MCCA- Missouri Consortium for Global Education (MCGE) wins Federal Grant.

The MCCA’s international subgroup, the Missouri Consortium for Global Education (MCGE) recently won one of the 28 Title VIA- Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages grants awarded this year by the Department of Education. Of that 28, ONLY two other recipients were community colleges and those were single colleges versus the MCCA-MCGE consortium of 19 separate colleges. The rest of the recipients included such major four year powerhouses as UCLA, Rutgers, George Mason University, University of Kentucky, Michigan State, Washington State, and two California State campuses.  

This award was given to MCCA-MCGE for its exciting new project in the globalization of the curriculum across Missouri, affecting 19 community colleges and over 80,000 students. The grant runs from July 1st, 2007 to June 30th, 2010 and the focus is on the continent, the people and cultures of Africa.

Over the next three years, the grant will strengthen and expand global studies offerings in colleges throughout Missouri, globalizing/infusing more than 72 courses by 72 faculty members. Twenty (20) of these, including 4 new courses on Africa, will be further developed for web-based delivery. The specific course content focus will be on West and North African societies and cultures. To complement the study of those regions of Africa, the grant will assist in increasing the offerings in all foreign languages at MCCA member colleges, but will specifically promote the development/enhancement of Arabic and French, the official languages of many African states. In the third year, a state wide conference, the first ever for Missouri’s community colleges, will take place called '"Understanding Africa through its Languages."

The grant will assist faculty in developing African content modules for their classes, help in creating new general education and foreign language courses, provide training and support for distance delivery courses and lastly strengthen and ensure the sustainability of the newly developed International/Global Studies Certificate which can be found in various guises at several community colleges across the state. Faculty development, enrichment and training opportunities will take the form of academic workshops, seminars and conferences, area specialist consultations, two immersion experiences, and time and incentives to focus on offering quality global education programming for Missouri community college students. These efforts will build on work already begun, including the accomplishments of a previous Title VI-A grant, for which the MCCA won the 2006 Award of Excellence in Association Management in Education given by the Missouri Society for Association Executives.

The MCCA- MCGE is absolutely thrilled that this Department of Education Title VIA grant will assist the consortium in its mission of promoting and facilitating global education at MCCA member colleges, ensuring the sustainability and permanence of global education in Missouri community colleges and continuing to produce globally competent citizens.

The project has two co-Directors:
Lisa Spaulding of Metropolitan Community Colleges-Penn Valley in Kansas City
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And
Lisa Hollander of Jefferson College in Hillsboro
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636 942 3000 ext. 352

In addition, three co-Coordinators will help with grant participation and management: Jim Kellerman, Executive Director of the MCCA, Don Doucette, Vice Chancellor at Metropolitan Community Colleges, Kansas City and Kent Farnsworth of the University of Missouri-St. Louis Center for International Community College Education and Leadership.