Meeting the Global Competency Requirement - GPS

Meeting the Global Competency Requirement

The centerpiece of the GPS Initiative is the knowledge and understanding of other cultures. The overall goal of the initiative is to signal the university’s conviction that Ashland University students be better prepared to face conditions of globalization that will greet them upon graduation.

The GPS initiative is a call to preserve and expand student language and travel options, and unify these practices as part of the undergraduate Core Curriculum.

A key element of the GPS Initiative is the creation of Border Crossings courses – paths for cultural inquiry that incorporated a greater level of depth and greater diversity of other cultures, and how various topics are conditioned by disparate cultures’ struggles for recognition and equity. In order to be adequately prepared for the world around them, students should develop competencies interacting with cultural contexts marked by pluralities or diversities.

The courses are also designed to develop skills of international inquiry in specific topics where language study or travel were not feasible or possible, or where cultural influences were present but indirect, such as scientific or economic phenomena.