2012 Spotlight Providence College
When Sonia Penso enrolled at Providence College, it was the dream of her autoworker parents—Portuguese immigrants whose education stopped in grade school—that she become a doctor or lawyer. Sonia herself envisioned law school as a strong possibility. But majoring in global studies, studying abroad in Nicaragua and Argentina, and working with troubled U.S. and Latino youth led her down a different path. She is now a caseworker with Homeboy Industries, a renowned gang intervention program in Los Angeles. “When everything shifted, I was really surprised that both my parents were incredibly supportive,” said the 23-year-old, who graduated in 2011.
Global studies seems to have the effect of altering career trajectories. Michelle DePlante ‘08, who was among the first to sign up when Providence created the interdisciplinary major in 2005, does immigrant and refugee work in the Rhode Island capital. Victoria Neff ‘09 is at the University of Denver doing graduate work in international studies after two years in the Peace Corps in China. Alexandra BetGeorge ‘11 is a Fulbright Scholar teaching English to high school students in Bulgaria.
These are the career paths that leaders at the Catholic college envisioned when it created the interdisciplinary major and imbued it with extensive community service requirements across all four years. They must become fluent in a second language (two advanced level courses) and, naturally, participate in education abroad. The global studies program now has nearly 100 majors and graduates 25 students each year.
An Ethos of Service and New Emphasis on Education Abroad
The ethos of service runs strong at Providence, the only U.S. college founded and run by the white-robed Dominican Friars, but a push to internationalize students’ experiences picked up steam with the creation of a Center for International Studies in 2007 to facilitate education abroad. The college’s 2011 strategic plan seeks to boost the education abroad participation rate from 15 to 35 percent. An overhaul of the core curriculum addressed the need to develop more engaged students who undertake “research, scholarship, service, internships, and other immersion experiences locally, regionally, and abroad.”
Since making financial aid fully portable for the first time—a step with an annual cost of $3 million—Providence has seen the number of education abroad students rocket from 163 in 2010–11 to 230 in 2011–12, with even larger numbers projected for the 2012–13 academic year, said Dean of International Studies Adrian Beaulieu, who recently hired a fourth staff person for the Center for International Studies. The percentage studying abroad for a full semester has risen to 25 percent. Beaulieu said the first mandate he was given when hired as dean in 2007 was “to get serious about study abroad.”
Nicholas Longo, now the director of global studies, taught the first introductory course on global studies to 20 students back in 2005 as a part-time lecturer. Longo is a summa cum laude graduate from the class of 1996 who majored in political science, minored in a then-new department, public and community service studies, and became a civic engagement activist and scholar. He returned to his alma mater in 2008.
An Interdisciplinary Faculty and Community Advisers
Global studies has no faculty of its own but draws from other departments. Longo, an associate professor in the Department of Public and Community Service, said, “There’s a core group of six faculty from social work, from philosophy, from the business school, from foreign language, from sociology, and from public service.”
Some courses are co-taught by community advisers such as DePlante, outreach coordinator for International Institute Rhode Island (IIRI), a nonprofit that provides educational, legal, and social services to immigrants and refugees throughout the state and southeast New England. She had done volunteer work for the institute as a college student and joined it full-time upon graduation. Now some of the students she teaches fulfill their service requirement by volunteering at IIRI.
Seeing the Real World Implications of Globalization
Service learning is built into most of the major’s required courses. Students often work in teams on projects that in Longo’s words “examine globalization and global citizenship through the lens of local community engagement.”
Using local activists as co-teachers “really brings a community voice into the classroom,” said Longo, who once was a national student coordinator for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Campus Compact and later directed Miami University’s civic leadership institute.
“Students are not just studying globalization in that first course. They are doing service learning and civic engagement projects and seeing what the real world implications of globalization are in Providence,” said Longo.
Like Sonia Penso, DePlante, the daughter of a Cuban immigrant, had to explain her choice of the major “more than once” to her parents and other relatives skeptical of whether it would lead to a job. “But I knew I was learning critical skills that would be the foundation for any direction I wanted to go,” said DePlante, who minored in business and Spanish as well. “The major provides the leadership and thinking skills that employers and grad schools are looking for.” She studied and did a business internship in Seville, Spain, then wrote her thesis on the assimilation of Hispanic immigrants in Providence.
A Capstone Globally Engaged Thesis
Most of Providence’s 3,900 undergraduates do not have to write theses, but the capstone of global studies is a requirement to produce a “globally engaged” thesis. The seniors participate in a year-long seminar synthesizing what they have learned in the classroom and in their community involvement at home and abroad, then write a paper that is supposed to have real world implications, like the comparative study that Penso did on troubled urban youth in Nicaragua, Argentina, and Rhode Island.
Throughout the four years, the majors must develop an individualized learning plan and keep an “e-portfolio” tracking their progress in learning a second language, choosing an education abroad program, engaging in civic and service activities, and demonstrating awareness of global issues.
Longo said it has taken time to convince some faculty colleagues that global studies was “a rigorous and legitimate academic discipline,” but the projects students have taken on and their success after graduation have made that task easier. Neff, who came to Providence on a soccer scholarship, wrote her thesis on the role of community organizations in combating HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. BetGeorge studied abroad in Tunisia, which positioned her well to write a thesis on the role of Facebook in sparking the first Arab Spring revolution.
Reaching Students Outside the Major
While global studies has had a strong influence on its own students, until this fall there was scant room in its courses for non-majors. But with a newly hired adjunct, the college now offers four sections of Introduction to Global Studies instead of two. “Part of the reason we haven’t grown as much as we probably could have is that if you didn’t come in as a global studies major, it was hard to get into the course,” said Longo. Now he hopes to “introduce the themes and the concepts from our course to many more students.”
“People aren’t looking at us any more like we were totally crazy for majoring in global studies,” Penso said with a laugh. “For me, it was the best choice I made. I’m so thankful that so many of the experiences that I had”—she worked with gang kids in Managua and undocumented youth in Buenos Aires—“were so far out of my comfort zone. It made me feel I can accomplish so much and do so many other things. It prepared us for the real world.”
