According to Bill Hoffa, the College's study abroad advisor, the symposium was an early exploratory meeting designed to inform the faculty about the opportunities available to students at the College to increase their global awareness.
The symposium focused primarily on study and work opportunities abroad. According to Jennifer Morash '05, one of the students on the Working Group, both speakers talked generally about different ways in which college campuses can make their students more aware of the outside world, either through the curriculum or in programs that give students experience abroad.
Edwards talked specifically about the programs Harvard offers for international study and about a proposal at Harvard that would require that all undergraduates acquire some kind of international experience before they graduate.
Bannister focused on raising awareness through the academic curriculum. He argued that each department can integrate global issues into courses. He conceded, however, that this may be harder to enact at the College because of the lack of a core curriculum.
Professor of French Paul Rockwell, a member of the Working Group, explained the rationale behind the event. "We brought in outside people so we could better calibrate where Amherst stands in national trends with this subject," he said. "We wanted to see what possibilities were out there."
According to Rockwell, the Group discussed expanding the study abroad program at the College so that it includes more non-academic opportunities, such as working or volunteering abroad. According to Hoffa, about 35 to 40 percent of students at the College choose to study abroad, usually for one semester. Hoffa said that one of the goals of the Working Group is to create a global atmosphere at the College that will impact the student body's knowledge of and experience in other countries.
Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Deborah Gewertz, a member of the Working Group, finds the subject to be of the utmost importance. "Students should learn to understand the perspectives of those from different sociocultural backgrounds," she said. "These skills become vital if students are to cooperate effectively across borders in an international context."
Morash agreed. "Practically speaking, many more jobs become available to graduates if they have a second language," she said. "Especially in today's world, an understanding of global dynamics is essential, whether on a political, linguistic, social or cultural level."
President Anthony Marx agreed that a more global curriculum is crucial for students to succeed after college and expects that the Working Group will target these issues. "I hope that we will get advice on how we can ensure that students who are here are provided with the kind of education that they will need for an ever more globalized world," he said. "I also think we need to be thinking about how students have experiences overseas that are a diverse set of experiences, as well how to ensure that we have the global world adequately represented not just in our curriculum, not just in our time abroad but also in our student body."
At the end of the month, the Working Group is planning to meet with groups of faculty members from a variety of departments to discuss how each department can incorporate global perspectives into its classes.
The Working Group is one of five small task forces that are the flagships of the Special Committee on Amherst Education.