KU Assists JCCC with Implementing Grant to Internationalize Courses

Nine years ago when Tom Patterson arrived at Johnson County Community College as the director of International Education, he wanted to find a way to provide an international education to students with limited money and time. To him the answer was clear, international education had to happen in the classroom.

Thanks to a $340,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education and a team organized by KU International Affairs, JCCC will offer hundreds of additional students each semester an international component to their education. KU is supporting JCCC as it executes a two-year Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language (UISFL) grant, working with 16 faculty members in STEM fields to internationalize their curriculum.

“We looked at the curriculum and found there was a real need in STEM to bring an international focus to those courses in a way that didn’t change the learning outcomes. We could put in modules and projects that provided international aspects that were inherent in the discipline already,” Patterson said.

As part of the grant, KU is conducting internationalization seminars at JCCC. Last academic year, the first JCCC cohort of faculty members from the disciplines of biology, chemistry, engineering, environmental science, healthcare information systems, and sustainable agriculture met with KU’s team from December through March for a four-part seminar.

Part one was managed by Rachel Sherman Johnson, director of internationalization and partnerships, and Joe Potts, assistant vice provost for international innovation and initiatives, and focused on intercultural competency. For part two, Megan Greene, associate professor of history, and Sherman Johnson were assisted by three KU STEM faculty, Mario Medina, Town Peterson, and Scott Hefty, all of whom have experience internationalizing their courses. The group provided a set of models for how STEM courses can be internationalized. Parts three and four were managed by the Center for Teaching Excellence and took a backward design approach to building international course content and the assessment of student learning.

As part of the program, the first faculty cohort plans to travel abroad next summer to enhance the international components of their courses. A second cohort will begin the program this academic year.

Janette Jasperson, JCCC international education coordinator, said concepts for internationalizing STEM courses include comparing Kansas maternal health outcomes to those in Denmark, using chemistry to improve water filtration in western Africa and considering cultural norms when designing public infrastructure.

JCCC has already set up virtual exchanges with institutions abroad. For instance, an economics class connects with students in New Zealand to compare costs of goods using the exchange rate and an electrical technology class examines the different wiring systems between the United States and Europe.

The grant will fund the launch of four study abroad programs that will travel to the Netherlands to study flood mitigation, India to visit the national space agency, Sweden to learn about important sites in the fields of biology and chemistry, and Japan to explore its animation and gaming culture. The grant also supports Japanese language acquisition for students.

The program helps bolster JCCC’s Global Awareness Program (GAP), which is similar to the KU program and allows students to earn a GAP certificate through international classes, activities or experiences. The program will allow for more STEM courses to qualify toward GAP credits.

By internationalizing 16 new courses, JCCC has the potential of helping more than 300 STEM students each semester to develop their intercultural competency and better equip themselves to operate in globalized workplaces.

“The impact is going to be huge,” Patterson said.

The hope is that once students complete courses that have been internationalized they will be encouraged to seek other international education opportunities such as in-person or virtual study abroad or international activities on campus.

“This is a shining example of two campuses connecting and cooperating. We could not have done this without KU’s help. This is a huge step for us and we are very thankful to all KU has done to get us to this point,” Patterson said.