Global Citizenship

President’s Global Citizenship Update

Since arriving at Becker, I have challenged the College community to educate students who can compete in a global society by instilling within the Becker College experience the three pillars of Global Citizenship: academic excellence, social responsibility, and creative expression.

Last fall, we successfully delineated the College vision, mission, and core values—an essential antecedent to establishing an agenda for Global Citizenship at Becker. We held conversations throughout the College to gather input and ideas about what Global Citizenship means for Becker and its student experience.

The time has come to move ahead with the process of establishing Global Citizenship as a graduate attribute.  Graduate attributes describe a core outcome of a higher education, specifying an aspect of the institution’s contribution to society.

To begin, we have developed the following working definition and statement:

Global Citizen

Global citizens have acquired the knowledge, skills, and attitudes through a variety of experiences that enable them to understand world cultures, events, and global systems; appreciate cultural differences; and apply this knowledge and appreciation to their lives as citizens and workers so that they may thrive, contribute to, and lead in a global society.

Global Citizenship Graduate Attribute Statement

Becker College graduates shall have acquired, through a variety of experiences, the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable them to understand world cultures, events, and global systems; appreciate cultural differences; and to apply this knowledge and appreciation to their lives as citizens and workers so that they may thrive, contribute to, and lead in a global society.

Over the next few months, we will develop a global engagement strategy (to support Global Citizenship as key attribute of the Becker student experience) that is appropriate to our vision, mission, core values, and institutional capacity.

The goal is to advance Becker’s mission of delivering to each student a “transformational learning experience—anchored by academic excellence, social responsibility, and creative expression—that prepares graduates to thrive, contribute to, and lead in a global society.”

I have formed a Global Citizenship Task Force, co-chaired by Kevin Mayne and Steve Moysey, to advance this agenda. Task Force members serve in a formative task force until fall. Then, we will determine further commitments and actions needed from that point forward. The College has been invited to participate, via the American Council on Education’s Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement, in its 10th cohort of the Internationalization Laboratory. We will participate in this exciting initiative, which starts in fall 2012.

» Learn more about the Global Citizenship survey