CEA Global Campuses:

The New Landscape of Global Education

CEA Global Education has built a new and unique academic structure designed to promote discipline-based learning and to cultivate global competence for today’s university students abroad seeking to understand the many ethical, social-political, demographic, and environmental challenges of tomorrow. CEA Global Campuses provide American and international students with courses transcripted by University of New Haven — a U.S. regionally accredited institution — in both traditional and non-traditional majors, and which incorporate CEA's signature active learning environment of on-site instruction, international internships, service learning, and hybrid-enrollment programs. Each one is managed by highly qualified and locally knowledgeable academic and administrative staff trained in industry standards of study abroad good practice.

Guiding Principles

In addition to the emerging study abroad trends guiding CEA's vision for Global Campus program development, we look at how study abroad is changing and why there is a growing need to:

Recognize that intercultural and multicultural competence skills are replacing mono-cultural immersion skills;
Identify language course learning outcomes that integrate cross-cultural understanding with grammar and style;
Ensure that instruction is technologically geared to the realities and expectations of post-millennial students;
Create global studies courses that address the critical topics of tomorrow, not simply the histories of select locations;
Respond to the shorter-term realities of programs needed by professional schools and non-traditional students;
Promote the employment and career prospects of students through the intercultural skills and understanding they acquire abroad;
Design innovative curricula, focused on engaging students in dynamic activities and lessons that bring relevance to their future educational, personal and professional pursuits, and that equip students with the tools they will need to address global issues of poverty, climate change and human rights;
Add flexibility to educational design and delivery through collaborative and mutually beneficial programs through overseas partners who share CEA’s core values and mission;
Offer learning opportunities across the world in ways that democratize access to international education, and;
Provide strategic opportunities for U.S. universities in need of study abroad, executive programs, corporate training needs, cross-border educational partnerships, distance education and other initiatives critical to achieving their mission.

Operational Infrastructure

Each Global Campus is organized into three departments – Academic Affairs, Student Services, and Student Housing – in order to provide the overseas infrastructure, academic integrity, administrative professionalism, and flexible planning required by U.S. universities to internationalize their campus and curriculum through study abroad.

A Student-Centered Academic Model

Discipline-based learning, intercultural competence, and personal and ethical development are the central goals of study abroad in higher education today. The fundamental goal of all CEA Global Campus academic programs is, therefore, to ensure that four essential learning outcomes take place that would not have developed to the same degree had our students studied at their home institutions:

That they grow intellectually, personally and ethically
That they develop higher levels of global and intercultural competence
That they develop greater fluency in foreign languages
That they are better prepared for international careers

All CEA Global Campus academic programs provide learning opportunities that are appropriate to our mission, specifically designed to match the purpose of the Global Campus, and structured to meet the four above-stated outcomes.

CEA Experiential Learning

A core feature of Global Campus programs is the experiential pedagogy instructors use for student learning and development. By getting students actively engaged in exploring and analyzing the host city and culture, and by integrating experiential learning activities into core course content, instructors helps students acquire first-hand experience of disciplinary concepts and issues. Guided in formal experiential learning methods, students gain a deeper understanding of global issues because they witness and experience them directly and personally.

CEA Global Campus instruction connects what students experience through study abroad to what they're learning in class by:

Inviting local experts into the classroom as guest lecturers offering personal insight to class discussions
Taking students behind the scenes to significant cultural sites where they can observe firsthand the practical application of course objectives
Asking students to analyze and reflect on what they observe and experience and relate it to course objectives through discussion and assignments
Setting the expectation that student articulate the relationship between what they experience through class activities and course learning objectives

Global Campus programs provide other experiential learning opportunities, such as:

Language exchange
International internships
Community-based research
Working abroad
Civic volunteering
International Service Learning

Global Competence

At CEA, we share the goal of helping students learn how to develop and articulate Global Competence. While virtually all institutions of higher learning have identified intercultural skills as a key component of college education today, resources for funding such programming, particularly in study abroad, are scarce. CEA's Global Campus model — from its vision of teaching today’s global realities to its practice of engaging students in experiential intercultural learning abroad — helps U.S. universities deliver to their students this important mix of cultural competencies.

To help students and U.S. university faculty better understand the purpose and value of study abroad, CEA designed a 45-hour, three-credit course, Communication & Global Competence, which was reviewed and approved by the faculty at the University of New Haven, CEA’s School of Record. Grounded in communication theory, this course is effectively a capstone study abroad course in the theory and practice of intercultural action and communication. The course introduces students to the evolving construct of intercultural competence and explores the interaction between culture and effective cross-cultural communication. The course provides students with the cognitive, behavioral, and affective tools for analyzing cultural identity — both “the other” and the “self.” The course incorporates experiential learning, field research, journaling and reflective writing activities. Student acquisition of core competencies in this course is measured and evaluated through a number of assessment formats: reflective journaling, writing exercises, student research and presentations, written exams, and faculty observations of student behaviors during ongoing cultural encounters. Through critical analysis, students can explore their motivations for study abroad and assess their personal development in cultural awareness, ethical growth and civic spirit.

Many courses offered through CEA's Global Campus programs incorporate related learning objectives, thus reinforcing students' understanding of their host people and culture. One of our goals at CEA Global Campus is that students return to their home campus better equipped to articulate the intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes they acquired abroad. Becoming more aware of their own cultural identity empowers them to show empathy and understanding towards other cultural groups. This is a step towards global competence.

To request more information, contact your Regional Consultant or call 1-877-449-2775.