal human values and how they apply to current global issues, conflicts, and problems. The paper then presents some examples of academic courses and activities that provide students with knowledge of world beyond their country's borders and help them understand how their actions can affect this world positively or negatively, and to develop an appreciation of cultural differences and similarities crucial to their ability to function in an interdependent world. These examples show how curriculum design and class activities can help students to appreciate diversities and commonalties of human values and interests, and to see world through eyes of others. The last section provides conclusions on international undergraduate education, arguing that it must be proactive and must include learning experiences that advocate understanding of both universal human values and diversity of human cultures.