Faculty and Staff Engagement

Faculty and staff are essential partners in advancing the mission of the Global and Intercultural Affairs Center. We aim to provide students with a holistic experience by integrating global and intercultural learning across both academic and co-curricular spaces. To support this, we offer opportunities for faculty and staff to engage globally—through teaching abroad, hosting international scholars, and developing meaningful experiences that foster global competence in our students.

Collaborative Online International Learning

Collaborative Online International Learning, or COIL, is a model for teaching and learning that promotes the development of intercultural competence through a shared online multicultural learning environment. It creates an opportunity for a UD faculty member to pair with a faculty member from abroad, and to co-design and co-teach a project-based experience to their students. COIL projects are embedded within courses and typically 2-8 weeks in duration. It is a form of virtual learning that gives students exposure to course content with a new perspective while also supporting intercultural learning.

The Global and Intercultural Affairs Center and Center for Online Learning are offering faculty and teaching staff the opportunity to participate in the COIL Fellows Program. This program is designed to bring an interdisciplinary cohort together to learn about the value of COIL and how to design and implement COIL.

Global Education Seminar

The Global Education Seminar serves as a key faculty development opportunity and supports academic units’ strategic priorities for internationalization. The program is an educational and scholarly initiative, providing an exciting opportunity for a coordinated team of faculty to participate in a series of seminars about strategic site(s) prior to a two-week exploratory and immersive visit. The initiative seeks to broaden the pedagogical and scholarly horizons of faculty members, providing them with an interdisciplinary experience for academic exploration and study that can shape revision of the courses they teach, motivate new scholarly projects, and inform additional international collaborations such as faculty exchanges and grant opportunities.

Past cohorts of faculty visited China, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Ghana, Togo, and South Africa. Over 50 faculty have completed the Global Education Seminar and continue to shape global and intercultural learning experiences for our students inside the classroom.  Past faculty returned to campus and revised and designed new curriculum, pursued research and partnership collaborations, implemented Collaborative Online International Learning, and/or designed education abroad opportunities. This competitive program accepts nominations in the fall semester and the interdisciplinary cohort comes together the following year in the fall and spring semester for the seminar. The two-week immersive visit takes place early in the summer.

Fulbright

As part of our commitment to engaging with the world, UD encourages faculty to consider teaching and conducting research abroad. The University of Dayton has a long history of collaboration with the Fulbright Program.  

A number of program options are available through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. The Fulbright Scholar Awards comprise the largest number of awards and vary according to location and eligibility requirements. The Fulbright Distinguished Scholar awards are for professionals with significant experience in their fields, and require engagement with the host institution to develop understanding and collaboration. The Fulbright Postdoctoral Awards are for recent doctoral graduates and provide opportunities for further training and experience in their field.

For a listing of all previous UD Fulbright participants, as well as visiting grantees, visit the UD Fulbright listing.

Teaching Abroad

Teaching abroad is a fantastic opportunity for UD faculty members to engage with students in an untraditional environment and contribute to experiential learning. While faculty members may still teach in a traditional classroom, teaching a class abroad allows them to use the host location as supplemental subject matter and incorporate more time in the field into their course content.

Faculty have multiple options to teach abroad and partner with the Education Abroad & Away office. The first and most popular option is to teach on one of our standard summer faculty-led programs. These programs typically run 4-6 weeks during Summer I or II semesters and have two or three faculty members per program. We gather faculty interest in coordination with our partners across campus and choose to run programs based on various factors, including student needs, faculty expertise, and geographical interest. Once we establish and approve a program to run, our program coordinators work with faculty members to develop and carry out the logistics of each program on our roster.

Another option is to teach a semester-integrated course during the semester. These courses are in the spring or fall semester, with travel either over winter or spring break or in the summer after the class has concluded. These programs typically have one faculty member running them, with an occasional additional faculty or staff member on-site to help with logistics. Like our traditional summer programs, faculty work with our programs coordinators to develop and carry out the logistics of each program.

Visiting Scholar and Faculty Exchanges

Over the years, University of Dayton faculty members have hosted a number of international scholars in diverse fields to conduct research, teach and exchange ideas. These visiting professors, specialists and graduate students from around the world enrich the life of our campus, bringing new perspectives on teaching and research and engaging in cultural exchange. In addition, through these relationships, faculty members can explore the potential for larger partnerships between UD and educational institutions abroad.

To explore how you can engage in global learning and teaching, by hosting or participating as a visiting scholar, please contact gia@udayton.edu.