“One World/One Classroom: Linking Global and Local Education”
Proposal for CUGH pre-conference session: half-day, working meeting
Goals of Meeting:
1. To study the range of ways that global health initiatives (research, clinical, service, and experiential learning)
can be translated to the local level.
2. To discuss the value to students, universities, funders and employers of linking global health and community
initiatives.
Background: The number and scope of global health programs is growing rapidly in universities across the country. At
the same time, most universities are also restating and enhancing their commitment to active community engagement,
often in the form of efforts directed at impacting the social determinants of health in the community. Increasingly,
universities are trying to find ways to link their global health and community engagement initiatives and the term
“global/local” is used frequently to describe these efforts. Notwithstanding the potential benefits of such integration, many
universities do not yet see the conceptual and operational link between such initiatives locally and globally. This is partly
because there is no clear definition or agreed-upon framework to guide universities in this pursuit and also because there
is little available information about successful programs upon which to model new initiatives.
Linking global and local health programs operationalizes and embraces the growing understanding that the boundary
between global and local health is porous – and even artificial – and that public health concepts relevant at the local level
are relevant at the global level and vice versa. Recognizing the natural link between global and community-level health
programs will facilitate the sharing of low cost/high impact health innovations across borders. From the funder and
employer perspective, it will also contribute to the reduction in barriers that have traditionally made it difficult for
individuals with community experience to work in the global arena and vice versa. Finally, finding ways to join global
and local health efforts creates a pathway to address the misconception that dollars and effort spent on global
programming detracts from efforts to meet pressing local needs.
We would like to use this pre-conference meeting to start a discussion among stakeholders (global health faculty and
program leaders, university administrators, community engagement faculty, employers and funders) as a prelude to a
roundtable we will hold at the University of Maryland Baltimore in September 2015 that will bring a small group of
scholars and practitioners together to create a publishable product (consensus statement and/or a range of model
global/local programming options).
Organizers
Virginia Rowthorn, UM Carey School of Law
Jody Olsen, UM School of Social Work
Jane Lipscomb, UM School of Nursing
Lori Edwards, UM School of Nursing
Bonnie Bissonette, UM Student Center for Global Education
Keith Martin, CUGH
Sharon Rudy, Global Health Fellows Program
Lori DiPrete Brown, University of Wisconsin Madison Global Health Institute
Jessica Evert, Child Family Health International