AASCU Global Engagement Scholars Announce Release of eBook

The AASCU Global Engagement Scholars are excited to announce the release of their latest collaborative work—their eBook, Global Challenges: Promise & Peril in the 21^st Century (ISBN: 9781402284168, E-ISBN: 9781402284168).

The eBook is an exciting outgrowth of the Scholars’ on-going efforts to educate globally competent citizens.

In 2006, AASCU partnered with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and The New York Times to begin a joint project entitled “Seven Revolutions: Educating Globally Competent Citizens.”  The project’s goal was to promote the study of global issues in the hopes of preparing students to be engaged global citizens.  This program, centered on the Seven Revolutions framework developed by CSIS, focused on seven important categories relevant to global citizenship, as well as significant future trends: Population, Resources, Information, Technology, Economic Integration, Security/Conflict, and Governance (http://csis.org/program/seven-revolutions.)

Over the last nearly seven years the joint project has undergone a variety of important changes.  Still informed by the work of CSIS and supported by The New York Times digital content repository, this project has evolved into the Global Engagement Initiative—the only internationally focused Civic Engagement in Action Series initiative—and Global Challenges Project—one of the first Red Balloon projects aimed at reimagining higher education in the 21^st century.  Teaching faculty from 11 AASCU institutions (California State University Fresno; Fort Hays State University; Fort Lewis College; Georgia College; Kennesaw State University; Northern Arizona University; Richard Stockton College of New Jersey; San Jose State University; Southeast Missouri State University; University of Minnesota Duluth; and Western Kentucky University) have contributed to the endeavor.

The Global Engagement Scholars have produced a Teaching Toolkit and a national, fully customizable, turn-key blended-model course.  They have a collaborative web space and have presented at a series of AASCU institutes and workshops.  The eBook is the latest addition to a terrific set of tools to help faculty better educate students to possess the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will make them more effective in addressing these serious global challenges.

Similar in content to the Global Challenges blended-learning course, the eBook uses the CSIS framework, New York Times articles, videos, and interactive maps, making it a useful companion to the course or an appropriate stand-alone text.  Unlike the blended learning course, the eBook does not include quizzes, assignments, or other learning activities, making it more flexible across a variety of courses and learning objectives.

Special Features include an embedded glossary that reveals definitions of unfamiliar terms when a student hovers over or highlights the term, as well as a highlighting feature that allows students to mark the text, reinforcing the information for the student and providing a valuable study tool as students review highlighted content.

The $14.99 eBook is available in a BYOD (bring your own device) version via VitalSource, http://store.vitalsource.com/show/9781402284168 or in an iBook version via iBooks (please note that you will only be able to search for and download this text on an iPad, not an iPhone or iPod).

For more information about AASCU’s Global Challenges course, click here (http://www.aascu.org/GlobalChallenges/ or contact the National Course Coordinator, Shala Mills (GlobalChallenges@fhsu.edu), at Fort Hays State University.