Global College

Residential Colleges -- Bucknell

Daniel Winer, Global College

The Global College (GC) student comes to Bucknell with diverse academic and intellectual interests and enroll in diverse degree programs. GC faculty come from the International Relations program and are interested in a range of issues about our global reality, for example, internationalization and globalization and related themes and problems around global culture, controversies, and solutions. The college seeks to educate students about the evolution of the modern world system and about contemporary global issues, and strives to build a community of understanding, mutual respect and cooperation among its students and faculty.

During the first semester, students take a foundation seminar, The Modern World System (MWS), which challenges established beliefs and biases about the world with the aim of helping students to see beyond conventionality in order to understand the world in its ever increasing complexity. While the course examines the evolution and contradictions of the modern world from the 15th century to the present, the MWS foundation seminar introduces concepts and arguments about the world before the rise of “European hegemony, when historical trends reflected a flow from east to west and addresses the issue that European hegemony is not an original condition and demonstrates that the so-called European miracle was the result of fortuitous historical circumstances.

It covers such topics as the impact on the Americas of the Spanish and Portuguese explorers and empires, colonialism and imperialism, national liberation movements, racism, cultural diffusion, poverty, contradictions of development in the Third World, American national security in the Cold War, the political, cultural, economic, military, and ecological dimensions of the post-cold war system, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the contradictory manifestations of global capitalism in the era of neoliberalism, HIV/AIDS, environmental and ecological crises, the changing global reality in the wake of ‘9/11’, the “war on terror”, and alternative approaches to social change for improving the lives of people across the globe.

The course is taught in two sections by different professors, sharing a common syllabus and course requirements. It meets twice a week for small group discussion of assigned material and once a week for a common hour where students view films and engage in other activities related to the themes of the course. The Junior Fellows (student staff) and Senior Fellows (faculty) plan activities related to the course. These activities include study breaks on the halls to discuss current events, participation in extracurricular activities such as attending lectures by invited speakers, a trip to the United Nations in the fall and one to Washington, D.C. in the spring. Both trips are designed to give the students a broader exposure to world developments than they are likely to acquire from the classroom.

Students applaud the Modern World System course and praise the hall communities. Most global students value their experience so much that they choose to live in residence halls that maintain their link to the global college in their sophomore year. Another factor that reflects the positive impact of the Global College on its students is that a number of them select International Relations for their major each year.