At Union College in Schenectady, there's a new class on campus, and it's all set up by the students.
Union College Senior Emily Clark said, “There was a student committee put together, and we discussed different ideas for a course, bringing together professors from every discipline, and Globalization was the one that stood out the most as potentially being the most successful.”
Approximately 60 students are enrolled in the Globalization class. The focus of the Globalization course is “the study of moving beyond domestic markets to other markets around the world.” This particular class is held twice a week with rotating professors. It's a different approach, but it has its advantages.
Union College Freshman Lindsay Shelley said, “The great thing about this class is they're bringing professors from the Economics Department, the Anthropology Department, the Political Science Department, to get every different point of view.”
Political Science Professor Tom Lobe said, “I think the idea at the end of the class is not to be some type of expert on Globalization, but rather just start to feel comfortable seeing that different disciplines and different scholars and different policy-makers approach ideas and concepts in different ways.”
Students also get to know what it's like to actually design a class like this, by deciding the topics to picking the professors –making this, literally, a class all their own.
Anthropology Professor George Gmelch said, “It's best if you can kind of give them ownership, give them as much control of the curriculum and things we do as possible, so I'm trying to do that in this course.”
So now the question is, will this trend continue?
Clark said, “I think the students are getting a lot out of it this term, so hopefully it can continue with different subject matter and continue to grow next year.”