The Global Citizenship Program at Webster University aims to ensure that all undergraduate students develop the core competencies required for responsible global citizenship in the 21st century. The program is guided by the university's mission and aligns with employer needs, student needs, and national research on skills development. It focuses on providing students with knowledge in various areas as well as skills like critical thinking, communication, cultural competence, collaboration, and ethical reasoning. A key part of the program is integrative learning experiences like first-year seminars and a global keystone seminar in the third year that combine knowledge and skill development.

1. Bruce Umbaugh
Professor of Philosophy
Director, Global Citizenship Program
October 4, 2012

2. Mission
The mission of the Global Citizenship Program is
to ensure that every undergraduate student
emerges from Webster University with the core
competencies required for responsible global
citizenship in the 21st Century.

3. Guided by Mission

4. Meaningful work and fulfillment
that you
do well
that makes a
positive
difference
Something
you love
doing
Based on Dave Pollard, How to Save the World

5. GCP Competencies are the Gateway to
Career Success
“Irrespective of college major or
institutional selectivity, what matters
to career success is students’
development of a broad set of cross-
cutting capacities…”
Anthony Carnevale, Georgetown University
Center on Education and the Workforce

6. GCP and Career Success
Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics
 Every year, more than 1/3 of the entire US labor
force changes jobs.
 Today's Students Will Have 10-14 Jobs by the Time
They Are 38.
 50% of Workers Have Been With Their Company Less
Than 5 Years.
 Every year, more than 30 million Americans are
working in jobs that did not exist in the previous
quarter.

7. Giving students what they need
My own former students work in (for example)
– study abroad advising
– policy analysis
– health care ethics
– managing online learning
– nonprofit advocacy
– logistics management
– museum administration

8. The Growing Demand for Higher Order Skills
8

9. “The service economy is creating a need for new and
more complex skill sets—creativity, problem solving,
communications, customer relations, computing,
collaboration and teamwork. Increasingly, all workers
have to be adaptive and flexible—able to respond
rapidly and with independent initiative.”
Council on Competitiveness, "Thrive: The Skills Imperative," 2008, p. 21
Giving students what they need

10. Giving students what they need
Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the Economic Downturn,
Hart Research Associates, for the AAC&U, January, 2010

11. Wage Premium for GCP Learning
Outcomes
The highest salaries apply to positions that call for intensive use of
liberal education capabilities, including (random order):
 Writing
 Judgment and Decision Making
 Problem Solving
 Social/Interpersonal Skills
 Mathematics
 Originality
Source: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

12. Cafeteria “A,” 1947, Duke University Archives. Durham, North Carolina, USA.
CC by-nc-sa, Some rights reserved.
Cold-war era general education

13. National Research and Best Practices
The Global Citizenship Program aligns with:
 Webster University Mission and Values
 Employer needs
 Student needs

14. National Research and Best Practices
The Global Citizenship Program aligns with research:
 Association of American Colleges & Universities
 Research on High Impact Practices
 Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development

15. High Impact Practices
• First-Year Seminars and Experiences
• Common Intellectual Experiences
• Learning Communities
• Writing-Intensive Courses
• Collaborative Assignments and Projects
• “Science as Science Is Done”/Undergraduate Research
• Diversity/Global Learning
• Service Learning, Internships, Community-Based Learning
• Capstone Courses and Projects

16. OECD “Skills Strategy”
“Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Lives: A Strategic Approach to Skills Policies”
Launched May 2012

17. OECD “Skills Strategy”
“Skills have become the
global currency of 21st
century economies.”
-- OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría

18. OECD “Skills Strategy”
“Since skills requirements change and people need to adapt
and learn new skills over their working lives to ensure
occupational mobility . . . people should master foundation
skills and . . . develop the general desire and capacity to
engage in learning over an entire lifetime.”
Better Skills Better Jobs Better Lives: A Strategic Approach to Skills Policies,
OECD Publishing, 2012, p. 26

19. OECD “Skills Strategy”
Curricula for the 21st century:
• Knowledge – connected to real-world
experience
• Skills – including higher-order skills (Creativity,
Communication, Critical Thinking,
Collaboration)
• Values
• Meta-layer – integration and learning how to
continue to learn

20. What do students need?
• Knowledge
• Skills
• Abilities to integrate and apply

21. What do students need?
• Knowledge
Roots of Cultures, Social Systems & Human
Behavior, Physical & Natural World, Global
Understanding, Arts Appreciation, Quantitative
Literacy
• Skills
Critical Thinking, Written Communication, Oral
Communication, Intercultural Competence, Ethical
Reasoning, Collaboration, Integration

22. Integrative Learning
GCP integrates learning of
Knowledge + Skill in a course

23. Integrative Learning
Multiple skills in Seminars:
– First-year Seminars
• Interdisciplinary
• address written communication, oral communication,
critical thinking, and integrative learning
– Global Keystone Seminars
• Will address knowledge from interdisciplinary
perspectives
• as well as all the skills components

24. Integrative Learning
Global Keystone Seminar:
– Innovative
– Third-year experience
– All undergraduate campuses
– Capstone experience for GCP curriculum
– Bring together knowledge and skills of whole GCP
– Critical thinking, written and oral communication,
ethical reasoning, intercultural competence,
collaboration, as well as multiple knowledge areas and
disciplines