The Global Engagement Learning Community (LC) puts a global twist on the freshman experience at St. Edward's and life in Austin. We bring our diverse and thriving city into the classroom and extend the university experience into Austin and beyond. "Connecting the Global with the Local" is our motto.
In this LC, you'll explore a variety of cultural and political topics in global contexts through your academic work and social engagement. Our range of seminars and extracurricular activities across the city offer students many opportunities to study and tackle diverse social issues first-hand. Whether it be by studying a foreign film, sampling global cuisine, or taking in an art exhibit in downtown Austin, students in this LC will learn how a global perspective can help us tackle problems at the local level and vice-versa.
Fall 2021 classes
Quick Facts
Faculty coordinator: TBD
Capacity: 60
Founded: 2017
BTS, K-pop, and Globalization of Culture
BTS, K-pop, and Globalization of Culture
Faculty member teaching this course: Jooyoun Lee
This course will examine how various facets of globalization shape the dynamics of popular culture by focusing on the BTS phenomenon and the rise of K-pop. We will explore how Western and non-Western cultures interact and intermingle. Students will learn how popular culture operates at the intersection of gender, race, and nationalism in the rapidly globalizing world and explore how the process of making and breaking down boundaries is taking place.
The Global Media Lens
The Global Media Lens
Faculty member teaching this course; Jena Heath
Together on our global campus we will read, watch and listen to the news to gain a better understanding of ourselves and our neighbors around the world. We will work to gain a culturally specific understanding of the role media plays in all of our lives, considering how media provide the lens through which we view one another. The course will include opportunities for experiential learning, such as visiting an Austin broadcast journalism newsroom and discussions with professional journalists both on and off campus.
Cloak and Dagger: the World of Spies in Fact and Fiction
Cloak and Dagger: the World of Spies in Fact and Fiction
Faculty member teaching this course: William Nichols
Strategic intelligence is among the most widely romanticized and exaggerated elements of U.S. foreign policy. It is also among the least understood with fears arising when government officials in a democracy operate “in the shadows.” In this course we look at how the intelligence community has developed over the past century and how it has impacted U.S. foreign relations. In doing so, we will discuss the various roles intelligence officers play, examine some of the more significant covert operations conducted by the CIA, compare the portrayals of intelligence in popular culture to IRL, and finally, delve into some of the ethical and moral dilemmas associated with espionage.
Signature Events
Students in the Global Engagement LC learn about other cultures — on campus and in Austin — through cultural food cooking demonstrations, trips to museums and viewing international films.