by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | May 12, 2025 | Global Impact Exchange, Winter 2023
Authors:
- Maggie Mahoney, EdD, University of Houston, Director, Global Engagement
- Keyla Waslawski, Cultural Intelligence Center, LLC, Vice President
Abstract:
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) describes Career Readiness Core Competencies that higher education students need to be successful in the workplace. Previously titled Cultural Competence, one of the eight competencies was recently renamed to Equity and Inclusion. Research shows increased cultural intelligence leads to better career and team performance. Partnering with the Cultural Intelligence Center (CQC), Dr. Maggie Mahoney and the CQC created a tool for students and those in career transitions to identify and understand both their cultural intelligence and unconscious bias and apply this knowledge to improve their careers. The CQ Credential: An Equity and Inclusion Masterclass Reflection Journal guides participants through the discovery of their own cultural intelligence including their CQ Drive, CQ Knowledge, CQ Strategy, and CQ Action. Participants learn how to apply these capabilities to the workplace in ways that facilitate a successful career using equity and inclusion principles and their own cultural intelligence. They also practice transferring these newly acquired skills to important organizational issues such as unconscious bias and imposter syndrome. Overall, the Masterclass guides participants step by step to inclusive career success seen by NACE and other research as essential for success in the global workforce.
Career readiness is key to holistic student success because it is the “foundation upon which a successful career is launched” and thrives (National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2022). NACE describes eight Career Readiness Core Competencies higher education students need to succeed as they transition into the workplace. One of the competencies, previously titled Cultural Competence, is Equity and Inclusion. NACE argues that working in a dynamic, global workforce requires students and professionals to grasp and demonstrate cultural intelligence in their collaborations and interactions with colleagues, clients, and suppliers.
NACE illustrates these career readiness competencies with sample behaviors that help explain their goals. The Equity and Inclusion competency is exemplified by demonstrating “the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures” and to “engage in anti-racist practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism” (Gray, 2021). This explanation highlights the importance of global learning as well as equity and inclusion and requires coordination across higher education institution departments.
High-impact practices like education abroad and internships are common in higher education, and research shows that these practices are more effective when they include reflection (Kuh, et al., 2013). To ensure these effects, Kuh and colleagues (2013) make a case for the value of “self-reflection as a necessary component in career readiness.” This connection between cultural competence with equity and inclusion, combined with self-reflection, should bolster career readiness. In professional settings cultural competence may be nebulous or challenging to define; however, the SHRM Foundation (2015), an affiliate of the Society for Human Resource Management, notes these skills can be both clearly defined and developed using tools like the Cultural Intelligence model.
The Cultural Intelligence Center is a research-based training and consulting firm that helps organizations and individuals around the world assess and improve Cultural Intelligence (CQ®). Cultural Intelligence, or CQ, is a globally recognized way of assessing and improving effectiveness in culturally diverse situations and is rooted in decades of research showing CQ predicts a wide range of intercultural outcomes such as cultural adaptation, job performance, global leadership, and team processes (Van Dyne, et al., 2012). CQ strengthens the relationship between diversity and effectiveness by helping individuals understand and apply the four CQ capabilities: CQ Drive, CQ Knowledge, CQ Strategy, and CQ Action, thus allowing them to detect, assimilate, reason, and act on cultural cues appropriately (Van Dyne et al., 2012).
Furthermore, CQ can be enhanced and developed by “active engagement in education, travel, international assignments, and other intercultural experiences” (Van Dyne et al., 2012, p. 297). This research notes international travel is not the only way to develop this competency, and intentional engagement with intercultural persons and environments can be developmental. In addition, CQ facilitates equitable and inclusive behaviors such as those outlined by NACE. Without cultural intelligence diverse teams tend not to work as effectively as homogenous teams (Livermore, 2016). In contrast, when CQ levels are high, diverse team members are more likely to trust each other, share ideas, and come up with more innovative solutions than homogenous teams (SHRM Foundation, 2015). Students entering the global workforce need to have a deep understanding of their own cultural intelligence and bias as key components of their career readiness.
A tool to support intentional reflection for career readiness is the Equity and Inclusion Masterclass Reflection Journal. This tool guides students through a step-by-step reflection process that gives them insights for how to explain their capabilities to employers as well as how to apply their CQ skills on the job to support equity and inclusion. Drawing on cultural intelligence and student development research, and focusing on the core competencies of culture, equity, and inclusion, the tool emphasizes intentional reflective journaling. Using results from completing the CQ assessment, MyCQ e-Learning, and MyUB e-Learning focused on unconscious bias, participants use the guided journal to reflect on ways to apply their knowledge and capabilities during job search and early career stages, with the overall objective to apply CQ capabilities to support equity and inclusion in the workplace. This reflection journal provides students near to graduation as well as transitioning career professionals the opportunity to intentionally review their levels of CQ, their career preparation, and a holistic understanding of how that fits into an inclusive workplace and career.
The intersectional demands of global and local career readiness require collaborative solutions across campus departments and stakeholders. These engagement opportunities and spaces for reflection can be sponsored jointly by education abroad, DEI offices, international student offices, career services, and academic advising, to name a few. Further engaging our woven focus of equity and inclusion creates a dynamic tapestry of developed competencies that “can be used in career services and across campus to boost students’ development and help them make a successful transition to the workforce” (Gray, 2021).
References:
Gray, K. (2021) The sample behaviors that provide evidence of career readiness. National Association of Colleges and Employers. https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/the-sample-behaviors-that-provide-evidence-of-career-readiness/
Kuh, G. D., O’Donnell, K., & Reed, S. (2013). Ensuring Quality and Taking High-Impact Practices to Scale. Washington DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Livermore, D. (2016). Driven by difference: How great companies fuel innovation through diversity. AMACOM.
National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2022). What is Career Readiness? https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/career-readiness-defined/
SHRM Foundation (2015). Cultural Intelligence: The essential intelligence for the 21st century. U.S.A. Van Dyne, L., Ang, S., Ng, K. Y., Rockstuhl, T., Tan, M. L., & Koh, C. (2012). Sub-dimensions of the Four Factor Model of Cultural Intelligence: Expanding the conceptualization and measurement of cultural intelligence. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(4). pp. 295-313. doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00429.x
by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | May 12, 2025 | Global Impact Exchange, Winter 2023
Authors:
- Prof. Gundolf Graml, Agnes Scott College, Associate Vice President/Dean for Curriculum and Strategic Initiatives
- Laura Ochs, Agnes Scott College, Associate Director for Global Learning
- Dr. Heather Scott, Agnes Scott College, Assistant Dean for Inclusive Leadership
The current debate about the value of a college degree for the future professional success of graduates has prompted an accelerated focus on the connection between a liberal arts education and career success. In addition to majoring in a particular subject area, students are expected to demonstrate their critical thinking, analytical skills, and global fluency also through more market-readable skills and competences (Gray, 2022).
As colleges put increasing emphasis on their students’ career education, the terms “agile” and “agility” have become key to many curricular innovation discussions. Commonly defined as the ability to either bring about change or react to a changing environment in a nimble and flexible way (Ruz, 2021), agility is considered desirable for two reasons: First, students will need to develop and maintain an agile attitude toward their future career paths in a rapidly changing professional environment where uncertainty and frequent disruptions are the norm rather than the exception. Second, agility is also an important competence across a wide range of industry sectors that value “enhanced self-efficacy, confidence, and creativity” (Mourey, n.d.).
At first glance, the principles connected with agility appear to be well aligned with the goals of creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. For instance, the agile manifesto, a document referenced by the software developing industry, lists as its first priority to “value individuals and interactions over processes and tools” (Beck et al., n.d.). However, recent research shows that the common approaches for developing agile mindsets and work habits frequently lack a focused and intentional awareness of racism, sexism, and ableism in organizations (Ruz). As the research indicates, the generally positive goal of agile approaches, namely to quickly amplify good results by casting aside traditional processes and circumvent real or perceived roadblocks inside an organization, often has the unintended side effect that one particular group’s definition of success wins out over a more universal (and inclusive) version of success (Ruz).
Liberal arts learning is uniquely positioned to fill that gap. At Agnes Scott College, faculty and staff collaborate across curricular and co-curricular areas to align agile approaches and DEI concepts under the umbrella of “cultural agility.” Defined by Paula Caligiuri as a “meta-competence,” the concept of cultural agility connects the more common elements of agility such as resilience, adaptability, and curiosity with competencies that are at the heart of DEI approaches: humility, relationship building, cultural integration (Caligiuri 18-19). An emphasis on cultural agility is especially important to engage with diverse students and tap their rich potential to be collaborators in the creation of equitable and inclusive learning spaces as an on-ramp to redesigned professional environments. With more than 60% of Agnes Scott’s students identifying as students of color, 40% categorized as Pell Grant-eligible, and 32% as first-generation students, the college’s student demographics anticipate the professional environments current and future generations want to be able to navigate. In response to these developments, the faculty created a unique general education curriculum along with co-curricular elements that enable all students to develop the relevant cultural agility competencies. As part of the college’s SUMMIT Global Learning and Inclusive Leadership experience, all students participate in a series of required general education courses where they develop and also learn to apply cultural agility competencies in an interdisciplinary liberal arts context. Additionally, a group of professional advisors and career coaches reinforces these concepts in two distinct academic and career discovery labs during a student’s first year.
The SUMMIT Global Learning experience begins early in a student’s academic career with a first-year course called “Global Journeys.” This spring semester course taught from faculty across numerous disciplines features a week-long sojourn to one of many different locations both in and outside of the United States. During class meetings before and after the travel week, students across all sections of Journeys explore and analyze themes of globalization, imperialism/colonialism, the ethics of travel, and identity (self/culture/other) through a set of common readings. When on-site, faculty guide students through immersive community-engaged activities and experiential learning opportunities designed to give students real-world insight into diverse perspectives of complex problems. For instance, on the Global Journeys program to Belize, students are guided by local experts while snorkeling along coral reefs, exploring coral nurseries, and visiting marine tourism and wildlife education centers. During this exploration, students are exposed to both environmental and economic concerns in conversations with local students, fishermen, and environmentalists who represent diverse perspectives. Throughout the program, students are given time to reflect on the complicated and delicate connections between this society and its natural resources. Journeys is a framework for students to dig deep, and the experience lays the groundwork for the student to develop the core characteristics of a culturally agile individual who is at once curious, humble, resilient, and adept at navigating cultural differences.
The value of sending diverse student cohorts to unfamiliar places under the framework of the Journeys curriculum becomes apparent as students begin to develop curiosity about other places, cultures, and themselves. During the intensive week of travel, students will engage with host communities for conversations about history, politics, economics, environment, medicine, art, race, religion, culture, and more. Journeys provides the space and time for students to ask questions and understand different perspectives in the context of consequential global matters. As students are asked to reflect on their own values, ethics, and assumptions, there is also a unique opportunity for each traveler to arrive at a point of cultural humility. That is, an opportunity to realize the limits of one’s own knowledge and to learn the power of asking good questions to understand local context. The Journeys experience is designed to demonstrate that when we are willing to learn from those with a different cultural lens, we’ll see problems and solutions in a new way. In developing curiosity and humility, students become more creative problem solvers and more nimble at building relationships, skills that will serve them well throughout their academic careers and beyond into professional landscapes.
A student’s collective collegiate experiences build upon each other to develop and strengthen specific skill sets. In the sophomore year as students transition into a more nuanced focus in an academic discipline, it is critical to balance the academic experience with a co-curricular experience that prepares students to integrate their developing cultural agility skill sets alongside their academic growth. Of particular note are opportunities to further develop agility in relationship building/networking, self-leadership, and adaptability.
With the intentional deeper exploration of leadership development and practices being emphasized in the sophomore year via the Sophomore Class Atlanta Leadership Experience (SCALE) program, students have the opportunity to utilize the context of their global exploration and education (introduced in their first year via Global Journeys) to a global-local context. During SCALE students engage with organizations from a diverse array of industry locales and types including local, regional, state, national, and international organizations. The SCALE program provides a complementary leadership co-curricular experience akin to a laboratory course whereby students engage in the exploration of real-world leadership issues and challenges. Students enroll in a one-credit-hour course offered during the spring of their sophomore year via an interdisciplinary course model taught by an array of faculty from a variety of disciplines. Students participate in on-site leadership experiences in teams. During their onsite experience, they engage with and interview organization members and leaders about their respective leadership philosophies and experiences. This immersive experience allows students to leverage and practice elements of leadership and cultural agility as their learning is scaffolded via the college’s signature SUMMIT curriculum.
Students are introduced to the importance and impact of relationship building and networking in advance of their junior and senior years when they may opt to seek internships in their focused academic disciplines. This introductory opportunity to explore a leadership-based industry experience allows students to engage more richly and deeply in future skills-based experiences. Students develop transferable skills such as leadership self-efficacy that equip them to be agile in the navigation of a variety of organization types as they engage with a wide array of individuals who employ varied leadership styles.
In addition to developing their abilities to engage in relationship building and networking, students are also provided with an opportunity to further develop self-leadership. Through their engagement with industry leaders, students begin to foster self-leadership skills such as autonomy and curiosity. Through the evolution of their SCALE experience, students develop an appreciation for a variety of organization types that they may not have previously considered. An excellent example of this agility is realized when a student with a major in the humanities, for example, lauds their experience of working with a financial management firm. In the aforementioned example, this student has the ability to make connections between transferable leadership skills that are prevalent regardless of organizational make-up and industry.
Conclusion
The creative integration of cultural agility competencies and skills into a liberal arts general education curriculum delivered by an interdisciplinary faculty also offers a solution to the protracted but ultimately unproductive debate as to whether a focus on skills undermines liberal arts learning. The experiential learning formats around inclusive leadership and global learning enable our students to see the liberal arts “in action.” Being confronted with real-world problems in a scaffolded learning environment inspires the very interdisciplinary thinking, that combination of knowing and doing, that has been at the heart of liberal curricula from their inception. Similarly, the cultural agility framework provides faculty with the opportunity to highlight their respective areas of expertise as well as their interdisciplinary perspectives outside of the proverbial (and actual) classroom walls.
References
Beck, K., Beedle, M., & van Bennekum, A. (n.d.). Manifesto for agile software development. Retrieved December 1, 2022, from https://agilemanifesto.org/
Caligiuri, P. (2021). Build your cultural Agility: The nine competencies of successful global professionals. Kogan Page.
Gray, K. (2022, August 22). Better together: How industry and academia can co-support students’ career readiness. NACE. https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/better-together-how-industry-and-academia-can-co-support-students-career-readiness/
Mourey, J. A. (n.d.). COMMENTARY: Why agility training needs to be available for all students. EdSource. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from https://edsource.org/2021/why-agility-training-needs-to-be-available-for-all-students/665048
Ruz, C. (2021). Reimagining agility with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Business Agility Institute. https://businessagility.institute/learn/reimagining-agility-with-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/591
by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | May 8, 2025 | Global Impact Exchange, Spring 2023
Authors:
- Diba Mani, PhD, University of Florida
ABSTRACT:
This article explores the use of virtual exchange (VE) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses to develop more humanity-driven pre-professional undergraduate students. It emphasizes the importance of incorporating arts and humanities-based aspects into STEM education to enhance students’ interpersonal skills and global perspectives. VE allows students to connect with diverse individuals from different cultural contexts and fields, promoting awareness of diversity and perspective. The article presents a case study of a Neuromuscular Aspects of Exercise course that used VE, resulting in students reporting higher levels of compassion, adaptability, and respect for cultural values. Integrating virtual exchange into STEM courses can humanize researchers, encourage intercultural skills, and foster a more conscientious approach to future healthcare professions.
Incorporating art and humanities-based aspects for pre-professional undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses is necessary for developing more humanity-driven pre-professional students. Pre-professional programs are tracks in undergraduate programs that prepare students for advanced professional training like medical and dental school after earning their bachelor’s degree. A student may major in any degree program but still enroll in a pre-professional program, although most select a major that is related to their future career aspiration, such as biology or physiology for a pre-medical track. Although this results in reasonable overlap between requirements for graduation and graduate/professional school requirements, most students must still take courses outside the degree program they’re pursuing at their four-year institution, such as an organic chemistry sequence for a physiology student or anatomy and physiology for a chemistry student interested in applying for medical school. Any “free” time these students have is often directed toward prerequisite classes, volunteering hours in research labs and/or clinics, and/or part-time jobs, families, or athletics. These students may not have the time to travel abroad, whether for academics or not, during their undergraduate career and thus may lack experiencing the global dimension that is the basis of STEM fields. In fact, unpublished data collected by Mani & DeVita (in revision) found that “too busy” was selected as a reason for not traveling abroad by 40% of respondents (a close second most popular explanation: “too expensive” [74%]).
Work such as that published by Costa et al. (2020) revealed that coordinating the undergraduate curriculum with the pre-professional programs like health professions education is vital for enhancing the development of student capabilities associated with arts and humanities, which includes the study of history, philosophy and religion, languages and literatures, art, and cultural studies. While programs can be designed and implemented to target small groups of pre-health professional students to develop interpersonal skills through humanities (Poirier et al., 2017), most students are not afforded these opportunities: they may not have the ability to take additional courses, are not enrolled in small groups like honors programs, and may not even have these types of classes offered at their institutions.
Internationalization (O’Dowd, 2018) and virtual exchange (De Wit & Leask, 2015) in courses already within the curriculum of student degrees and pre-professional programs may be the key to developing more humanity-driven future healthcare providers. Internationalization involves curriculum development and change to integrate an international/global dimension into content and/or form (Leask, 2015), while virtual exchange is one method by which courses may be internationalized. As defined by O’Dowd (2018), virtual exchange is the engagement of students in intercultural interactions in a virtual setting, comprising a connection with some partner(s) from other cultural contexts and/or geographical locations as an aspect of the classroom curricula. Knight (2012) points out that competencies related to effective development of international knowledge and intercultural skills inspire students to create superior understanding of collegiality between nations, sustainable world economies, holistic leadership, and lifelong learning, which can be interpreted as “humanity-driven.”
By connecting students with diverse people of differing backgrounds and perspectives but in relevant fields, often across the globe, students may become more aware of the diversity and perspective of others, as exemplified in a Neuromuscular Aspects of Exercise course taught in the Department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology at the University of Florida. In this class students interviewed scientists from across the globe to gain awareness of cultural and even ethnic impacts on science across four semesters in one of three formats: (1) fully in-person, (2) hybrid (partially in-person and online), or (3) fully online. Summed across the four semesters, 183 students self-reported a higher level of compassion and understanding about the individual they were connected with via video-conferencing technologies like Zoom or Skype: 91-95% of the students noted that they felt more positive about their ability to “communicate with someone from another culture,” self-“adaptability,” “respect for culture, political, and/or economic systems,” and “personal cultural values and biases.” One student (Fall 2019) shared the following at the end of the term: “I loved the experience. It really changed my perspective on presenting research papers and on scientists. I was scared for the interview but realized that they are regular people. It made me see that I could see myself doing research.” Even without acknowledging the global dimension, the student is humanizing the researchers that establish material taught in the STEM field is recognized. All feedback was collected anonymously and with no impact on student grades in the course.
The virtual exchange experience may be the closest the students get to communicating about science and/or healthcare during their entire academic career, which is quite limiting. However, it is predicted that experiential learning opportunities like the one afforded the students in the undergraduate Neuromuscular Aspects of Exercise course will resonate with them throughout at least the remainder of their undergraduate career, if not through their professional school. For example, a student with a pre-health track during the course may retain the intercultural skills augmented in their virtual exchange experience through medical school, thus engaging in similar activities during their professional education as they develop into a more conscientious and humanity-driven physician. Integrating diverse perspectives and humanities-based activities, with or without virtual exchange, is not lost on our students. For instance, observations presented by Adkins and colleagues (2018) reveal that the integration of life science and visual arts can augment even undergraduate biology classrooms. No doubt, educators can and should consider the integration of relevant global issues in courses that target pre-professional students and incorporate artistic and humanistic dimensions in their STEM courses.
Colleagues interested in incorporating virtual exchange to internationalize their STEM course(s) may consider partnering with a colleague’s classroom in a different country to simply have students read and evaluate a selected research paper over videoconferencing. This experience may last no more than half a class session but can result in the development and appreciation of intercultural skills within relevant academic topics that will hopefully be held through post-graduate experiences such as graduate programs.
References
Adkins, S. J., Rock, R. K., & Morris, J. J. (2018). Interdisciplinary STEM education reform: Dishing out art in a microbiology laboratory. FEMS Microbiology Letters, 365(1).
Costa, M., Kangasjarvi, E., & Charise, A. (2020). Beyond empathy: A qualitative exploration of arts and humanities in pre-professional (baccalaureate) health education. Advances in Health Science Education, 25(5), 1203–1226.
De Wit. H., & Leask, B. (2015). Internationalization, the curriculum and the disciplines. International Higher Education, (83), 10–12.
Knight, J. (2012). Concepts, rationales, and interpretive frameworks in the internationalization of higher education. The SAGE Handbook of International Higher Education. 27–42.
Leask, B. (2015). Internationalising the curriculum. Routledge.
Mani, D., & DeVita, P. (In revision). Virtual exchange integration in upper-division undergraduate neuromuscular physiology course demonstrates successful STEM internationalization. Advances in Physiology Education.
O’Dowd, R. (2018). From telecollaboration to virtual exchange: State-of-the-art and the role of UNICollaboration in moving forward. Journal of Virtual Exchange, 1, 1–23.
Poirier, T.I., Stamper-Carr, C., & Newman, K. (2017). A course for developing interprofessional skills in pre-professional honor students using humanities and media. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning. 9(5), 874–880.
by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | May 8, 2025 | Global Impact Exchange, Spring 2023
Authors:
- Susana M. Company, Assistant Professor, Universidad Católica de Salta
- Marina Figueredo, UNTREF, Red Interdisciplinaria de Estudios de Género
- Carolina V. Flores, UNTREF, Red Interdisciplinaria de Estudios de Género, PhD student, IDAES – Universidad Nacional de San Martín
- Sabrina González, Assistant Professor, Washington State University
- Cara K. Snyder, Assistant Professor, The University of Louisville
ABSTRACT:
This opinion piece explores the potential of virtual exchanges (VE) to foster equity and inclusion in virtual classrooms. It emphasizes the need to challenge power asymmetries, including imperialism and linguistic domination, within initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Drawing on experiences from co-taught courses between universities in Argentina and the United States, the authors highlight two key aspects of VE for promoting equity and inclusion: centering voices from the Global South in course materials and encouraging transnational collaborations through project-based assignments and co-teaching teams. VE creates a third space for intercultural encounters, fostering dialogue among students from diverse backgrounds. It allows for collective knowledge-making and challenges students to consider nationality and language as categories of power, enhancing diversity and emancipatory practices in higher education.
*We would like to acknowledge professor Merle Collins and the Global Learning Initiatives – Office of International Affairs at the University of Maryland for their support and mentorship, and the Red Interdisciplinaria de Género at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero for a fruitful and respectful collaboration over the years.
The language of diversity, equity, and inclusion has largely been promoted by and within United States-based institutions. As a result, these initiatives have not always focused on challenging power asymmetries related to the category of nation, including imperialism and linguistic domination. Virtual exchanges (VE), while far from perfect, can offer a chance for students and professors of various nationalities to work collaboratively towards more expansive visions of transnational solidarity. Drawing on our experiences facilitating two multi-sited, co-taught courses between universities in Argentina and the United States, this piece asserts that VE can promote equity and inclusion for instructors and students by 1) centering the voices of the Global South in the course material and 2) creating transnational collaborations through project-based assignments and co-teaching teams who work together across borders and often in multiple languages. VEs create a third space for students and professors to reflect about global issues such as racism and gender violence. The networks born of VE act inside and outside the classroom through practices of collective knowledge making, like this piece written by scholars from South America in collaboration with scholars in the US.
First, our VE promoted equity and inclusion through course syllabi that foregrounded the perspectives of scholars and activists from the Global South. The class material contextualized and recognized human diversity while the assignments and discussions encouraged students to learn from each other. For instance, in one of our classes, Online and in the Streets: Feminist Protest and Activism in Latin America, we included materials on Black, Chicana, trans, and popular feminisms to provide a critique of “mainstream” Western White feminism that fails to account for non-White and LGBTQIA++ people. Teaching-learning spaces that center marginalized experiences not only expose students to new stories, but also frame experiences in the Americas as systemic and interconnected, rather than as unconnected or individualized anecdotes. Thus, VEs can be laboratories to test plural forms of education, respecting diversity and aiming for emancipatory practices.
This leads to our second point about the virtual classroom as a third, interstitial space: one in which cultures, languages, experiences, and histories converge. In this way VE can promote intercultural encounters that foster dialogue amongst students from diverse backgrounds. Transnational collaborations among students take the form of project-based assignments that encourage students to work in teams as they develop digital projects. A student from another VE course, Literature and Ideas in the Caribbean, reflected:
The experience of working one-on-one with other students becomes a matter of convergence and divergence […] The magic is that once I am aware this distance exists, and once I remember that in the tension between here and there I can meet those who seem to be far away, suddenly relationships become a little less complicated, and I can finally enjoy and take advantage of both likenesses and differences to grow, to better understand others, and ultimately, to become more like myself.
It is through these assignments that students like the one quoted above face the challenges of collective learning and enjoy the benefits of connecting with students from diverse backgrounds. This enables personal growth, a deeper understanding of others, and ultimately a greater sense of self.
For instructors VE also promotes transnational collaborations through co-teaching teams that work together across borders and languages. Inspired by popular pedagogies from South America, co-teaching means to collectively plan (in teams of two or more) lectures and discussions, advise students, and reflect about teaching and learning practices. As another example of the transnational dialogues that VE can create, Online and In the Streets organized Conversatorios (Talks) with activists and scholars from the Global South as part of the class. These conversations featured speakers whose subjectivities and experiences are too often overlooked in higher educational settings.
In sum, we conceptualize the VE as an opportunity to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in higher education by challenging students to consider nationality and language as categories of power (among other categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality that are more commonly theorized in DEI) . In our experiences VE prompted transnational networks where scholars and students collaborated by teaching in interinstitutional teams, creating visual projects that analyze race and gender from a comparative and transnational perspective, and expanding knowledge making outside the classroom. This opinion piece is part of that network that continues weaving webs of solidarity and collaborative intellectual work across national borders and languages.
by HOLA@HAJINKIM.COM | May 8, 2025 | Global Impact Exchange, Spring 2023
Authors:
- Melquin Ramos, Teens of Color Abroad, Director, TOCA Online
- Lamar Shambley, Teens of Color Abroad, Founder/Executive Director
ABSTRACT:
TOCA Online, a virtual language learning and cultural exchange program, aims to bridge the racial gap in language access for U.S. high school students of color. Partnered with NaTakallam, TOCA connects students with refugee conversation partners to study Arabic, Spanish, or French, fostering global competency skills and cultural awareness. The program supplements school-based language learning, enhancing classroom participation and knowledge of global landscapes. Challenges in engaging students of color include awareness, representation, and partnership preparation. TOCA addresses these by providing mentorship programs, promoting diverse representation, and offering comprehensive training. Impact assessments show that over 300 students from 30 states have benefited from TOCA Online, with positive outcomes in students’ global perspectives, career interests, and language skill application, highlighting the significance of virtual exchange programs like TOCA Online in fostering language proficiency and cultural understanding.
Overview of TOCA Online
Speaking a language other than English opens up opportunities in careers and life. Nationwide, early engagement with comprehensive language learning correlates with increased overall academic achievement, cognitive development, and positive attitudes toward different cultures. TOCA (Teens of Color Abroad) exists to bridge the racial gap in the United States regarding access to the most proven ways for youth to become fluent in a new language. TOCA primarily serves students of color from low-income communities and students attending Title I schools, who are highly underrepresented in global education programs and therefore underrepresented in the numerous life and career benefits associated with participating in them. TOCA founder, Lamar Shambley, noted that there were only a few Black students like him in his language learning and study abroad experiences in college. His aim in creating TOCA was to enhance students’ language learning experiences, augment their educational outcomes, and strengthen their global competency skills.
In Summer 2020 TOCA partnered with NaTakallam to launch TOCA Online, a virtual language learning and cultural exchange program that allows U.S. high school students of color to study Arabic, Spanish, or French, taught by refugee conversation partners dispersed worldwide. In the TOCA Online program, students take small-group language lessons, connect with like-minded peers across the country, and participate in cultural exchange sessions where they listen and learn from refugees’ lived experiences. TOCA Online supplements students’ school-based language-learning experiences, increasing their classroom participation and knowledge of global political and cultural landscapes.
Challenges of Engaging Students of Color
Addressing the below challenges requires program developers, students, and families to work together to build trust, create an inclusive environment for learning to occur, and provide adequate resources and support. As a result, it’s important to work closely with the communities that one serves to better understand their needs and priorities.
Awareness.Students may not be aware of the opportunities available to them because individuals in their community may have never participated in similar activities, or they may not be aware of the holistic benefits these opportunities afford. A solution to this is to create peer mentorship programs designed specifically for students of color where alumni share their experiences with students and their families. TOCA has developed Community Circles, a space for universities and international education associations to discuss global education opportunities to TOCA participants.
Lack of representation.Students may not see themselves or their cultures represented in the programming, including those leading and facilitating the programs. It is critical to proactively create a diverse workforce to ensure that different perspectives are represented during program development and marketing efforts. TOCA Online receives real-time feedback from students, which helps shape the programs based on students’ needs. Organizations should hire leadership and facilitators who come from similar backgrounds as the students they are serving.
Inadequate preparation and partnerships.Without adequate preparation and training, organizations may perpetuate stereotypes or biases, creating an unwelcoming environment for students. It is important when developing partnerships for stakeholders to have shared goals and priorities for the populations they are serving, and ensure that training is offered before and after programming occurs.
Impact of TOCA Online
Second-language acquisition is important for employability, personal and cultural enrichment, and solidarity building. In many industries speaking multiple languages is advantageous and may help individuals advance within their organizations. Additionally, our students have expressed an interest in learning languages ranging from engaging with their local communities to connecting more meaningfully with relatives outside of the US, which may lead students to identify as heritage seekers when pursuing global education opportunities in college. These types of experiences empower students to share their personal stories (e.g., What’s it like to grow up as a young Black man in America?) in another language, which creates bridges to connect with other cultures.
TOCA Online has enrolled over 300 high school students of color from more than 30 states. Based on 208 responses to TOCA’s Global Identity Questionnaire, our findings indicate that our programming has impacted students’ global perspectives and identity. Findings show that students are interested in a career where they can use their language skills, they are interested in studying languages in college, they consider different cultural perspectives when evaluating global problems, and they are interested in having an international career as an adult. Our findings show that our programming is promoting the use of language skills in future academic and professional environments. Although more work needs to be done, TOCA Online is having a positive impact on our students, which demonstrates the need for these types of virtual exchange programs.
