It is important to
be aware of how international experience, and the formation of international
knowledge, is brokered and mediated by various experts who shape our
itineraries, translate local behavior, frame relevant categories for
understanding a place, and more. So how does Grinnell’s own program in London
help orient faculty to London, Britain, Europe, and a different vantage point
on the globe? How are the structures and approaches of the program evolving?
Grinnell-in-London
(GiL) has long served faculty quite well as a vehicle for exploring the above
locations through their teaching. Faculty offer courses that they have
typically not taught at Grinnell, and anchor these courses in sites that they
come to know more intimately with students particularly through field trips,
but possibly as well through guest lecturers.
The program’s longtime resident director, the American-born and
Harvard-trained Dr. Donna Vinter, has earned wide acclaim from past faculty for
her efforts to help faculty across the disciplines translate questions about
place, people, and artifacts into academic discovery for Grinnell faculty and
students. Faculty have also forged and developed local academic and other
professional ties, and have benefitted from the research they do prior to
arriving in London that draws on a typical array of academic resources (such as
the library and Internet) as well as advice from colleagues.
In 2014 GiL will
mark its fortieth anniversary with a new chapter in the production of
international knowledge: the program will incorporate the option for students
to take a course at Queen Mary College, University of London. The change’s
primary aim is to offer students a new form of cultural integration. However, one
question of relevance for the Center for International Studies is whether a
flow of peer faculty contacts with Queen Mary will follow from where our students
venture. This model for shared student and faculty engagement with different
milieu has been explored in other parts of the world: it is Grinnell’s
opportunity to leverage localized investments in global knowledge made through
off-campus study. Initial faculty exposure to Queen Mary has yielded positive
reports.
This change to the
program comes with other questions. For instance, is GiL the type of program
that can or should encourage ties with a single British institution? Is a
semester sufficient time for faculty to meet peers at Queen Mary alongside
other personal and professional needs on the program? Is Queen Mary the right partner
for this kind of modification to the program? For better or for worse, Grinnell-in-London
is diversifying its reliance on local translators of cultural knowledge. The
college is currently taking applications for faculty to teach on the program in
2015, and hopes to make appointments eager to discover the possibilities and
limitations of this additional feature to one of its own administered international
experiences.
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