The University of Minnesota Libraries recently published an open-access book called “Power of One: Theories, Strategies, and Case Studies in Internationalizing the Student Experience.” The book features several submissions from the University of Minnesota Crookston faculty, including Associate Professor Katy Chapman, Ph.D., Professor Joseph Shostell, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Al Fattal Anas, Ph.D., and Associate Professor Brian Dingmann, Ph.D. Professor Katy Chapman and University of Duluth Professor David Beard, Ph.D., edited the book.
The book is a collection of submissions that demonstrate the Power of One. “This book is about strategies for internationalizing higher education, and its purpose is a couple of fold,” says Associate Professor Katy Chapman. “One, to have international educators and educators in general see that you can do this in your class even if you are not studying abroad, you can bring international perspectives and cultural perspectives into your classes.”
Chapman says the book’s other purpose is to honor Gayle Woodruff’s legacy. “Gayle Woodruff, who retired from the University of Minnesota, was the head of International Teaching and Learning. She is the person who made this possible for me and for David and Brian. She created this cohort program where we learned these skills, we applied them to our classes, and like Brian and I, we applied to an entire program,” says Chapman. “So, we were able to provide our students with this intercultural learning.”
Not only did Chapman submit her own chapters for the book, but she was also one of the book editors and provided a beautiful cover photo. “I am one of the book’s editors. We sent emails soliciting people to write chapters, we wrote chapters, we wrote the introduction, we edited all the chapters, says Chapman. “Lots of stuff.”
As mentioned, a few other professors from the University of Minnesota Crookston were a part of this book. “Katy, Joseph Shostell, and I collaborated on a chapter entitled, “Lessons Learned Internationalizing the Environmental Sciences and Biology Programs,” says Professor Brian Dingmann. “The three of us teach in Biology and Environmental Science, and it was just kind of a reflection, like Katy said, trying to make it understandable how anybody could sort of start this process. You can start small and then kind of add to your classes, and then eventually we had gotten to a point where we had been incorporating this into our different classes where we were like, we should try to internationalize our program.”
Dingman says, like Chapman, he went through the same cohort that Gayle Woodriff had set up, so he feels that he wanted to internationalize himself from day one. He says he grew up in Minnesota and didn’t see many opportunities to study abroad, so bringing an international perspective and global competence into the classroom was really important to him. “Our chapter is really a reflection on what we have learned in this process,” says Dingmann. “And how people can basically start their own process just with their single course and potentially expand that into a program.”
Assistant Professor in the Business Department at the University of Minnesota Crookston, Al Fattal Anas, Ph. D. also wrote an essay for The Power of One. “I introduce myself as a Global Citizen. I was born in Africa, raised in Asia, educated in Europe, and now I’m in the US,” says Anas. “With this kind of international experience, I always think that introducing this international experience to the students here in Crookston is a very important thing that we need to work on.”
Anas says he has been working on several projects that internationalize the business and marketing content of his programs at the University of Minnesota. The essay Anas submitted for the book “Marketing Across Cultures” was one of many submitted geared towards how international education can enhance curriculum across diverse disciplines. “In my chapter, I actually summarized the kind of experience the students have of collaborating with students from Brazil,” says Anas. “Very simply, my students imagined that they needed to launch a new product in Brazil. So, what they do is they have interviews with students from Brazil in order to understand the consumers in Brazil and the market there. Based on this understanding they will have to do some kind of modifications on this product to match this new market.” Anas says that throughout the chapter, he tries to draw on the lessons learned and ways to move on with this initiative to have better experiences.
Chapman says the book was meant to reach educators and share ideas they may want to apply to their classrooms. It is also readily available. “It’s available online; you can read it fully online, or you can download it as a PDF,” says Chapman. “Also, on that webpage, there is a link to go out to a printing service, so if you want to have a physical copy of it, you can order one.” If you want to have a printed copy of the book, you are just paying the printing cost of around $16. Being an open-access book, though, anyone can read this book at no cost online. Visit https://open.lib.umn.edu/powerofone/
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