Abstract
When a small group of educators gathered 50 years ago to create the aCpa's Commission on global Dimensions of student Development, they created a venue for enacting what is best about the student affairs profession—using an integrated and expansive view of learning to design meaningful opportunities for student learning based on action and reflection. this and the next issue of About Campus celebrate the commission's anniversary with articles that honor this group's broad, practical, and thoughtful perspective.
In our lead article, kevin hovland and Carol Geary Schneider from the American association for Colleges and universities describe the development of global learning outcomes that can be leveraged to promote both student learning and student citizenship. tori haring-smith's article continues the theme by describing Washington & Jefferson College's Magellan project, an initiative that sends students around the world to pursue independent, self-designed projects.
Simone Himbeault Taylor explores how students make sense of such learning experiences in her piece on student-driven portfolios. she maintains that the perennial questions of service-learning, & “What, so What, now What?” are effectively answered when students are given the opportunity to communicate these answers using multiple means. Melody porter makes a similar argument in her description of assessment of alternative break experiences at the College of William and Mary. Long before students launch such explorations in college, they may, or may not, have learned to communicate and begin to clarify their values at home. Wendy Neifeld Wheeler offers a model for helping students—and their parents—hone skills they will use in the wider world.
Joseph L. subbiondo's piece on the increasingly important role of spirituality in higher education offers a fitting conclusion to this first of two issues commemorating the commission's first 50 years. helping students (and ourselves) understand what they are doing and why they are doing it is central to this group's legacy of expansiveness, practicality, and refection. happy anniversary.