ACE, US-UK Fulbright Commission Announce Global Challenges Teaching Award Winners

ACE, in partnership with The US-UK Fulbright Commission, is proud to announce the winners of the inaugural Global Challenges Teaching Awards (GCTA), part of a program aimed at increasing access to global learning for students across the Atlantic in order to better understand, proactively engage in, and work together on racial justice, pandemics, and climate change challenges.

Partnered award recipients from the U.S. and U.K. will integrate virtual exchange/collaborative online international learning (VE/COIL) into existing undergraduate course programs to be co-taught during the fall 2022 semester. The six winners of the 2022-23 GCTA are:  

Award Category: Racial Justice

• Amal Abu-Bakare, lecturer in the politics of Race and decolonial studies, Department of Politics, University of Liverpool (UK) 
• George Daniels, associate professor, Department of Journalism and Creative Media, The University of Alabama (USA) 

Teaching instructors Abu-Bakare and Daniels will focus their collaboration on addressing the global challenge of racial injustice through their classes on ‘The Politics of Race and Marginalization’ and ‘Race, Gender, Media.’

Award Category: Pandemics

• Jonathan Kennedy, reader in politics and global health, Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London (UK) 
• Jessie Dubreuil, associate director for learning, Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning, University of California, Santa Cruz (USA) 

Instructors Kennedy and Dubreuil will collaboratively address the challenges of pandemics through their classes on ‘Health Inequalities and the Social Determinants of Health’ and ‘Pandemics, Politics and Community Health: Global Rhetoric’s of ​Health and Illness.’ ​

Award Category: Climate Change

• Sammie Buzzard, lecturer in climate science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Cardiff University (UK) 
• Staci Strobl, professor of criminology and criminal justice, School of Arts and Sciences, Shenandoah University (USA) 

Instructors Strobl and Buzzard will focus on the global challenge of climate change through their respective classes studying ‘Global Climate Change’ and ‘Environmental and Wildlife Crime.’

“It has never been more acute for higher education to find innovative ways to sustain our democratic principles, expand global learning practices, and build human connection,” said ACE President Ted Mitchell. “Our shared global challenges demand that we in higher education work together to develop long-term strategies that invest more resources into collaboration and partnership and create innovative delivery models to better support lifelong learning.” 

“To solve global challenges we urgently need to bring together the minds and the energy of people from all cultures and backgrounds,” said Maria Balinska, executive director of the US-UK Fulbright Commission. “That’s why we’re excited to be launching the Global Challenges Teaching Award, an award that has collaboration and dialogue at its very heart. Our belief is that these awards will deepen and widen understanding of some of the critical problems facing humanity at the same time as promoting global citizenship and building sustainable relationships between scholars, students and universities across the Atlantic.”

In the coming weeks, ACE, through its Virtual Exchange/COIL Transformation Lab, will provide recipients and support staff from their institutions professional development training and mentored guidance on collaboration, inclusion, and innovation. In addition to ACE’s training and mentoring support, the faculty will also receive funding to support their innovative teaching, technical assistance, and travel to their partner institution. 

Sponsored by the Rita Allen Foundation, the Wallitt Foundation, and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S Department of State, the US-UK Fulbright Commission designed the GCTA program to help support higher education digital innovation and global collaboration in teaching and learning to solve global issues of importance.  

To find out more about the Global Challenges Teaching Awards, ahead of the next 2023-24 academic year application cycle, visit the award pages or email gl**************@fu*******.uk.