New for academic year 2024-2025
The Global Contexts requirement will replace the Global Understanding requirement for students entering Mason starting in the Fall of 2024. Please note that all current Global Understanding courses will need to be resubmitted for Global Contexts approval, and not all current Global Understanding courses will meet the new Global Contexts outcomes without substantial revision. To help with the revision process, we strongly recommend faculty participate in a course development and proposal workshop, available in collaboration with the Stearns Center, prior to completing the proposal.
Students admitted prior to the Fall of 2024 may take Global Contexts or Global Understanding courses to meet their Mason Core requirement.
For more information on the upcoming enhancements to Mason Core, please see the Enhancements FAQ page.
Global Contexts
The goal of the Global Contexts (GC) Mason Core requirement is to enable students to explore global connections through a disciplinary lens and to understand how global systems have created both interdependence and inequalities that engaged citizens must understand in order to work toward an equitable and sustainable future.
Required: One 3 credit course
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completing a Global Contexts course, students will be able to:
- Identify and explain how patterns of global connections across nations and/or cultures have shaped societies to create interdependence and inequality.
- Use a disciplinary lens to demonstrate knowledge of how at least one nation and/or culture participates in or is affected by global contexts.
- Apply an understanding of one’s own positionality within a globally interdependent and unequal world to analyze solutions to global problems.
Submitting a Course for Global Contexts?
For more information on positionality as it is applied to learning outcome 3, please refer to this infographic or watch the provided video.
For closed captions, access the video transcript.
Course Approval Process
Courses can take a depth approach (examination of one particular region or society) and/or a breadth approach (comparative examination of different regions or societies), but the Mason Core proposal must clearly articulate what approach to Global Contexts the course takes and how it fulfills Mason Core Global Contexts learning outcomes.
To submit a course for the Global Contexts category, please complete the proposal worksheet provided below. Two versions of the document are provided for your convenience. Submit one complete form, the course syllabus, and any applicable assignments to CIM when complete.
Review the course submissions guide for a more detailed overview.