Students in some Hope College English courses have the opportunity to study at other colleges around the world without leaving Hope’s campus. Four members of the English department faculty have developed courses in the Global Course Connections program of theGlobal Liberal Arts Alliance(GLAA).
在全球连接的课程中，一位Hope教授与GLAA中一所大学的教授合作，在两门相似的课程之间建立联系。联系可能包括两校学生之间的小组项目，通过视频会议同步上课，或共享讨论论坛等活动。今年秋天英语系将开设两门新的相关课程。
系主任欧内斯特·科尔博士是霍普大学全球互联课程的先驱教授，他曾教授过五门此类课程。All have been versions of English 234, Modern Global Literature, with different themes and global collaborators:
- “Global Literature and the Environment: African and Indian Literature” with Ashutosh Potdar, FLAME University, India
- “African Literature and Mental Health: Postcolonialism as Nervous Condition” with Jams Hodapp, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
- “Global Literature and Trauma: African and Indigenous American Literature” with Adam Waterman, American University of Beirut
- “Mental Health, Trauma, and Disability in African and Latinx Literature” with Sara Newman, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador.
- “The Stories We Tell: Trauma and Disability from a Literary & Psychological Perspective” with Sara Newman, Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Erin Henshaw, Denison University, Ohio
This past spring, Dr. Pablo Peschiera connected his section of English 253, Introduction to Creative Writing, with a first-year writing course at American University of Nigeria. “My students quickly noticed their similarities to the Nigerian students in terms of goals, family dynamics, friendships, and etc.,” said Peschiera. “But, more importantly, they felt they had a window into a different culture, with significantly different challenges and customs.”
This coming fall, two more faculty members will offer globally connected courses. Dr. Kristin VanEyk will connect her English 113, Expository Writing on “Language and Culture” with another first-year writing course at American University of Nigeria, taught by Emilienne Akpan. Dr. Curtis Gruenler’s English 480, Introduction to Literary Theory, will be connected to a similar course at Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan.
VanEyk和Gruenler都参加了今年6月在巴黎美国大学举办的为期三天的研讨会，在那里他们有机会与合作者见面。VanEyk说，她很感激在多次电子邮件交流之后有机会见到Akpan本人，这种面对面的联系帮助了他们的合作。“我和我的课程搭档艾米丽安既是同事又是朋友。通过我们之间的多次电子邮件往来，以及我们在一个项目上合作的机会，我们能够体验到我们的学生将会体验到的一点东西。”“工作坊也为全球多个地点的共享价值观和经验创造了丰富的对话空间。”
Said Gruenler, “I felt like my collaborator, Dr. Qurratulaen Liaqat, and I really hit it off. We are excited for the conversations our students will have with each other on topics like feminism and post-colonial studies.” The two courses will connect primarily during a five-week period in the middle of the semester for both schools, which start a month apart. “Plus,” added Gruenler, “one of our assignments for the workshop was a brief field experience relevant to our connected courses, so we went to the Louvre, since literary theory applies also to visual art and neither of us had ever been there. We got to share with each other from our own areas of expertise, like Islamic art for her and medieval art for me.”
One of the leaders of the workshop was Dierdre Johnston, a recently retired member of Hope’s Department of Communications. She and her co-leader from Kenyon College, Irene López, recently published a book based on their experiences with the Global Course Connections program,The Wiley Handbook of Collaborative Online Learning and Global Engagement.
