Mellon Global Citizenship Program Announces First Round of Grants

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Aug 04, 2015
by M-GCP Team
Mellon Global Citizenship Program Announces First Round of Grants

Awards to support global citizenship education at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Appalachian College Association members in the USA

Salzburg Global Seminar is pleased to announce the first round of grants awarded to select Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and members of the Appalachian College Association (ACA) to support the implementation of collaborative global citizenship education programs.These grants are made possible through the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grants are a feature of the Mellon Global Citizenship Program, launched in 2014 to deepen and consolidate the successful global citizenship education work initiated with 36 partner institutions. The M-GCP is the outgrowth of the multi-year Mellon Fellow Community Initiative (MFCI), which ran from 2008 to 2013.The MFCI was significant not only for enabling the institutions involved to move toward becoming sites of global citizenship and laying the foundation for new models of multi-campus collaboration, but also because of the types of institutions which it engaged. The ACA and HBCU institutions share many common attributes based on their long histories serving unique and diverse student bodies and the broader communities around them. Their distinct communities and geographical distances, however, have not encouraged collaboration among them. The MFCI not only encouraged, but actively supported, partnerships between institutions and validated the multiple benefits that resulted from these cooperative efforts. The M-GCP furthers and deepens that work and will support the partner institutions towards the creation of a new independent consortium to facilitate ongoing collaboration as leaders in the field of global citizenship education.According to the Salzburg Global directors Jochen Fried and David Goldman, "(t)he participating institutions realized that global education is not only, and not even primarily, about traveling to other parts of the world ... 'Globalization at home' is about teaching and modeling inclusion, diversity and reciprocity in the context of how one relates to an increasingly interdependent world. It is as much about crossing national or state borders as it is about crossing 'borders of the mind' by reaching out to 'otherness.' ... The specific constellation of ACA and HBCU institutions offers a unique opportunity, through cooperation, to make 'globalization at home' and 'citizenship without borders' a powerful and tangible learning experience."The institutions receiving grants through the M-GCP will be supported in their efforts to expand collaborative activities, demonstrating the powerful value-added impact of cooperation among ACA and HBCU institutions, and build the case for creating an independent organization to support ongoing joint projects and initiate new collaborations related to global citizenship education."Global citizenship is no longer just an idealized rhetorical term used in textbooks. It is the reality that today's students will live as part of their future. Those of us who are college educators will fail to provide future-focused preparation if we overlook this aspect of our students' educational experience," says Betty Overton-Adkins, an M-GCP Advisory Council member and Director of the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good at the University of Michigan.Advisory Council member Walter Fluker, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Ethical Leadership at Boston University School of Theology, added, "Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us that we no longer simply live in small, boundaried national imaginaries, but rather we have inherited a world house of interrelatednesss and interdependability. King's metaphor of the world house in many ways anticipated the work of global citizenship in which the M-GCP is engaged. This innovative educational adventure invites learning institutions, faculties and students into a brave new world house that has already arrived." The first round of grants includes support for Visiting Specialist Series whereby a global citizenship education expert will visit multiple schools to meet with faculty, administrators, and students; Study Away Incentive Programs whereby multiple institutions will coordinate on a shared domestic 'study away' experience; an Undergraduate Research Conference; and a Global Citizenship Summit. The M-GCP will provide another round of grants in the same areas for 2016.The following grants were awarded for 2015:

  • Bennett College, Ferrum College, King University; Global Citizenship Revisited: New Approaches to Achieve Global Competencies (Visiting Specialist Series)
  • University Pikeville, Lincoln Memorial University, Fisk University; Strategies for Expanding Global Citizenship through Study Abroad (Visiting Specialist Series)
  • Florida Memorial University, Berea College; Global African (Diaspora) Citizenship (Visiting Specialist Series)
  • Lindsey Wilson College and Clark Atlanta University; Trading Places (Study Away Incentive Program)
  • Clark Atlanta University (lead institution), Morehouse College, and Spelman College; Vox Populi - The Atlanta University Center Global Citizenship Summit
  • Lindsey Wilson College (lead institution) and Clark Atlanta University (host); Global Sustainability: Cultural and Scientific Issues and Perspectives (Undergraduate Research Conference held concurrent to the Global Citizenship Summit)

Upon learning that his institution was awarded a grant, William T. Luckey, President of Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky said that "the partnerships fostered by the Mellon Foundation and the Salzburg Global Seminar between ACA colleges and HBCU institutions have the power to change our students' lives by laying the groundwork for a new generation of global citizens who will thrive in diverse settings."More information about the M-GCP can be found in the attached overview, as well as at the M-GCP website. Please contact David Goldman at DGoldman@SalzburgGlobal.org for enquiries related to the M-GCP.