Global Citizenship Program

A First-Year Ampersand Program

Rethink what it means to be a global citizen by connecting critical global perspectives with local engagement and lived experience.

This two-semester Ampersand Program introduces students to the literacies of career and life central to Global Studies, inviting them to examine global citizenship through both rigorous texts and real-world scenarios. Students learn to think critically and holistically about a globalized world, reflecting on their own identities and mental maps while building a community of practice with engaged peers. Through interdisciplinary coursework and a weekly skills-based workshop, the program explores global issues, local histories, and community engagement in St. Louis, offering opportunities for experiential learning and volunteering that bring concepts of solidarity, responsibility, and global connection into practice.

Testimonials

Connor Park

"GCP was one of the best experiences of my freshman year. It allowed me to meet peers and friends from diverse backgrounds and explore ideas and communities that I never would have been exposed to in any other settings. GCP was not just a class but a community that allowed me to grow in unexpected ways."

Fatuma Ibrahim

“GCP was the blessing I didn’t know I needed. It gave me the platform to share my thoughts and personally lived experiences while also learning from those around me. Most significantly, GCP gave me a lifelong community and friends that I can watch my favorite K-dramas with, take classes with, and be my full self around.”

Beldina Orinda

“I wanted to act, and I wanted to learn about refugees and the experiences that they have coming to this country. But looking back, we covered those things and so much more. I think that I am walking away having realized that immigration issues are so much closer to home than we often realize.”

Anne Johnson

“I discovered that being a global citizen can be achieved anywhere, even with a smaller community, so long as I take the chance to reach out to people and educate myself on the ways that global issues touch my life.”

Christine Hutchinson

Getting the opportunity to work with organizations in St. Louis allows one to get more of a feel of the city and the people in it. For example, before hearing about NCP [Niños Cambios Puertas] I was unaware that St. Louis had a sizable Latinx population (or at least in certain communities) and this was interesting for me to learn."

How to Sign Up

Signing up for a First-Year Program is a structured process designed to help match you with a program that best fits your interests. Ampersand Programs require a short essay responding to a program-specific prompt.

If you plan to rank this Ampersand Program, prepare a 250-500 word essay that responds to the following prompt: Please share how has your lived experience sparked your interest in the program?

Learn More About Sign-Ups

Ampersand Program Courses

Semester 1: Geographies of Globalization & Development

This course provides an overview of the geographies of globalization and development in the world today. The first half of the course grounds students in the foundational theoretical perspectives, definitions, and debates that shape our contemporary patterns of inequality, social injustice, and environmental conflict. In particular, we introduce critical theories of globalization and capitalism, including Marxist perspectives and analyses of neoliberalism, to explore how governments and economic systems shape development outcomes as well as everyday ways of living and being in the world. In the second half of the course, we turn to specific current issues at the forefront of globalization and development debates, including migration, urbanization, sustainable development, extractive industries, and indigenous knowledge systems. By the end of the semester, students will develop a clearer understanding of their own place within an interconnected global system and gain theoretical tools to engage with key global issues shaping the world today.

Workshop for the Global Citizenship Program

This one-credit yearlong workshop is a companion to the core GCP fall course and students to reflect critically on their own relationship to the concept of Global Citizenship. Through popular education and creative-based methods, students will explore their situated knowledges, worldviews, positionalities, and biases. The course engages with social, environmental, and epistemic justice themes through a decolonizing lens to question and reimagine how to embody critical global citizenship. By the end of the workshop, students will have tools to support their analysis and intentional engagement with the global-local community.

Semester 2: Connecting Local Worlds & Global Systems

This course builds on the theoretical foundations of Geographies of Globalization and Development to explore the ways globalization manifests in our own local communities and national context. We begin by examining the role of the state and American capitalism, with particular attention to how histories of U.S. slavery, settler colonialism, and empire have shaped the development of global capitalism and contemporary forms of inequality. Over the course of the semester, students deepen their understanding of how global processes are produced and maintained through local institutions, policies, and everyday practices. Through case studies centered in the United States, we engage with key global–local dilemmas including immigration and borders, carcerality and state surveillance, racial capitalism, and uneven development. The course emphasizes how U.S.-based issues both reflect and reinforce broader global systems of power. The semester culminates in a student-led research project that applies course concepts to a locally grounded issue with global significance.

Workshop for the Global Citizenship Program

This workshop is praxis-oriented and asks students to apply and further reflect on the concepts learned during the Fall. Each workshop session will offer tools for meaningful engagement, social change, community building, and collective care. Towards to end of this journey, students will have gained important frameworks to understand the global and its relationship to our local realities, meaningful life experiences collaborating across differences, and powerful tools for future community engagement.