Global Wes Collaborative
Global Wesleyan Collaborative (GWC)
The Global Wesleyan Collaborative (or GWC) is a group of Wesleyan staff, faculty, and students who are committed to advancing our university’s internationalization—a concept we employ cautiously, always attendant to matters of power and privilege. We take the 2022 Presidential Statement on Internationalization as a point of departure in explaining what internationalization is and why it is important at an institution like Wesleyan, and supplement this with the diverse experiences of members of the Wesleyan community as well as the academic literature; as such, our understanding of internationalization is always a work in progress.
By joining together, we aim to accomplish these general objectives:
- Educate ourselves on internationalization critiques and best practices.
- Gather and organize information on the Wesleyan community’s internationalization-related activities that are planned, underway, or completed.
- Identify internationalization-related needs or areas of concern.
- Share what we have learned with constituencies across campus.
- Collaborate as opportunities arise on internationalization-related projects.
In addition, through our individual roles on campus we will also advocate for progress on internationalization agendas.
The Presidential Statement says that internationalization is the infusion of international and comparative perspectives throughout the teaching, research, creative practice, and service missions of our institution, which we take to be a good starting point for our understanding, consistent with standard definitions that exist in the scholarly literature such as Knight's "Internationalization ... is defined as the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education” (here). We further emphasize that internationalization requires the cultivation of intercultural curiosity, understanding, and sensitivity throughout our community.
Both through our individual roles and by joining together, we aim to make progress in the following six themes:
- Promote internationalized student learning through our curriculum
- Support students and alumni in pursuing global engagement and intercultural growth through activities beyond the curriculum
- Expand and support a culture of campus multilingualism
- Broaden access for and diversity of international students, faculty and visiting scholars, and staff; foster a campus environment in which all can thrive
- Increase support for internationally-oriented and faculty research, creative practice, and other partnerships
- Build attention to comprehensive internationalization into our governance and institutional structure