Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Internationalizing the Law and Legal History Curriculum on Human Trafficking and Slavery $10000.00 |
In 2015 we initiated a teaching collaboration linking undergraduate teaching on immigration law (History 335) and professional training in the Human Trafficking Clinic (HTC) at the Law School. The HTC has an impressive profile of portfolio of international collaborations, and has successfully involved law students in these educational collaborations with overseas partners in Mexico and Ethiopia. We propose to build on this success to create more formal curricular structures for both law students and undergraduates to engage meaningfully with international themes, partners, and hands-on experiences related to human trafficking and slavery, a complex human rights problem and a fundamentally transnational issue. We are requesting funds for a preliminary trip to Buenos Aires Argentina to build on recently established ties with Argentina's state anti-trafficking agency and to meet other key players in the field of human trafficking litigation and legal training. We will mobilize this emerging partnership to create new opportunities for University of Michigan students to engage meaningfully with an internationalized curriculum through faculty-led, short term field experiences, internships, video-linked meetings, and curricular modules based on Argentine trafficking cases. |
| Internationalizing/Institutionalizing the "Propositions" Studio Sharon Haar Architecture and Urban Planning $9900.00 |
The architecture program seeks funding in support of the institutionalization of its current ad hoc traveling studios in the professional architecture graduate degree in Taubman College. Currently, in the fall semester of the last year of the Master of Architecture curriculum, students take option studios—"Propositions"—that allow them to choose among approximately one dozen offerings taught by individual or teamed faculty. As students have completed their core coursework by this time and are largely engaged in elective seminars and laboratories, this term has served as an ideal moment for them to engage topic-based studios that contain an international component. Indeed, in Fall 2014, five of the thirteen studios offered travelled for seven to ten days to locations in China (two studios), France (two studios), and Ecuador (one studio). While one of the China studios is supported by a long-term partnership, the other opportunities—like many of our past studios—were based upon opportunistic events: invitations for our students to participate in design competitions, the availability of internationally located visiting faculty, and relationships built upon individual faculty research and practice. In order for these important international studios to continue, the architecture program must build a larger number of sustained relationships with international partners and create a modest infrastructure for administrative support. We are seeking $9900.00 dollars to support faculty travel and hourly graduate student support to build longer-term relationships with three international partners in Paris, Quito, and Shanghai. |
| International and Comparative Education: Globalization, conflict, and development Michelle Bellino Education $10000.00 |
Comparative and international education is a growing field and is increasingly important in a globalized world. The proposed project centers on course development in an effort to internationalize curriculum within the School of Education, allowing for increased student opportunities to learn about international contexts and issues, and to develop the skills necessary to carry out international and cross-national work. The project aims to develop and strengthen two courses: "Comparative and International Education" and "Education and Armed Conflict in Comparative Perspective." Across both proposed courses, students will study global educational challenges and innovative solutions, gain skills relevant to a range of educational settings, and practice applying those skills in communication with global actors. Because the courses are aimed at current and future educational leaders, they will simultaneously respond to the international, transnational, and intercultural identities that comprise the student body at U-M, while building capacity among students to deepen global connections in their own educational practice. Finally, these courses are intentionally oriented around cultivating a comparative perspective so that students are encouraged to make meaningful comparisons and address issues of shared concern in an increasingly connected world. |
| Water and Sanitation Systems in Developing Countries Nancy Love Engineering $10000.00 |
This project addresses the absence of a course on campus that addresses water and sanitation technologies that meet the demand in low resource countries (developing countries) and countries in transition. The vast majority of these technologies require decentralized approaches, meaning they exist at the neighborhood or household scale. We currently offer courses that address Westernized water and sanitation solutions, which focus on centralized approaches (collection systems convey wastewater to large, centralized treatment facility, or distribution system conveys clean drinking water to consumers from a large, centralized facility). Our collaborators in this effort from Addis Ababa Institute of Technology in Ethiopia have a similar need in their curriculum. For this proposal, we will co-develop a class tentatively called Water and Sanitation Systems in Developing Countries, and deliver the class in both locations. The content, while co-developed between the US and Ethiopia, will pertain more broadly to low resource settings (e.g., Africa) and those transitioning (e.g., China). This proposal meets the needs and desires of students at the University of Michigan who are traveling to and working in low resource settings in increasing numbers, and explores cross-cultural elements of classroom settings. This project will meet the following funding criteria: (i) increase student opportunities for meaningful engagement with an internationalized curriculum, and (ii) incorporate innovative approaches, collaborations, and/or pedagogies appropriate to the international focus of the course. |
| Practice in Technology and Community Sustainable Development Jose Alfaro Environment and Sustainability $10000.00 |
Though well intended, development projects and provisions of technological solutions have suffered dismal failure rates. In light of that, this class explores the concepts of development and technology from a community perspective. We examine ways that systems thinking can have transformative potential by having those who will use the technologies take a self-determined path to achieve positive outcomes. More than 1.4 billion people around the world live in abject poverty with income below $1.25 per day. Sanitation, potable water, clean energy services, communication and other infrastructures are not available for these populations. Often "development" is considered as the provision of these services to the communities that need them through technology implementations. However this ignores the applicability and appropriateness of the technology as well as the desires of the community. The class teaches students about available appropriate technologies and encourages the active critique and redesign of these technologies in light of community feedback. It also provides strategies for listening and empathizing with communities to define areas of need and engage in system-based solutions for those needs. It challenges the students to view Community Sustainable Development not as something to be done to communities, but as participation in a process with communities. This class also prepares for participation in a new class planned for Summer 2015: Practice in Community Sustainable Development. The summer experience will involve international travel to work on a development project alongside the student organization Sustainability Without Borders and a community in the Global South. For Summer 2015 the organization is traveling to Chaquipampa, in the district of Vinchos, in Peru. The organization is engaging in the design and deployment of a water project. |
| Transatlantic Connections: Restaging Richard Alston's Choreography Angela Kane Music, Theatre & Dance $10000.00 |
Transatlantic Connections will support two key areas of the BFA Dance program: a new 3-credit Dancing Cities: Cultural Capitals course and the Department of Dance's guest artist repertory for its 2015 concert at the Power Center for the Performing Arts (February 5-8). The project will permeate into other BFA/MFA Dance courses and colloquia, all with a focus on the work of the British choreographer, Richard Alston. A former Richard Alston Dance Company member, Martin Lawrance with restage the work (yet to be determined) November 3-15, 2014 and Alston will oversee the transfer of his choreography from the Dance Building to the Power Center stage January 24-February 9. Alston's work will be performed again in Fall 2015, supported by a range of curricular activities and public events. Students will gain first-hand experience of Alston's style, both theoretically and practically. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of 'habitus' and 'cultural capital', they will interrogate how both local conditions and international trends are at play in the creation of choreography and dance companies; how dance works are received in particular contexts; and how the performing arts function within complex power systems. |
| Global Impact of Microbes: Fieldwork A. Oveta Fuller Medical School $10000.00 |
Microbes perform critical roles in protection as natural flora, in organic material degradation, in antibiotic and enzyme production and in gene transfer important to agriculture and medicine. Microbes also can be pathogenic to cause a range of diseases. They have contributed to major epidemics and pandemics throughout history. We will adapt a current field course offering to annually provide an international immersion experience as an add-on course for contextual understanding of microbes and their array of impacts that cannot be fully appreciated within the US. Participants in the 2010 and 2012 initial field work on "Global Impact of Microbes" placed high value on the immersion where learning on the helpful or ill effects of microbes occurred in a real world setting. When initiated in 2011, Micro 450 was the only international site field course offered in the School of Medicine for undergraduates. Significantly more undergraduate, graduate and professional school students can benefit from such contextual learning as: 1) a continuing part of the Microbiology undergraduate curriculum, and 2) a new international immersion course available for graduate and professional biomedical and health sciences students. An international perspective of the impacts of microbes will enhance classroom teaching by faculty leaders and expand the understanding of undergraduate and professional students. We envision eventual mutually beneficial international training experiences for University of Michigan participants and for project site partners to enhance collaborative research and clinical practice and affect a range of policy decisions for effectively addressing health and wellness challenges. |
| Program Enhancement and Curriculum Integration for Global Theatre and Ethnic Studies Minor Anita Gonzalez Music, Theatre & Dance $7850.00 |
Funding is requested for program enhancement and curriculum integration of the new Global Theatre and Ethnic Studies minor in the Department of Theatre and Drama. The new undergraduate minor seeks to introduce a global perspective to campus study of the performing arts. The School of Music Theatre and Dance has approved the program as a new offering beginning in Fall 2014 and courses in the minor will continued to be offered annually. The program head requests support for three activities that will expand the reach and scope of the program during its inaugural year: 1) engaging the CRLT Players for faculty and student workshops about diversity, 2) travel funding for faulty participation in Spring 2014 Liverpool Global Intercultural Education for Undergraduates Course, and 3) honoraria, transport and housing for guest artist residencies during the Fall 2014 and Winter 2015 semesters. The intent of these activities is to integrate the minor into existing programs in the Department of Theatre and Drama by encouraging faculty participation, and to expand the reach of the program by offering campus-wide activities that work in concert with content of the courses. |
| Achieving competency in global laboratory animal science jason villano Medical School $9950.00 |
The biomedical research landscape is rapidly evolving with the globalization of science. There is an increased collaboration among researchers and people involved in the care and use of animals in research worldwide. The global realization of ethical core reforms on animal care and welfare is primarily driven by societal ethical concerns and the increased relevance of standardized research and animal care for quality science. However, it is important to understand the differences on how principles are defined and implemented, as influenced by various factors including culture and societal mores, politics, tradition, and economical implications. At the Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, veterinary residents provide integral support to animal research at the UofM campuses, while developing skills and knowledge needed to become experts in laboratory animal medicine. They are involved in various activities, including clinical medicine and surgery, consultation on the care and use of animals, implementation of animal care and use regulations, research, and instruction and training. We propose to enhance our curriculum by increasing the residents' international exposure and multicultural competency, ultimately benefitting the scientific endeavors at UofM. The proposal is two-pronged: 1) a seminar series with remote presentations of speakers involved in animal care and use programs of institutions overseas; and 2) faculty-facilitated classroom discussions of video clips portraying multicultural and multilingual barriers. Giving presentations and conducting workshops in national meetings will pursue extension of these activities and disseminate information and share our experiences to the laboratory animal community and benefit other residency programs in the country. |
| Internationalizing cohort‐based community practice programs in the School of Social Work: The Case of the Community Based Initiative Larry Gant Social Work $10000.00 |
In response to a dramatic increase in the number of masters' level and undergraduate level Community Organizing students interested in international work, a team of faculty, staff, students and community partners in the European Union (EU) countries of Germany and the Netherlands propose to expand and enhance two courses within the School of Social Work (SSW): International Community Organization (SW 503) and Special Studies in International Community Organization (SW 528). We propose the following international enhancements in each course: SW 503 (International Community Organization): Importance of critical theory in practice, Conduct of international comparative policy practice using a Criteria Alternative Matrix (CAM) approach, Basic review of critical theory components, Discussion of use of critical theory in service to critical practice, Introduction to neostructural social work, Scholarly, literature based presentations on comparative (historical and contemporary) policies in human trafficking, art-based community practice, school to prison pipelines. SW 528 (Special Studies in International Community Organization): Aligning historical/policy based readings with place based learning opportunities and place based lectures/presentations; Community projects designed to allow students to witness and experience impacts and operationalizations of specific policies in the specified areas of interest for that program/calendar year; Discussions of the ways that social work is professionalized in the US vs. EU; Use of art as agent of social change/social control. |
| International Disability Arts: Archival and Hands-on Research Skills in the Contemporary World $7161.00 |
This project investigated international disability arts, and ways in which we can use technologies like Skype to bring international artists into our classroom, going beyond ‘talking heads' aesthetics toward finding new and sustainable ways of creating dialogue and engagement. |
| Updating and expanding Business Arabic textbook and existing Business Arabic courses in a web-based environment Raji Rammuny LSA $7500.00 |
The latest economic and political developments in the Arab World and recent advancements in instructional technology have produced a wealth of new materials and provided us with opportunities to update and expand the content of the Business Arabic textbook and its two Business Arabic courses (AAPTIS 409 Intermediate Business Arabic and AAPTIS 410 Advanced Business Arabic) to make them available for the entire community of learners, including students, members of the business community, and government personnel. The students who took the two Arabic business courses previously expressed their desire for the addition of a web-based Atlas of the Arab World unit to the Intermediate Business Arabic course and the expansion of the Advanced Business Arabic course to include current authentic formal correspondence, economic reports, banking documents, trade and industry agreements, policies and rules for investment in the Arab and Islamic world, Islamic banking, and business contracts. The professional development and training activities associated with this project fit very well with UM's commitment to internationalizing the curriculum. The proposed project will also support the project director's scholarly research in integrating media into the teaching of Arabic language and culture and the GSMA's research interest in Arabic second language acquisition. The revision process will follow the communicative-proficiency, learner-centered approach, with a focus on incorporating effective learning strategies that encourage collaboration, sharing of information, and using videoconferencing exchange sessions with faculty and students in Arab universities that focus on critical discourse analysis of texts and cross-cultural differences in business transactions. |
| CHINA STUDIO: Designing New and Alternative Urban/Rural Environments Mary Ray Architecture and Urban Planning $7432.00 |
The proposed new course titled "CHINA STUDIO: Designing New and Alternative Urban/Rural Environments" will build off of the groundwork laid by two previously offered three credit courses but will extend and expand these into a six credit design studio to be offered in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning during the 2013 and 2014 fall terms. The currently offered "Field-Based Interdisciplinary Course: Toward a New Sustainable Environment in Light of the Changing Face of Rural (and Urban) China" was developed with a CRLT Faculty Development Fund Grant and undertaken in cooperation with the U.M. Graham Institute of Environmental Sustainability, the U.M. Center for Global and Intercultural Studies, the Beijing University of Technology and the Beijing Municipality and Township of Pearl Spring. The program has allowed students in the spring terms of 2011 and 2012 to deeply investigate, firsthand, many of the complex phenomena occurring in and between urban and rural China today. For the past six years I have been teaching an ongoing seminar on the Ann Arbor campus titled "China Inside Out" in which we examine many of the same phenomena through studying current and historical scholarly texts, Chinese and foreign press, citizen's and villager's microblogs, Chinese cinema and contemporary Chinese art. |
| Women and the Arab Revolutions Nadine Naber LSA $7500.00 |
This course explores the significance of gender and sexuality to the contemporary Arab revolutions focusing on Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen. The course will cover the conditions that have inspired women to join revolutions, women's roles, women's bodies as symbols of oppression and resistance, sexualized violence, queer activism, and feminist trends within the revolutions. Through these themes, students will develop analytical tools for going beyond "culturalist" or reductionist religious explanations of gender oppression in Arab and Muslim majority countries. Students will learn how to explore the ways cultural and religious norms related to gender and sexuality are shaped in relation to changing historical conditions and political realities. Students will learn how to study gender oppression in the Arab world and Muslim majority countries in terms of intersections between gender, sexuality, and various forms of state violence, including militarism and empire building, economic neo-liberalism and poverty, and sectarianism and corruption. |
| Romance Languages and Literatures and School of Nursing Promoting Oral Proficiency Leslie Davis Nursing $5050.00 |
While written language is facilitated by grammar instruction and reading, the oral and aural proficiency needed to work effectively with Spanish speaking patients in clinical situations can only be developed through practice and live interaction with actual Spanish speakers. The Oaxaca program and Spanish 283, Spanish for the medical profession offer varying degrees of interaction, with different levels of financial commitment and investment of time by both students and instructors, but they have the same goal. Evaluating oral proficiency in both programs related to the medical field will help us determine how to make the most cost-effective use of our resources to serve the needs of as many students as possible in preparing them for different situations related to the medical field. |
| Thinking Globally and Acting Locally in Community Health Nursing Rosemary Ziemba Nursing Norma Sarkar Nursing Leslie Davis Nursing $7500.00 |
In Community Health Nursing (N456), a required undergraduate nursing course with didactic and clinical components, students learn to address the health of populations and communities. We propose building on pilot initiatives to expand the range of intercultural experiences including international immersion, virtual classroom activities, and clinical interventions with vulnerable populations in local communities ("thinking globally, acting locally"). We will increase international perspectives on Global Health Competencies for Nursing (Wilson, et al., 2012), and draw on UMSN as a WHO Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Health Promotion Nursing. We will add to our current field opportunity in Ecuador and develop Spring/Summer didactic and clinical sections with international immersion for rising seniors. With guidance from experts in global health we will develop student and faculty skills in information and communication technologies. Faculty from Taubman Health Sciences Library will refine customized, course-integrated information skills instruction to apply to clinical activities with local and distant ethnic communities, shared among students via our "World Class Blog." Community-based practice will occur locally with vulnerable, ethnic communities (e.g., Latino, Asian, Afro-American) facilitated by UMHS Community Programs and Services, Program for Multicultural Health (PMCH). Inspired by prior success with the class blog, we will explore development of an electronic Community of Practice (CoP) to stimulate ongoing discussion of global health, enable file and resource sharing, and serve as a repository of student projects. This effort will be a catalyst for growth and integration of global health competencies across the entire UMSN curriculum. |
| Beyond M-Compass: Preparing Medical Students for International Experiences Brent Williams Medical School $7500.00 |
Each year, approximately 70-80 medical students travel to low- and middle-income countries for educational experiences. Formal travel preparation currently consists of online learning modules through MCompass. Limitations of the modules include: a) they are not required for all students, b) not all students comply with the module recommendations (e.g., regarding medication prophylaxis following HIV exposure), and c) they are inadequate to prepare students for complex situations (e.g., whether to adopt local standards for sterile technique that may place the learner at risk). To address these limitations, we propose to create a set of video ‘triggers' describing complex scenarios in international settings with faculty-facilitated small group discussion. Video content will center on a series of up to five UM faculty and students describing actual situations recently encountered by UM medical students following by the question "What would YOU do?". After a pause for discussion, the scenario will be concluded. The video will be administered either in large group or small group settings, in either case allowing small group ‘break-out' sections for students to discuss their thinking, values, and possible responses to the posed situations. Beginning in academic year 2013-14, the video-discussion intervention will be administered twice yearly, and required of all medical students traveling internationally. Evaluation of the curriculum will be multi-pronged, and include student surveys immediately following the seminars and on return to the U.S., and post-travel interviews of 15-25 students on the value and effects of the video on their travel and learning experiences. |
| Develop a new course EHS690 “Practice in Global Environmental Health” Chuanwu Xi Public Health Tim Dvonch Public Health $7500.00 |
The major purpose of this project is to develop a new course EHS690 "Practice in Global Environmental Health". Global environmental health (GEH) is an emerging, exciting, diverse, and competitive field. Interest in global health has grown dramatically among public health students over the past decade. Amongst students enrolling for the Department of Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) MPH, there is an interest in focusing on global environmental health issues. In response to this trend and building on the considerable expertise in global environmental health within the EHS department, the Department has launched a new Global Environmental Health minor program (beginning Fall 2013) and the goal of this new program is to train future leaders and practitioners in the field of global environmental health. Graduates of the program will gain valuable knowledge and skills for addressing global environmental health disparities through coursework for concentrated learning within the discipline of environmental (and occupational) health; opportunity for experiential learning through internships in resource-poor countries; exposure to the large and diversified research and learning opportunities in global health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, the School of Public Health and the university as a whole. This course is an integral component of this new program and plays a critical role in student learning in the program because it prepares students for a meaningful and successful national/international internship. This course will guide students through the entire internship process, strengthen the curriculum of our GEH program, and motivate students' interest in international experiences. |
