Every Day is “Global” at ICU.

Global ICU

Establish a Model for Global Liberal Arts

Concept

Taking ICU's liberal arts to the world

Providing more choice for studying abroad

ICU is the only Japanese institution to join the Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA - http://www.liberalartsalliance.org/), an organization of 30 liberal arts educational institutions in 18 countries around the world (as of 2020). Through this Alliance, we are engaged in a variety of initiatives together with liberal arts colleges around the world, including online courses and student forums attended by Alliance member universities.

We have launched a student exchange program with the College of Wooster, an American liberal arts college known for the quality of its education and science and a fellow GLAA member. Under this program, which is specifically for science students to undertake their graduation research, students can conduct research in the laboratory while learning how to write academic papers, with the cooperation of the ICU graduation thesis supervisors and Wooster lecturers.

[ Interview with Program Participant ]
https://www.icu.ac.jp/globalicu/en/interviews/global-students-and-faculty/takeyama-shizuka.html

ICU also has a wide variety of study abroad programs to suit any goal and length of stay. One in four ICU students takes part in an exchange program with one of 79 partner universities in 27 countries. Every year, approximately 40% of first-year students participate in the Study English Abroad (SEA) Program over the summer break, and the Summer Study Abroad Programs run at the same time, allowing students to study at overseas universities. The International Service-Learning program also gives students the chance to volunteer overseas for 30 days or more. Whichever the program, students learn side-by-side with students from other countries and the credits they earn may be put towards their ICU degree* so that graduation within four years is still possible.

*Credit transfers are reviewed upon a student's return to Japan. For details about study abroad, see the Study Abroad page on the ICU official website.

Progress

Joint classes with liberal arts colleges around the world have begun.

Since the 2014 academic year, ICU has been a pioneer in Global Course Connection, an initiative that uses the GLAA framework to connect courses online. We have connected with Denison University in the United States for communication courses and with Denison University and Pakistan's Forman Christian College for economics courses.

Providing more choice for learning and study abroad

ICU students have been selected by GLAA to attend the New York Times Athens Democracy Forum in Greece in 2017 and 2018 and the Leadership and Liberal Arts conference in India in 2018. Also, in 2016, we sent faculty, students, and administrative staff to the United States Library of Congress to research the archives held at the library, the outcomes of which were presented under the title of Exploring Japanese American Internment During World War Ⅱ. Such initiatives give our students opportunities to interact with their peers from all over the world and to deepen the debate about essential concepts in the liberal arts, such as democracy and leadership, side-by-side with them.