Global Studies Initiative Takes Off
By Catherine Szilagyi, Student Intern of
CHASS College Computing
The University has recently initiated plans to introduce a new interdisciplinary major to the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences that will give powerful support to rethinking the meaning of place in a contemporary world, retool faculty and students to become global thinkers, and teach students to relate knowledge of area geographies to the larger trends and issues that affect all societies. It is the Global Studies major.
The Global Studies Initiative will introduce a major concerned with the study of global historical processes that have made the world more interconnected as well as fragmented among the forces of global politics, violence, and security. The UCR program focuses on issues of global migrations, travel and social movements, global literature, arts and media, global economic systems of trade and finance, and issues of global health, disease and environmental change.
Professor of Anthropology Anne Sutherland has been named Global Studies director and an informal ambassador for recruiting seven enthusiastic and brilliant faculty members for the Initiative, as a part of CHASS’ recent cluster hires that began this Fall.
“We are serious about recruiting the best faculty candidates both within the department as well as for the Global Studies Program.” Professor Sutherland commented, “Through our new recruitment approach we hope to show them the advantages of coming to UCR and why our program is something they should be interested in.”
The biggest advantage of Global Studies is that it is entirely interdisciplinary. The major crosses disciplines, drawing on the social sciences, arts, humanities, and sciences just as the major’s academic focus surpasses international studies by focusing on transnational processes rather than relations between nations.
For more information about the Global Studies Initiative and its development, please visit the New CHASS Initiatives and the Global Studies major cluster hiring website.