9 Jan
In a summary of educational objectives that I wrote in October
(http://www.wlu.edu/~hblackme/interned/edobj.html) I
suggested that Global
Studies should be an explicit part of W&L's General Education program,
and noted several institutions which seem to have initiatives with
something like the same aims. My observations on
the UVa conference on Universalizing the University
(http://www.wlu.edu/~hblackme/interned/uva.html) followed
up some of the
same themes, and most recently I have
been working on the closely related practical problem of
designing the infrastructure for a
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) collaboration among Associated
Colleges of the South partners
(http://www.wlu.edu/~hblackme/giswork/servprop.html),
which
includes a
substantial Global Studies component.
The Global and International Studies problem that particularly interests me (and that I think GIS is especially relevant to) addresses the fact that few W&L students have much background in the geographies of distant parts of the world, or in the intricacies of such global-scale problems as health, demography, development, or environmental problems. It is reasonable to expect that students who have or gain such knowledge will make informed and creative choices for their own involvement in international study and travel, so it is important to involve them in global issues in the freshman year. This involvement could take many forms, including seminars, lecture courses, online tutorials, film series and other programs. We should explore efforts other institutions are making along these lines, and we can also develop our own unique approaches, based on faculty strengths and interests.
I am particularly interested in exploring ways that GIS can be used to support study and teaching in and across disciplines in the liberal arts context. GIS software provides an effective toolkit to assist in introducing students to a sense of place, and gradually extending the 'place' to global scale. Analytical tools of GIS allow investigators to develop the skills to transform data into information, ask 'what if?' questions of data, and create maps which communicate findings to audiences.
My explorations of Global Studies initiatives via the web have identified several institutions that I would like to visit for a closer look at what they are doing and how they are doing it. In a few cases (Stanford Learning Laboratory, SRI, and Alexandria Digital Library) there are important developments and activities that can't be accessed via the web; in other locations (Purdue and Berkeley) it would be useful to have an opportunity to talk with specific innovators at some length.
I propose a trip during the February Break to visit these locations:
To look into their emphasis on "information supporting basic science", and see the domain-constrained JiGi software in action; talk with Larry Carver, Director, Map and Imagery Laboratory (http://www.sdc.ucsb.edu/)
(Larry Leifer [Learning Laboratory Director], Richard Reis [New Faculty Alliances for Collaborative Learning], Charlotte Derksen [Branner Library] at Stanford, Yvan Leclerc at SRI [TerraVision project])
Ray Larson (see http://sherlock.sims.bekeley.edu/geo_ir/PART1.html), Howard Foster (317 Soda Hall hfoster@cs.berkeley.edu --GIS applications, data acquisition)
John Graveel, Convenor for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment; Fabio Milner, Convenor for Human Ecology; H.E. Dunsmore, Convenor for Information Systems