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PROFILE
IN LEADERSHIP - COLLEGE OF ST. CATHERINE
HECUA’s
partnerships with member schools expand campus curricula through both
consortium programs and individual offerings to meet specific needs. In
the past two years, students at the College of St. Catherine (CSC)
in St. Paul, Minnesota have benefited from both types of HECUA programs
– to the satisfaction of the off-campus study office and department
faculty. Their perspectives on our shared vision for the need for engagement
outside the walls of the institution illustrate the value of HECUA.
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Vera
Wenzel, Director of the Office of Global Studies offers testimony to HECUA’s
program excellence –
“I appreciate HECUA’s diversity of programs, commitment to high
quality experiential education, and willingness to do joint programming
with consortium partners. Here are a few thoughts about how HECUA has
been an effective partner with the College of St. Catherine.
—HECUA and the Office of Global Studies at CSC share the philosophy
that domestic and overseas programs often have similar goals, objectives,
and desired student outcomes. Our students participating in the Metro
Urban Studies Term (MUST), City Arts, and Civil Rights programs, like
our study abroad students, have experiences that lead them to cross-cultural
competence, critical thinking, examination of social and cultural issues,
independence, and the ability to understand the “other.”
—HECUA offers a high-quality academic program. Students and faculty
alike tell me that the curriculum and workload are demanding. However,
students do not complain that the workload is onerous; HECUA faculty seems
to share a pedagogy that enables students to succeed and still maintain
high academic standards.
—The experiential component of HECUA programs is well thought out,
integrated into the curriculum, and firmly embedded in an academic framework.
—HECUA partners with Global Search for Justice (GSJ) faculty to help
students fulfill the curricular requirements of a GSJ capstone course
in the HECUA January programs in Bangladesh and the U.S. South. Also,
HECUA facilitates a very effective partnership with faculty teaching a
GSJ course focusing at the HECUA center in Ecuador. “
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Prof.
Mary Wagner serves as the college’s representative on the HECUA Board
of Directors and will lead the January 2004 GSJ program at HECUA’s
Ecuador site.
“HECUA
provides the College of St. Catherine (CSC) with the ability to offer
more programs in keeping with the mission of the college to meet student
demands for international study and for study with a focus on justice
and social change. Because of HECUA we have learned that international
study can be embedded in regular CSC campus courses, i.e. the Global Search
for Justice courses that go to Quito for 10-12 days during a semester
long course. This makes cross-cultural comparison a ‘practiced’
study not just a library research project.
The HECUA Twin Cities programs offer students an extended focus on justice
since the semester credits are all integrated and focused on justice issues.
As a faculty member, I have used the MUST and City Arts format and syllabus
as a guide in how to shape the GSJ course to include community-based learning
that requires the students to reflect on their work and integrate it into
their world view.
HECUA encourages those of us at CSC working on justice and international
education to constantly assess our goals, the learner outcomes for students
and pedagogical practices of faculty - without HECUA I don't know that
we would ask the kinds of questions we ask.”
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