Internationalizing the curriculum and Western Culture requirements

After five countries in three weeks, and then a quick return to Santa Clara just in time for the Working Group on African Political Economy quarterly workshop, I feel refreshed and able to continue blogging about core curriculum issues. One of the exciting things I did just before my trip, and that is a direct result of reading Edwired, was to create a Google Video on the Darfur issue. The process was indeed very easy, and my UnderstandingSudan.org project will incorporate more short videos on topics of interest to Sudanist scholars and teachers. Very exciting new direction for higher education.

Many campuses face significant debate over a supposed tradeoff between Western Culture and Global Studies requirements (to use two very broad labels). At SCU, a three-course Western Culture sequence (two-courses for science, engineering and business students) is intended to "introduce students to the intellectual traditions of the West through significant cultural monuments, tests and events studies within their historical contexts." The outcomes of the course are: greater cultural literacy, improved reflective abilities regarding Western intellectual and cultural traditions, and engagement of disciplinary and interdisciplinary methodologies. The latter two outcomes could clearly be achieved in comparative courses, so really the first learning outcome is the relevant one: greater cultural literacy about the West. There is no point to asking whether it is more or less important to have deeper understanding of the West (as opposed to the Rest, as cute journal article titles remind us). the relevant question, to me, is whether deepened cultural literacy is achieved through exclusive focus on the West, or through explicitly comparative focus. This is clearly (to me) dependent on two things: (1) the broad answer to the empirical question of whether generally at univiersities across the U.S. do students in more comparative/broad foundational courses attain a greater degree of cultural literacy, and (2) whether the particular faculty mix at a particular institution is able to achieve a result different from the general result. If the answer to both parts is yes, then to attain the learning outcome there is no tradeoff. It the answer is no, then there is a tradeoff. I wonder what the experts say?