If you work in global education, you know how impactful this work can be for students. But it’s often seen as an add-on, something that doesn’t quite resonate with colleagues across campus. Global learning lives in one office. Career services sits across campus in another division. And the students who could benefit most often never find the door. Welcome to Best in Practice, conversations with practitioners tackling this challenge in innovative ways. What’s working, what’s not, and what we can actually learn from each other.

Overview: 

Episode one of Best in Practice features five leaders from the UC Davis Global Learning Hub in conversation about what it looks like when an institution stops treating global learning as a single program and starts building it into the fabric of campus. The discussion covers the Hub’s organizational model, how faculty and campus partners are engaged at every level, and what it means in practice to redefine global learning beyond traditional mobility.

The UC Davis team brings different perspectives to the same core question: how do you create conditions where every student, regardless of background, major, or financial situation, can find a pathway to global learning that is meaningful to them?

Practice Area: Global Education Strategy & Alignment

Moderator:

• Claudio Castaneda, Director of Content & Programs, DA Global Access Network

Guest Speakers:

• Fred Boll, Executive Director, Global Learning Hub, University of California, Davis
• Aliki Dragona, Faculty Director, Academic Programs,  Global Learning Hub, University of California, Davis
• Rosana Avila, Director, Global Study, Global Learning Hub, University of California, Davis
• Paula Levitt, Director, Global and Intercultural Programs, Global Learning Hub, University of California, Davis
• Seth Parrish, Director, Engagement and Enrollment, Global Learning Hub, University of California, Davis

• How the Global Learning Hub is structured and what distinguishes it from a traditional global education office
• How the Hub engages faculty across study abroad, curriculum development, and the Global Studies minor
• How global learning is designed as a developmental journey across a student’s four years, not a single experience
• How the Hub is addressing access and building relationships with campus partners including advisors, student affairs, and career services
• What the UC Davis team would tell other institutions hoping to build a more connected model

The Global Learning Hub is housed inside the UC Davis International Center and brings together education abroad, campus-based global and intercultural programs, aspects of international student support, and faculty engagement under one roof. Five directors lead the work, each overseeing a distinct area: organizational strategy, leadership, and business systems; faculty engagement and the Global Studies minor; education abroad and faculty-led programs; campus-based global and intercultural learning; and student engagement and enrollment. A team of approximately 27 staff supports the work across all areas.

What distinguishes this model from a traditional global office is not just the co-location. The Hub is formally designated by UC Davis as a Special Academic Program, which means it can offer its own courses and its own interdisciplinary minor. That academic standing grounds the Hub’s work in the curriculum rather than positioning it as a peripheral service. Students are not navigating separate offices with separate goals. Instead, the teams coordinate across a shared structure so that a student’s global learning journey can be intentionally supported from their first week on campus through graduation.

– Fred Boll

Faculty engagement is built into the Hub’s model across three distinct channels. Together they reflect a belief that global learning has to be connected to the academic work of the institution, not layered on top of it.

Study abroad program development. Every fall the Hub sends an open call to all faculty to propose new faculty-led programs. Interested faculty receive one-on-one support, attend information sessions, and are assigned a dedicated staff member through a committee-reviewed process. More than 40 faculty are currently leading programs. All receive ongoing professional development including intercultural learning workshops and access to a shared faculty portal.

Teaching for Global Learning. Launched in 2018, this program provides faculty across all disciplines, colleges, and professional schools with frameworks and tools for integrating global perspectives into their courses, regardless of whether students travel. The program develops measurable global learning outcomes grounded in theory. 75 faculty have completed it so far, and the cohort continues to grow.

The Global Studies minor. An interdisciplinary minor that draws on globally focused courses taught across campus. A faculty committee oversees the minor, reviews new study abroad proposals, and governs the introductory Global Thinking course. That course enrolled 30 students in its first year and 60 in its second.

One of the clearest shifts reflected in the Hub model is the move away from a study abroad paradigm toward a global learning paradigm. Rather than helping students complete a single program, the Hub is designed to support students in building a pathway across their four years, with multiple entry points at every stage.

First-year programs. The Global Pathfinders first-year seminar, the Global Engagement Opportunity living and learning community, and the Global Ambassador Mentorship Program pair domestic and incoming international students and help build intercultural confidence before students ever consider traveling abroad.

UCEAP Global Start. Incoming first-year students have the option to begin their UC Davis experience abroad before arriving on campus. Students in the first cohort returned having already built a global identity and became some of the Hub’s most engaged students, going on to mentor international students and work in the office.

Education abroad. Programs range from three-to-five-week faculty-led experiences to full academic-year exchanges through UCEAP, the UC-wide Education Abroad Program. Faculty leading short-term programs now receive intercultural learning training from the Hub, so that even brief experiences abroad are designed with structured reflection before, during, and after.

Re-engagement after return. Students who come back from abroad can continue through the Hub via the Global Impact Fellows program, which connects student-led projects to UN Sustainable Development Goals, or by presenting at the annual Global Learning Conference, where students synthesize experiences across multiple global learning touchpoints.

– Rosana Avila

Awareness of the Hub at UC Davis is generally strong, but access remains the more persistent challenge. The three barriers that come up most consistently are finances, program timing relative to academic requirements, and students self-selecting out before they ever make an inquiry because they do not see themselves reflected in global learning. The Hub has designed specific responses to each of these.

• Financial aid sessions co-hosted with the Financial Aid Office, with individual advising appointments available for students with specific funding questions
• Credit and non-credit program options available year-round, so students in rigid major sequences still have viable pathways
• Virtual advising appointments, introduced recently, tripled the total number of student advising interactions in a single year
• Global Guides, a new peer outreach team currently in development, designed to extend the Hub’s reach through student-to-student conversation
• Identity-based resources on the Hub’s website to help students from a range of backgrounds see themselves in global learning opportunities

Campus partners, including academic advisors, student affairs professionals, career services staff, and TRIO programs, are treated as essential to the Hub’s work, not supplementary to it. The Hub developed an Advisor’s Guide and other resources to the Global Learning Hub and distributes it across campus. A Coffee Chats initiative brings small groups of advisors together regularly to share feedback, surface concerns, and build ongoing relationships. The goal is for advisors to feel confident referring any student, regardless of major or background, to the Hub as a resource for their broader success.

Seth Parrish: “We want to be thought of as partners in the truest sense of the word. We never want to be thought of as a competitor, only as an ally.”

The UC Davis team was direct about what they have learned and what they would tell other institutions considering a more connected approach to global learning.

Start with relationships, not structures. Co-locating offices is not the same as building a shared vision. The Hub works because teams have aligned around common goals, not just common real estate.

Redefine what counts as global learning. Not every student will study abroad. But every student should have access to meaningful global and intercultural learning opportunities. Expanding that definition opens more paths for collaboration, more entry points for students, and broader institutional reach.

Design for access intentionally. Funding barriers, timing conflicts, and students who opt out before asking a single question are real and recurring. They are also addressable, but only if institutions build systems and relationships specifically designed to reach those students.

Build for culture, not just structure. The goal is not an org chart or a physical hub. It is a campus where global learning is understood as central to student success, and where every student can find a pathway that is meaningful and accessible to them.

Paula Levitt: “The goal isn’t simply to create a hub or organizational structure. It’s to create a culture where global learning is viewed as an essential component of student success and where every student can find a pathway that is meaningful and accessible to them.”

– Paula Levitt

Be featured on the Best in Practice Series

Is your institution doing something innovative or unique in this space? We’d love to hear about it. Reach out to us at members@daglobal.org to let us know, you might be featured in an upcoming episode.