Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Higher education in the United States has made a huge push for internationalizing curriculums for a few decades now. Not only has there been a stronger push for American universities to conduct programs abroad, these institutions have also seen the value of welcoming international students to their campuses to increase diversity for their student populations. Thirty years after the end of the cold war, Eastern and Central Europe have become more accessible for study abroad programs to promote collaboration among higher education institutions that hope to become agents of change in global understanding and peace. This study focuses on the rise of global education in this region, using Poland as an example, as well as the myriad efforts from the Western World to continue the message of J. William Fulbright: to use education “to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.” With the rapid rise of digital technologies, how can global education capitalize on this development and more importantly, how can global education avoid the recent pitfalls that has marked politics through social technologies?