Office of Global & Cross Cultural Programs

Campus Internationalization Highlights for 2020-2021

Awards

• Awarded Morgan State University Innovation Grant (Vice President of Academic Affairs) to expand the Division of International Affairs "Bear Beyond Borders," Initiatives.
• Awarded Title III's Virtual Learning funding to expand student and faculty exchanges.

Virtual Exchange Programming/Faculty Training

• Initiated and implemented Morgan's first Japan- USA 2020 Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program with Kansai University (Japan), Institute for Innovative Global Education (IIGE), American Council on Education (ACE), Immerse U, and Class2Class for our Japan- USA COIL Rapid Response Virtual Learning Program.
• Completed DePaul University's Global Learning Training: Ten (10) faculty and three (3) staff members engaged in a two week intensive training to learn how to develop virtual exchange programs. The programs proposed by our faculty members is scheduled to launch in Spring and Summer 2021.
• (Spring 2020 and Fall 2020) Dr. Samia Kirchner, Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning successfully facilitated two semesters of Virtual Exchange Courses through Soliya's Connect Global Program. Enrollment included 27 students that were offered 4 architecture courses with students predominately from Western and Muslim societies. Dr. Kirchner is also the lead faculty for Morgan's pilot COIL program with Kansai University in Japan.
• (Summer 2020) Dr. Krishna Bista, of the School of Education & Urban Studies' Community College Leadership Program provided a virtual workshop to 675 global attendees highlighting new and best internationalization practices, resources, from Morgan's University global institution network.
• (Fall 2020) Gonzalo Baptista, Assistant Professor in the College of Liberal Arts' Department of World Languages & International Studies collaborated with faculty in Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha to offer a Virtual Exchange Spanish language learning course to 10 students.

"During this past summer I prepared the documents for a MOU among MSU and UCLM, focusing on students' exchange. Besides, I wanted my Intermediate-level Spanish language students to have the opportunity to speak with other native speakers. Since a community-service project with the local Latinx community was not possible (due to the pandemic), I contacted the UCLM Foreign Language department and I started planning with them. I am currently running my Virtual Language Exchange (half in Spanish and half in English), with a focus on cross-culturality. The main topic is the Black Lives Matter movement, so the title is Connecting Through Black Lives Matter. We have had only two meetings so far and the discussion is very rich in meanings. I see all parties are enjoying it." (October, 2020)

• (Spring 2021) Dr. Kimberly Warren of the College of Liberal Arts trained for the Ampei (Mexico - US COIL) and was matched with Universidad Autónoma de Baja California where she would work in collaboration with Dra. Fabiola Flores Monsivais. The course will be classifed under health psychology and will cover topics around stress management techniques.