Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 1 Jan L. Tucker Memorial Lecture: Illuminating Equity Through Global Learning Hilary Landorf, Florida International University Introduction It is my deep honor to give the Jan L. Tucker Memorial Lecture. Special thanks go to my long-time colleague and friend Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker, for her constant leadership, scholarship, and support of the International Assembly (IA) and of course, of global education. Thanks also go to the current IA Chair Beatrice Bailey, the immediate past chair Jing Williams, and the 2021 IA Program Chair, Jongsung Kim. I begin with a snippet or two of Jan Tucker’s work, move into my own global learning story, transition to an example of university-wide global learning, and then move into equity through global learning, with strategies for social studies educators and students. Jan Tucker’s Influence and Legacy Jan Tucker was a man of firm convictions and enormous energy. He was a serious scholar, a powerful leader, a generous mentor, and from all accounts, a force to be reckoned with. I never met Jan, but a big part of the reason I came to Florida International University (FIU), was because of his legacy. For those of you who don’t know, Jan Tucker was a professor of social studies education at FIU from first the year the university opened its doors to students, in 1972, until his untimely death in 1997. When I arrived at FIU, in 2002, I was in my first department meeting, and I saw a painting of Jan in a corner of the room. Not knowing that much about him at the time, the serious, determined, yet gentle look in his eyes really struck me. I quickly learned of Jan’s incredible influence on global education - at FIU, throughout Miami-Dade County, and in the State of Florida. I learned that through The Global Awareness Program, which Jan created in 1979, and lasted until his passing, he and his colleagues were able to form university-school partnerships that advanced global education in schools in every district of the Miami-Dade County Public School System, and throughout the FIU teacher education program. As you can imagine, I felt an incredible mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 2 responsibility as a new faculty member to carry on Jan’s work and stay true to his vision of global education for all. Among everything that Jan did and all that he stood for, two aspects have especially lit the way for me. The first, is something I gleaned from Barbara Cruz, in her chapter about Jan in the book, The Global Education Movement (Cruz, 2018), edited by Toni Kirkwood-Tucker. In her heartfelt narrative, Barbara writes that when she was Jan’s graduate student, he said to her, “If you want to know a little more about me and how I grew up, just watch Hoosiers – it will tell you all you need to know (p. 38).” The second aspect is something I read in one of Jan’s own writings on human rights. In the conclusion of this piece, Jan wrote that “the developmental task in education for a global perspective requires educators in higher education to be determined realists (Tucker, 1982, p.79).” What was special to me about these aspects of Jan Tucker? First, in Jan’s mention of the movie Hoosiers, he is referring to his childhood in Indiana. I understood from this reference his conviction that one’s cultural identity and lived experience matters in everything we do, and that we have a responsibility to reflect on the forces that shaped us as global educators. The second aspect, determined realism, I took to mean a combination of a clear vision for change, the cluster of skills it takes to navigate the politics of all educational institutions to effect change, and the constancy of hope, the attitude that positive change can happen. My Global Learning Story Just as Jan was influenced by his upbringing in Indiana, I know that my own childhood, spent in the late 1960s and early 1970s in New Haven, Connecticut, was where my global learning began. It was the height of the civil rights movement, and the attempts to integrate schools through busing were playing out in real time in New Haven. As a teenager, along with most of my friends in my predominately white neighborhood, I was bused to a predominately African American and Latino/a high school downtown. However, rather than make a positive difference in our education by learning with a diverse group of students, I remember a profound sense of confusion amongst all of us - the teachers, those of us who were bused in, and the students who had been there before me. Although we learned about diversity in our social studies classes, there was no professional development for teachers to help students’ learning with diversity. I remember thinking at the time that there’s something wrong. There has got to be a way for diversity to become a catalyst for a positive learning experience. mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 3 A year out of college I was off to the Peace Corps in Morocco, another turning point in my global learning. My love for teaching was born in Oujda, a mid-sized city on the border with Algeria, where I taught English-as-a-Foreign Language in an all-girls public high school. Just as I felt a sense of freedom in speaking Arabic, while helping students express themselves in English, I could see their eyes light up as their confidence in their abilities grew. Fast forward to 2002, when I began as a Social Studies educator at FIU. The first course I taught was Developing a Global Perspective, a course that Jan Tucker developed in the early 1980s and that later was offered throughout the state of Florida. In this course, we studied the most pressing global issues of the time - sea level rise, genetically engineered food, cell phone use among kids – with the goals of developing students’ global awareness and global perspective. In fact, I remember thinking that if I had my wish, every student at FIU would take this course as a graduation requirement. However, when I was teaching this class, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that even though there was great geographical and ethnic diversity in the class, most students sat with their friends from high school, and they were usually of the same ethnic group. But I think I was so intent on getting students to understand the interconnections between the local and the global, what I saw then as the foundation to developing a global perspective, that I just plowed on. Global Learning for Global Citizenship Initiative at FIU A few years later, in the summer of 2008 I was tapped by the Senior leadership team at the university to become the director of Global Learning for Global Citizenship, an initiative to infuse global learning throughout the undergraduate curriculum and co-curriculum. The initiative was in the beginning planning stages. University stakeholders had just chosen it as FIU’s Quality Enhancement Plan, a required part of reaffirmation of accreditation for our regional accreditation body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). The first thing I did when I became director of the newly founded Office of Global Learning Initiatives (OGLI) was to hire a brilliant doctoral student and, at the time, a middle school social studies teacher, Stephanie Doscher, as my partner. That fall, together with a global learning development team, we examined the results of a very large survey the university had conducted the year before, as part of a rebranding campaign. What we saw in the results was that all groups of the survey participants - from students, to faculty, staff, administrators, community members and business leaders – reported diversity as FIU's greatest strength. However, all these groups also reported that, even though the classroom was very diverse, students were not being mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 4 challenged to use their diversity in their learning. We called this our internationalization gap. It was findings such as these that switched the light on for me. Global learning is really about enabling students to be able to express their unique perspectives and work together to begin to address issues that matter to us all. How to make this kind of learning happen? This was, and is, the question behind global learning. Once we did the research on the origin, development, and uses of the term, we defined global learning as “the process of diverse people collaboratively analyzing and addressing complex problems that transcend borders” (Landorf & Doscher, 2015, p.24). Much later, we even wrote a book about this process, Making global learning universal: Promoting inclusion and success for all students (Landorf, Doscher, & Hardrick, 2018), which serves as a guide for institutions that are interested in promoting global learning as an inclusive, participatory process for all students. The Global Learning for Global Citizenship initiative was first implemented in 2010 and is now part of the landscape of the university, both literally and figuratively. In 2013, the Alumni Association donated a large plaque to FIU with an artistic rendering of the globe and the words Global Learning for Global Citizenship underneath. The plaque is displayed at the entrance to the student union. FIU’s 2015-20 strategic plan, BeyondPossible2020, characterizes the initiative as the “centerpiece of internationalized undergraduate education at FIU” (FIU, 2015, p. 12). On its simplest level, Global Learning for Global Citizenship is a two-course graduation requirement for all undergraduates, who also engage in co-curricular activities to enhance, consolidate, and put into action their global learning. Through courses as varied as Artistic Expression in a Global Society, Managing Global Cities, Health Without Borders, and Global Perspectives in Biology, students strive to achieve the following outcomes: • Global Awareness, an understanding of the interconnectedness of local and global issues; • Global Perspective: the ability to analyze issues from multiple perspectives; and, • Global Engagement: the willingness to engage in local and global problem-solving. These are our graduation-level global learning outcomes. They are the north star of the initiative and the guide for our faculty and students for all parts of the initiative, from course design, to faculty development, activities, and assessment. Now, more than a decade later, there are over 250 global learning courses that span all undergraduate academic departments, with more being added each year. mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 5 But as we all know, the classroom is not the only place - perhaps not even the primary site – for students’ global learning. For students to effectively use their learning to address complex issues, they must be able to integrate what they learn in the classroom with their learning outside the classroom and in their personal lives. Half of the work we do in the OGLI is focused on providing students with opportunities to engage in high impact global learning outside the classroom so that they are able to make connections from one course to another, and from their courses to their co-curricular activities and their personal lives. We do this through our programs, the Global Learning Medallion, the Millennium Fellowship, and the Peace Corps Prep, each of which we call a “global learning habitat” (Landorf, et.al, 2018, p. 145). These are dedicated programs that provide students with multiple entryways to collaborating with diverse others, and multiple environments where they can plant deep global learning roots and grow as global citizens. We also help students make these connections through our flagship global learning co-curricular activity, the Tuesday Times Roundtable (TTR). The TTR is a voluntary weekly discussion series of pertinent global issues, loosely based on a New York Times article and supported by the New York Times readership program. Each TTR is guided by one or more faculty and/or community members. Students have been coming to this event consistently for the past 11 years, not just for the free lunch, but because they are also hungry to discuss global issues of concern to them, ask questions, and learn about others’ perspectives in a safe, non-competitive, non-graded space. By all measures, Global Learning for Global Citizenship has been a success. It brought us the 2021 NAFSA Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization, the 2019 Association of Public and Land Grant Universities’ gold award for Inclusivity in Global Learning Research and Engagement, and the 2016 Institute for International Education’s Andrew Heiskell Award for Campus Internationalization. Analyses of our assessment data clearly show that the global learning students do increases their global awareness, perspective, and engagement. After a decade of providing global learning for our students, one of our most interesting assessment findings is that more than one global learning course is necessary to move the needle on students’ global competencies, and even more global learning courses are better. Another interesting assessment finding is that the activities that are most predictive of global competency growth are those in which students interact with diverse others. mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 6 An Equity Focus for Global Learning In summary, we know we have provided global learning that is inclusive of all students, and that accounts for diversity - not just geographical diversity, but disciplinary, cultural, ethnic, and cognitive diversity as well. But because global learning is a lifelong process, and we all pride ourselves in being global learners, in the summer of 2020, when the murder of George Floyd and others sparked demonstrations and dialogue about police brutality, racism, and inequality around the world, the OGLI was among many educational groups that publicly denounced the violence, hatred, and injustice affecting African Americans throughout the United States, and committed to critical reflection of our own actions and practices. We started by reading and discussing Derald Wing Sue’s book, Race talk and the conspiracy of silence (Sue, 2015), and participating in a 21-day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge sponsored by the YWCA. We did an analysis of the demographic make-up of our specialized student programs and saw that we need to do a much better job of recruiting African American and Caribbean students. We then created a multi-pronged plan to focus on in our work. It consists of several strategies, including faculty development, research, and student engagement. Faculty Development and Research All faculty who are revising a course for global learning designation, developing a new global learning course, or teaching a global learning course that their colleagues have designed, are encouraged to participate in a half-day hands-on workshop. The overall goal of the workshop is to sensitize participants to the development of their own global awareness, perspective, and engagement, and to move towards new ways of thinking about and implementing the content of their courses. To address equity in global learning, Sherrie Beeson, the OGLI Sr. Coordinator, collaborated with Erica Caton, the Director of Educational and Faculty Development in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and a faculty fellow in the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), to add a module to these workshops that is focused on equity. The module includes engaging in a reflective activity around race as a socially constructed concept, discussing definitions of equity and equitable teaching, and identifying teaching practices that advance equity. As for research, for the past year, I have been working with the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Office of Global Citizenship for Campus, Community, and Careers on a multi- university study. The Vice President of this division, Dawn Whitehead and I have conducted focus mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 7 groups with students from seven institutions of higher education across the U.S., including FIU. We explored students' perspectives of the meaning, challenges and possible intersections of global learning and DEI. From preliminary results, it is clear that students perceive global learning and DEI as intricately connected concepts, one essential for the other, and that engagement (rather than knowledge or skill-building) in local social justice-related activities is students’ preferred entrée into global learning. Student Engagement We know that students want to get engaged in issues around equity, and that when they are given the opportunity for their voices to be heard, they take off on their own. Here are just a few examples of strategies we have used, and that you can use too, to fuel student engagement in global learning equity issues. First, there’s the DEI Global Learning Student Fellows. Our office started this initiative this year. Two students were chosen as DEI-GL student fellows based on the importance and relevance of their proposals to equity focused global learning issues. The fellows receive a small financial stipend, mentoring, and DEI specific training to carry out their research agendas. Another strategy to jump-start student engagement in equity-focused global learning is to form a Global Learning Student Board, a group of student leaders on campus who act as the liaisons between your global learning office and the student body. At FIU, the OGLI initiated such a board in spring 2021, amidst the COVID19 pandemic, to give more agency to students in their global learning, and to actively engage students in recruiting and mentoring their peers in the various global learning habitat programs. The Global Learning Student Board at FIU is made up of 8 students, each of whom has a specific role which include operations coordinator, external and internal outreach coordinators, media relations coordinator, and GL peer advisor. In fall 2021 the Global Learning Student Board collectively made the decision to develop an age-appropriate video series to educate Miami-Dade County public school youth about equity issues impacting South Florida. They are now working on a discussion guide that Miami-Dade County public school teachers can use. A third strategy is to have students apply to become Millennium Fellows. This is a program sponsored by the Millennium Campus Network and the United Nations Academic Impact, to help make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a reality (Millennium Campus Network, n.d.). Undergraduate students are selected based on their campus leadership and potential to pursue projects that advance the SDGs in their own communities. As Millennium Fellows, in addition to mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 8 carrying out their projects, the students participate in a semester-long program in which they get to network with Millennium Fellows around the world and meet and learn from international experts in all the SDGs. The Millennium Fellowship Class of 2021 includes over 2,000 undergraduate students on 136 campuses, in 30 nations, including 25 students from FIU. Here are just two examples of the action-based research that FIU Millennium Fellows have undertaken since FIU became a Millennium Fellowship campus in 2019. Raqqya Adside-West, 2021 Millennium Fellow Campus Co-Director, addressed SDG 11, sustainable cities and communities, and SDG 2, zero hunger, by establishing LetsGrowUrban.com. LetsGrowUrban.com is an urban gardening blog in which Raqqya discusses strategies for creating and sustaining urban community gardens. She uses her own work securing locations and creating green spaces in planned gardens in low-income communities in Miami as evidence that it is possible for a 20- year-old with knowledge, determination, and grit to make a difference in achieving the SDGs. Sophia Emperatriz Jaimes, 2020 Millennium Fellow, addressed SDG 4, education, by creating Dale Start Smart, a program that guides low-income students in pursuing a higher education through free standardized testing preparation and college essay revisions. Sustainable Development Goals For me, and for many global learning and diversity, equity, and inclusion campus leaders, the SDGs represent the most obvious, and one of the most appropriate sites in which to illuminate equity through global learning. The SDGs allow students and faculty to wrestle with tough questions and consider how ethnicity, gender, and access are correlated to global and local challenges around the most important and vexing issues of our time. Within K-20 educational institutions, they can and are being used to bring global learning and equity together for a common purpose. The Millennium Fellowship program is one of many that gives students the structure, the resources, and most importantly, the sense of community they need to get their projects off the ground. There are several other programs that provide a similar home for global learners. One other example in post-secondary education is the SDG Student program (SDG Student Program, n.d.), an initiative of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). The program is a global network of student hubs designed for students to come together to learn about, engage with, and collaborate to take action on the SDGs. For primary and secondary school students, the SDSN sponsors the Global Schools program (Global Schools Program, n.d.), mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 9 a combination of resources, grassroots advocacy trainings, outreach to K-12 schools, and research partnerships with universities to design localized curriculum that focus on the SDGs. Conclusion I end with an image, of FIU’s Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, El Pagnier Hudson, who was slated to give a keynote address a couple of weeks ago to this year’s Millennium Fellows at FIU. She had lost her voice that day, but rather than stay home, she came with the Director of the Division of DEI, Emmanuelle Archange, who read her speech, while El Pagnier flashed messages on her IPad. Her last message – so proud of you – applies to all of you - you are on the frontlines of schools, colleges, and universities, empowering your students to contribute to the well-being of the world. To all of our students who are engaged in this work. And of course, to Jan Tucker, who led the way for all of us. mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ Journal of International Social Studies, v. 11, n. 2, 2021, pp. 1-10 Corresponding author: landorfh@fiu.edu ©2012/2023 National Council for Social Studies International Assembly http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 Page 10 References Cruz, B. C. (2018). Global visionary: The life and work of Jan L. Tucker. In T.F Kirkwood-Tucker (Ed.), The global education movement: Narratives of distinguished global scholars (pp. 37-58). Information Age Publishing. Florida International University (2015). BeyondPossible2020. Retrieved from: https://beyondpossible.fiu.edu. Global Schools Program (n.d.). Retrieved from https://globalschoolsprogram.org Landorf, H., Doscher, S. & Hardrick, J. (2018). Making global learning universal: Promoting inclusion and success for all students. Stylus Press and NAFSA. Millennium Campus Network (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mcnpartners.org Sue, D.W. (2015). Race talk and the conspiracy of silence: Understanding and facilitating difficult dialogues on race. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The SDG Students Program (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sdgstudent.org Tucker, J.L. (1982). International human rights education: The challenge for Colleges and Universities. In M.S. Branson & J. Torney-Purta (Eds.), International human rights, society, and the schools (pp. 71-80). National Council for the Social Studies. About the Author: Hillary Landorf is the founding Executive Director of the Office of Global Learning Initiatives at Florida International University (FIU). In this position, she oversees FIU’s university-wide initiative, Global Learning for Global Citizenship, recipient of NAFSA’s 2021 Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization She is also an Associate Professor and graduate program director of FIU’s Master of Science degree program in International and Intercultural Education. Hilary’s expertise centers on visioning, implementing, and assessing the policies and practices of global learning efforts in higher education. She has written, consulted, and presented internationally on integrating global learning into higher education. Diversity, equity, and inclusion have been consistent themes throughout her work, in topics ranging from human rights education, teaching for social justice, education for sustainable development, and defining global learning. Hilary’s latest co-authored book is Making Global Learning Universal: Promoting Inclusion and Success for All Students. mailto:landorfh@fiu.edu http://www.iajiss.org/ https://beyondpossible.fiu.edu/ https://globalschoolsprogram.org/