In spring 2025, Grinnell will offer four off-campus study options through the Global Learning Program (GLP) and course-embedded travel. Courses will take place in Prague and London, Ghana, Washington, D.C. and Japan. Applications for GLP are due Oct. 10, 2024.
Unique from course-embedded travel, GLP is a first-year exclusive program that provides students opportunities to learn and study about topics on an international scale. The program was funded and founded by Grinnell alumna Susan Holden McCurry `71 and the Holden Family Foundation.
Associate director of FLAG (Faculty-led Across the Globe) Ashley Laux said, “Susie McCurry’s vision is that she felt like if first years had the opportunity for a global learning experience, it might change the trajectory of their academic interests at Grinnell, or kind of broaden their interests.”
GLP 2025 will be hosting one class, HUM-195: Theorizing Dance and Language, taught by Emeritus professor of theater, dance, and performance studies, Celeste Miller and department chair of linguistics, Cynthia Hansen. Students will travel to Prague during spring break then to London in the first week of summer break. The class will explore the relationship between linguistics and dance, specifically through the investigation of an early-1900s Prague linguistic circle and dance group in Prague. Both professors have collaborated for over a decade on topics related to the class and said they are excited to teach it in the spring.
“I’m so excited for this and I could talk about this forever,” Miller said. “Linguistic theory is theorizing about language, choreographic theory is theorizing about dance. These are things we don’t see in other species in the same way that we see them in humans. So how can we learn from each other?”
Spring semester courses with embedded travel are created by professors and offer students a chance to travel during spring break and parts of summer break outside of Grinnell. Travel destinations are weaved into the educational content of the course, often being an opportunity to apply and observe what students have learned in class to real-life settings.
This year, professors and faculty in the Japanese, Political Science and Art History departments will lead these courses. Professor Mariko Shigeta Schimmel will teach JAP-398: Advanced Japanese Seminar and take her students to Japan to apply their fluency in the Japanese language and to study broader Japanese culture. Professor Barry Driscoll will teach POL-354: Political Economy of Global Development and take his students to Ghana to learn more about the economic and political factors of cocoa farming. Grinnell Art Museum Director Susan Baley will teach ARH-160: Introduction to Museum Studies and travel to Washington D.C. to utilize the richness of museums in D.C. Furthermore, students will have an opportunity to use the College’s affiliation with the Smithsonian to better understand their state today.
“Having the travel component allows the students to actually engage in their subject directly, as opposed to through the internet or just reading about it,” Schimmel said.
For her Japanese seminar specifically, she said, “There’s students who’ve been here and studied language for a long time. I think it’ll be a good idea for us to take students who’ve been studying Japanese for three years to actually use that to conduct research and site visits.”
The College seeks to ensure that financial barriers are not an obstacle to participating in either GLP or course-embedded travel, Laux said. The College and GLP funders like McCurry cover a majority of the large expenses associated with the trip. Thus, students without any form of financial aid are paying a fraction of the price it takes to plan the trip. For students on financial aid, financial aid travels with them. While financial details are specific to the trip, a student on financial aid can expect to pay an amount that resembles the amount of aid they receive from Grinnell.
When asked how Grinnell is able to subsidize the price of GLP, Laux said, “For the Global Learning Program, it’s Susie McCurry. So I always like to say a huge thanks to not just Susie’s financial generosity, but her strategic vision for the program.”
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to correct the year that courses will be in session. A previous version mistakenly said courses will happen in Spring 2024.
