Assumptions, Realities, and Possibilities: Essays on Global Citizenship Education The following essays address some of the assumptions, realities, and possibilities of bringing a more comprehensive approach to global education to the thirty-six participating institutions. The essay contributors come from a wide range of disciplines and area-interests, from large universities and small colleges, predominately black and predominately white institutions, they represent faculty, administrators, researchers and practitioners, and they are from different regions of the US and the world. Several contributors served as MFCI seminar or workshop lecturers or facilitators, while others participated in the MFCI as representatives of their institutions. The approach here is reflective of each contributor’s observations, expertise, conceptual framework, and experience in weaving together a tapestry of new insights, models, or practices for those working to advance global citizenship education for the next generation of leaders.
in their classrooms, campuses, and communities. The projects developed and rich exchanges that occurred between faculty and administrators alike, in fact, led to several collaborative project initiatives that OvertonAdkins highlights as evidence. The two essays by Gasman and Abraham address the importance of stories and institutional narratives and the acknowledgement of recognizing shared attributes in the respective histories of ACAs and HBCUs as institutional types. For example, these shared attributes have led to a greater appreciation of “the other� in a way that models the importance and advantages of faculty, students, and institutions to embrace global citizenship. Marybeth Gasman argues that because of the discovery of some common ground, these institutional types are uniquely positioned to serve as prime examples fostering cross-racial conversations locally and globally. However, learning how to tell and re-tell their stories is an important first step in maximizing this potential and is at the core of the argument by Abraham and Gasman. In her essay entitled Retelling Our Institutional Narratives: Creating Unexpected Spaces for Global Citizenship Education (the product of an MFCI workshop at North Carolina Central University in November 2012), Keshia Abraham suggests that the MFCI allowed participants to take a deeper look at the stories of each institution by working across institutions in group settings and in one-on-one engagement. By doing so, participants gained both understanding and courage to re-frame the histories of their institutions in a way that uncovers the sometimes latent connection to (global) citizenship and thus adds legitimacy for future collaborative work. To illustrate her point, Abraham examines the history and mission of several ACA and HBCU institutions in exploring some of these common factors.
There are ten articles grouped around five core themes that significantly inform our thinking about both resources and strategies for global citizenship education. The first two essays by Moses and Overton-Adkins provide a broad canvas in exploring the possibilities of institutional collaboration among ACA and HBCU institutions by looking at institutional legacy, mission, and the first efforts of institutional partnerships. Yolanda Moses reviews the legacies and missions of both ACA and HBCU institutions in The ACA, HBCU and MFCI: (Unlikely?) Partners for Making a Difference in Global Education. Moses believes this history can support the promise of a Global Education Consortium (GEC) among them as a way to further explore the continuing global problems of race and racism. In The Evolution of Collaboration: HBCUs and the ACA Building Capacity to Develop Global Citizenship, Betty Overton-Adkins makes the case that while collaboration in higher education does not come easy, the MFCI provided the possibilities for new partnerships to develop by giving the institutions both space and time to develop and implement projects that infuse global perspectives
While the MFCI began as a loose group of HBCU and ACA institutions around global citizenship education,
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